Music in the Holocaust, Wigmore Hall

"Music on the Brink of Destruction", a special programme at the Wigmore Hall, London, featuring  composers caught up in the  Holocaust. Despite the horrors all round them these people made music. Honouring their memory is vital. for they represent the power of the human spirit which cannot be extinguished even in the face of evil.  Millions suffered all over Europe - Jews, Roma,  gays, socialists and ordinary people who fell foul of the regime. The composers of the Holocaust give voice to the forgotten. Through modern research once-lost materials are being recovered. This concert reflects current scholarship and marks the launch of a new initiative:  the ORT Marks Fellowship promoting scholarship and education.

The Passover cantata Chad gadya ("One Little Goat")  written pre 1928 by Dovid Ayznshtat (1880-1942), who died in Treblinka, was unearthed in 2012 in an archive in South Africa by Stephen Muir, who conducted The Clothworkers Consort of Leeds. The soprano parts were particularly beautiful, shining brightly above the firm foundations of the lower voices. This is a work of spiritual conviction with which we can all connect.  It's a substantial work which merits being heard again, in any context. Fortunately this concert was being recorded for future broadcast by the BBC. Not all music from the ghettos was art song: as everywhere, ordinary people found expression in forms they were familiar with.  Thus the selection of songs like Dovid Beyglman's Nit kayn rozhinkes nit kayn mandlen  an ironic take on the traditional lullaby Raisins and almonds.  The song is simple as lullabies should be but the message is painful. Beyglman (!887-1944), who died in Auschwitz, wrote for Polish and Yiddish music theatre.  Dmitry Pokrass  (1899-1978) was Russian and Jewish, and had a career in Soviet music hall and film. His Zog nit keynmol az du geyst dem letstn veg sets a poem by Hirsh Glik, who escaped from an Estonian concentration camp but was caught and killed.  Variety theatre was more than mere entertainment but played a part in maintaining the identity of groups outside the approved mainstream.  

Gideon Klein's String Trio is a very  well known piece  and rightly so for it's highly original. The quirky Allegro introduces the central movement  Variations on a Moravian Theme,  the largest section in the piece, half the full duration. It begins with slow melody evoking nostalgia.  All too soon  the langour is broken by pizzicato suggesting  nervous energy. This interplay between long lines (mainly viola and cello) and spiky fragmented plucking sounds creates a tension that cannot be resolved.  The last movement is molto vivace, almost dementedly upbeat. Driving rhythms, unrelenting pace abruptly cut off mid-flow.  Like Klein himself, who was clearly a distinctive personality despite being deported at 22 and murdered at the age of 25.   The drawing of Klein at right was made in Terezin by a fellow prisoner.  Were it not for ordinary people like the artist and those who saved Klein's manuscripts (and those of other composers) the world today would be culturally impoverished.  Yet again reasons why research like that sponsored by ORT Marks should be supported.

From Pavel Haas's Four Songs on Chinese Poetry we heard on this occasion just the last Probděná noc (Sleepless Night).  A taster - anyone interested should check out the recording by Wolfgang Holzmair, Spiritual Resistance : Music from Theresienstadt which includes large portions of Karel Berman's Reminiscences, a long series of works written from 1938 to 1945 Berman a singer, was the dedicatee and performer of Haas's song in camp.  The photo at the top of this article shows Pavel with his brother Hugo Haas, who was a major movie star and director in their native Czechoslovakia; Read more about Hugo's prophetic film The White Plague HERE.  Pavel ended up in Terezin but Hugo escaped to Hollywood where he continued to make movies, eschewing the big studios to do what he believed in. Read my article Strange Afterlives: Pavel and Hugo Haas.  Incidentally, most of Hugo's later films reference the "old world" and one even incorporates "Polish theatre", the sub-genre of music theatre and cabaret popular in Yiddish communities. with which so many composers on this programme were associated.

Haas got only one song in this concert to make room for others, but he was and is a very significant figure. For example the highly prolific Viktor Ullmann, represented here by one song, Um Mitternacht im Schlafe schon from his collection Geistliche Lieder Op 20.   Songs on "Chinese" and other oriental themes  were popular throughout Central Europe because they represented a longing for exotic cultures and wern't exclusive to Holocaust composers, though the themes apply. How far these composers knew about the exceptionally brutal Japanese invasion of China, which beganin 1931, I don't know.  Haas and Ullmann are famous enough that they could have recitals devoted to themselves so this concert was a chance to hear musicians like Martin Roman (1910-1996) whose Karussell, Wir reiten auf hölzernen Pfreden was heard here.  Karussell is a particularly good piece, its honky tonk rhythms evoking the circular motions of a fairground carousel. Except that in this case the circus was macabre and the constant flow meant cattle cars. Roman was in Terezin and filmed playing with his band in the Nazi propaganda films which also showed Pavel Haas and Hans Krása.  This concert also commemorated Josima Feldschuh (1929-1943) who died aged only 12 of illness while in hiding. Fortunately her manuscripts and other material were discovered in an archive in Israel a few years ago. Although the piano works we heard weren't much in themselves the very fact that they were written and miraculously saved is a sobering thought.  Another discovery: Gideon Klein's Topol (The Poplar Tree) with spoken narration by David Fligg, who uncovered the work, and Věra Müllerová  as pianist.  

Then another piece, Hans Krása's Passacaglia & Fugue for String Trio, performed often enough to be a staple, particularly for violists, since the viola is given a prominent and very beautiful role reinforced by the depth of the cello.  As the piece progresses the mournful dignity explodes into more manic frenzy where the strings seem almost deliberately out of tune, before gradually retreating into short, unadorned phrases.  then the interplay between all three players is more balanced, the main theme taken up with gusto ending with a final definitive flourish   The players were, as with the Klein String Trio,  Benjamin Nabarro  Krzysztof Chorzelski and Gemma Rosefield.   This was followed by another UK premiere, Mikhail Gnessin's To the Memory of our Dead Children op 63, with the Leonore Piano Trio. Gnessin (1883-1957) was a Russian composer, who for a time lived in Palestine, and in his youth apparently dressed as an Orthodox Jew, though his musical interests were quite modern. His op 63, written in 1947, incorporates a fragment written by his late son The dead child lives on in his father's music  The programme concluded with Zikmund Schul's Two Chassidic Dances op 15, sturdily cheerful, despite having been written in a death camp.  And thus, a reminder that art has the power to make something worthwhile even in the maelstrom.

Strange afterlives : Hugo and Pavel Haas

Pavel and Hugo Haas

Pavel Haas and Hugo Haas : brothers from Brno who led very different lives.   Pavel, the composer, was incarcerated in Terezin and murdered in Auschwitz. Hugo, a movie star and director, far more famous in his time, was able to escape and start a second career in Hollywood. Both brothers seem to have suffered a strange afterlife in that their reputations are miscontrued. Perhaps it's the way English language sources have dominated the internet, distorting reality.

From 1919 to 1921, Pavel Haas studied at the Brno Conservatory of which Janáček  was Director. Even in those early days,  no Czech composer could fail not to be influenced by Janáček,  but any decent composer finds his or her own, original voice. Pavel Haas's String Quartet no 1 (1920), suggests that Haas was well aware of the avant garde in other parts of Europe. Janáček wasn't a cuddly personality.  Read here what Haas said of him. Haas wrote mainly chamber music and songs. My favourites are the String Quartet no 3 and his Four Songs on Chinese Poetry (1944), though look under the label "Theresienstadt" below for more.
 

Pavel and Hugo, with their parents

Hugo Haas started in the movies in 1925 and soon became a matinee idol, involved with, literally, dozens of movies of all kinds. Many of these films are still highly regarded and available, but you'd have to check Czech language sources to find them, since the English-language media seem to ignore them altogether.  Although I don't speak Czech I used to follow them well enough because the acting and direction was so vivid.  Perhaps the most remarkable of Hugo's many movies was Bílá nemoc, or The White Plague  This was made in 1937, when Hitler was threatening Czechoslovakia, but the rest oif Europe didn't seem to care. The script was by Karel Čapek, who also wrote the play on which Janáček based The Makropulos Affair. In that "Czech renaissance" (1914-1938), the arts were very much in the vanguard of social progress. And the music score was by Pavel Haas.
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In Bílá nemoc,there's a sudden frame of a man in the howling mob outside the Dictator's palace (which is monumentalist Art Deco and filled with geometric symbols) . It's Dr Galen (Hugo Haas). There's a mysterious plague in the country, which starts as white spots on the body and kills everyone it touches. Everyone's paranoid about contamination. Galen has a cure but he's not allowed to use it because his political terms are too high. So he's only allowed to treat the destitute in Ward 13, who don't count. But those he treats, survive. Gradually the plague spreads, and the paranoia. The Dictator visits the research hospital but Galen isn't allowed near him. Galen is anti-war, and that's another form of plague. Eventually, Baron Krog, the second most powerful man in the land, gets sick and is saved when he promises to respect Galen's ideas. Galen meets the dictator. Both of them fought in the Great War, but the Dictator believes war is a good thing and Galen thinks otherwise. Soon, the Dictator gets infected too, has a change of heart, signs ceasefire documents, and summons Galen. Galen tries to pass through the howling crowds, but they confront him when he talks anti-war and they beat him to death. No-one now to stop the plague, or the war. And of course, we now know what happened when Hitler marched in a few months after the movie was made.

Being prominent, Hugo Haas was able to escape, while Pavel didn't. Via Austria and Portugal, he arrived in Hollywood where he had to begin all over again as an actor of small parts, though he had been a very experienced director and producer. Eventually he found a niche in smaller studios where he made films which are only B movies because their budgets were small. Many of them have the characteristic flavour of his earlier career when he was as big at the box office as the glitzier stars of Hollywood.  Watch, for example, The Other Woman (1954) in which Haas plays a film director who *used to be something in Europe", as an extra whispers. His boss insists he should be more "American". "Movies for kiddies?" snorts Haas in contempt. He gives a wannabe a chance, but when she blows her lines, she blackmails him. She's a  twisted loser but destroys him. Eventually she's found strangled, but by then Haas's life is ruined. The last frame ends as the first, where Haas is seen screaming from behind bars. First time round, he was showing actors how to emote. this time, it's him behind bars for real.

Pavel Haas, wife and daughter

Pavel Haas made movies, too, since he wrote several film scores for Hugo and the Czech cinema industry. Ironically, the film in which he actually appears, as himself, was the Nazi propaganda film glorifying the joys of Theresienstadt. He conducts his Study for Strings with an orchestra made up of camp inmates. The fragment is short but potent - the kinds of  "modern" music Nazis don't like. Hugo's son Ivan,incidentally, appears in Hugo's later films, in small roles. Maybe he gets overlooked, but not by those who care about Hugo and Pavel Haas and the world they knew.

Alice Sommer Herz "Everything is a present"

From Alice Sommer Herz's Facebook page:

"On behalf of Alice’s family, we thank everyone for all the words of affection and admiration rightly attributed to her. She passed away peacefully surrounded by her family.
Much is being written and broadcast, but not from many who truly knew Alice. The only fitting tribute to her is the film she loved the most, “Everything Is A Present”. Christopher Nupen was the one film maker who actually knew her well and who shared the same passion and understanding for music as she did. Most importantly, it was the only film she asked to watch again and again until her last days. So it is only appropriate we share with everyone what she loved most."

Sincerely,
Alice Sommer's family

Alice is gone, but I will gift her "present" to some I care for, so the good she represented can live on. HERE is a link to "Everything is a present".   

 Christopher Nupen met Alice Sommer Herz when she was still in her 90's. She appears in his film "We want the Light" an examination of the Holocaust and the meaning of music. More about that here.

 

Alice Herz-Sommer, 110, has died

Alice Herz-Sommer, aged 110, died in hospital this morning. She was the world's oldest Holocaust survivor, the world's oldest pianist and many other things. Her life is remarkable in many ways but for me, especially because of her dynamic approach to life.  Born in Prague in 1903, she was a professional musician. When the Nazis came, she was shipped to Terezin (Theresienstadt) where she played in the notorious camp orchestra. Even then, she was unusual because she had a young son to live for. He made her laugh when he sang songs from Brundibar. To laugh, in a concentration camp?  But that sums up Alice's personality.  When she was "just" 97, she told Christopher Nupen in his film "We Want the Light" that her twin sister was a pessimist and  that "tension" shortened her life. "Nature and music, that is my religion" she says, her face lighting up radiantly. "I am grateful to my mother who wanted us to learn, to know, to be thankful for everything ..... seeing the sun, seeing a smile, hearing a nice word. Everything is a present to be thankful for".

"Life is a gift", she often said. "Hatred eats the soul of the hater, not that of the hated"   Alice is an inspiration, positive therapy in human form. She's had a tough life, but hasn't become bitter. "Music is God", she has said, "in difficult times you feel it most". Think of the famous quandary, is a glass half full or half empty? But the glass is always full. The other half is air, without which we cannot live. Drink it gratefully!  Some people, alas, get their kicks out of being miserable and inflicting it on everyone else. Not Alice!

It's not how long you live, some have said, but how well you have lived. Not in material terms, but in terms of what you've learned and given back to others. In that sense Alice will be immortal.

Once I met Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and told her how she inspired me."But I didn't do anything, I just survived", she said, which is an understatement, but utterly sincere. People take responsibility for themselves. Another camp inmate (also with a young son) told me about grass shoots emerging from the ground after a hard winter."We ate them" she said, totally matter-of-fact.

Alice Herz-Sommer, 110 years old today

Alice Herz-Sommer is 110 years old today. Anyone reaching 110 is special but Alice has defied more odds than most. Born in Prague in 1903, she was a professional musician. When the Nazis came, she was shipped to Terezin (Theresienstadt) where she played in the notorious camp orchestra. Even then, she was unusual because she had a young son to live for. He made her laugh when he sang songs from Brundibar. To laugh, in a concentration camp?  But that sums up Alice's personality.  When she was "just" 97, she told Christopher Nupen in his film "We Want the Light" that her twin sister was a pessimist and  that "tension" shortened her life. "Nature and music, that is my religion" she says, her face lighting up radiantly. "I am grateful to my mother who wanted us to learn, to know, to be thankful for everything ..... seeing the sun, seeing a smile, hearing a nice word. Everything is a present to be thankful for".

"Life is a gift", she often said. "Hatred eats the soul of the hater, not that of the hated"   Alice is an inspiration, positive therapy in human form. She's had a tough life, but hasn't become bitter. "Music is God", she has said, in difficult times you feel it most". Think of the famous quandary, is a glass half full or half empty? But the glass is always full. The other half is air, without which we cannot live. Drink it gratefully!  Some people, alas, get their kicks out of being miserable and inflicting it on everyone else. Not Alice!

The Prague Monitor carries a report today of Alice's birthday. "Her health has finally started to fade, and her family has requested that she is given her peace from the media. Her birthday will be spent without visitors and fuss, and her grandson Ariel will spend the day by her side at her flat. He said: “The image given on the internet is that she is quite active but the reality is quite the opposite and in fact her health is failing both physically and mentally, unfortunately”.

It's not how long you live, some have said, but how well you have lived. Not in material terms, but in terms of what you've learned and given back to others. In that sense Alice will be immortal.

Once I met Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and told her how she inspired me."But I didn't do anything, I just survived", she said, which is an understatement, but utterly sincere. People take responsibility for themselves. Another camp inmate (also with a young son) told me about grass shoots emerging from the ground after a hard winter."We ate them" she said, totally matter-of-fact.

Alice Herz Sommer - life is a gift

"Hatred eats the soul of the hater, not that of the hater" - Alice Herz Sommer, who will be 109 in November. She survived Theresienstadt as one of the camp musicians, so she knows extreme suffering more than most. Yet she's positive and takes each day as "a gift". And she gives back to the world.  Alice is positive therapy. "Music is God", she has said, in difficult times you feel it most". Think of the famous quandary, is a glass half full or half empty? But some will think, "completely full" as the other half is air, without which we cannot live. Drink it gratefully!  Some people, alas, get their kicks out of being miserable and inflicting it on everyone else. Not Alice!

There is a new book about Alice in the pipeline,  I've only seen the promo video. So enjoy this 2010 interview above,  read the first biography "A Garden of Eden in Hell" and watch the 2004 video below

Hans Krása at the West Wycombe Chamber Music Festival

That's Hans Krása (1899-1944). The occasion this photo was taken? It's a still from the Nazi propaganda film glorifying Theresienstadt, the model camp where inmates could live happily and healthily and make music. Krasa is listening attentively to Karl Ancerl conduct the Theresienstadt Orchestra. Everyone knows darn well they're being used but it it buys the camp time, what choice do they have?

Great opportunity to heard Krása's Passacaglia and Fugue plus Tanec for String Trio at the new West Wycombe Chamber Music Festival. There are two festivals with similar names but this one's strictly chamber music, and new. It's run by Lawrence Power the violist, familar to many from his work with the Nash Ensemble. Other Nash players included are Paul Watkins, Annabelle Meare and Stephanie Gonley. Also taking part are Anthony Marwood, Simon Crawford Philips, Bjørg Lewis (Mrs Paul), and Guy Johnston. Chamber musicians interconnect through many different networks. The Nash Ensemble played these two Hans Krása works for string trio at the Theresienstadt/Terezin Memorial weekend at the Wigmore Hall in June 2010. Read more about that here and use the "Theresienstadt" label on the right.

West Wycombe is on the western outskirts of High Wycombe, so is easy to reach by car up or down the M40/M25. Famous for the 18th century Hell Fire Club. Good 16th century pub on the main street (or was), so you can make a day of it. Lawrence Power grew up near there, I used to live there once too. Nice place.Musically, though, it's bound to be worth going to just for the concerts, as these are among the best players in the country. Also on the programmes, Dvorak, Brahms, Schumann and Shostakovich. More details HERE.

Bílá nemoc - Hugo and Pavel Haas

A dictator stands on a balcony addressing the masses. "We are a great country, we need space to live" The crowds roar in hysterical approval. Might is Right, so it's OK to declare war on "small rotten countries" next door. Bílá nemoc, or The White Plague is a fascinating film because it was made in Czechoslovakia in 1937. The Czechs knew what a larger country meant by Lebensraum, but the rest of Europe wasn't listening. The script was written by Karel Čapek, who wrote the text for Janáček's The Makropulous Case and much radical social commentary. Čapek died of natural causes in 1938, thereby escaping the Nazis, who were after him. Watch this movie and see why.

This film is also interesting because it was directed by and starred Hugo Haas, brother of Pavel Haas, the composer who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. Hugo Haas was a big star in Czechoslovakia, working until at least 1940, starring in films with Lída Baarová, whom Goebbels made his mistress. Pavel, his elder brother, wrote film scores for sevearl of Hugo's movies. One I've heard (film: Mazlíček,The Pet) sounds more like Hanns Eisler at his most didactic than Haas's chamber music, but it fits the nature of the film.  Pavel was sent to Theresienstadt and later Auschwitz. Hugo Haas manged to get to Hollywood, where by 1945, he starred in John Wayne movies and in King Solomon's Mines, and made his own B movies. [Since writing this, I've been able to see quite a few of Haas's American movies which are of an extremely high standrad]

In Bílá nemoc,there's a sudden frame of a man in the howling mob outside the Dictator's palace (which is monumentalist Art Deco and filled with geormetric symbols) . It's Dr Galen (Hugo Haas). There's a mysterious plague in the country, which starts as white spots on the body and kills everyone it touches. Everyone's paranoid about contamination. Galen has a cure but he's not allowed to use it because his terms are too high. So he's only allowed to treat the destitute in Ward 13, who don't count. But those he treats, survive. Gradually the plague spreads, and the paranoia. The Dictator visits the research hospital but Galen isn't allowed near him. Galen is anti-war, and that's another form of plague. Eventually, Baron Krog, the second most powerful man in the land gets sick and is saved when he promises to respect Galen's ideas.  Galen meets the dictator. Both of them fought in the Great War, but the Dictator believes war is a good thing and Galen thinks otherwise. Soon, the Dictator gets infected too, has a change of heart, signs ceasefire documents, and summons Galen. Galen tries to pass through the howling crowds, but they confront him when he talks anti-war and they beat him to death. No-one now to stop the plague, or the war.

PLENTY more on this site and in-depth too, on Czech and Weimar music and film, Entartete Musik, Theresienstadt composers, anti-war and non-violence. For me this subject is a principle of belief. Please  explore

Surviving Hitler: a love story

Two remarkable films about living under the Nazis on BBC4 TV. First Surviving Hitler: a Love Story . This is big news, as it's making its first high profile appearance in Britain. So far it's only been screened in festivals and small houses. The DVD will be released in December. Second, My father was a Nazi Commandant. Watch them both for a week on this link and this one.

Surviving Hitler: a love story is so amazing, it's almost hard to believe. The people involved were camera fanatics and recorded every detail of their daily lives. It's an almost unequalled archive, a valuable resource for historians of all kinds. But most amazing of all is what the family went through. All of them arrested for being involved with Operation Valkyrie, to assassinate Hitler. And all miraculously survived.

Tall, "Aryan" Jutta discovers that her maternal grandparents were converted Jews, and is sent to Switzerland for safety. But she returns to Berlin where she can't work, study or marry. Luckily she's rich and moves in influential circles. She meets Helmuth Cordes, a man who seems permanently attached to a camera, whether he's taking stills or moving film. The family is close friends with Werner von Haeften, adjutant to Claus von Stauffenberg, who planted the bomb that should have killed Hitler. They attend "tea party" groups  that denounce Hitler (Moltke?) and sheltered one of the plotters in their mansion.  Come July 20th 1944, the assassination fails and von Stauffenberg and von Haeften are murdered. Jutta's father is imprisoned and her mother sent to Ravensbruck, Helmut, who had a very junior position in Haeften's staff, is arrested too. Officially around 5000 people were executed in the bloodbath that followed. Others just disappeared. Jutta hides for a while then walks into Gestapo HQ and is promptly arrested. Eventually, the Russians roll into Berlin and Jutta, freed, goes home. In walks her mother, who's also been freed, and then father and Helmut as well. So they take out their cameras and record their wedding, the first in liberated Berlin.

Surviving Hitler: a love story is an extremely well crafted documentary. There must be thousands of photographs, for the story can be told through real pictures, carefully matched to fit the narrative, even thoughn the pictures may have been taken at different times.  Only one talking head, Jutta herself, who is eloquent and has such force of personality that she'd be worth watching even without the amazing story and archive. The family shots are augmented by contemporary film clips, including rare film of Hitler in colour. Where there's no original material, the film makers resort to re-enactments and footage from old movies, but these are incorporated so well that they blend in perfectly. This film has none of the tacky cut and paste feel many other documentaries suffer from. And the film makers are so self effacing, you can't find them on their website ! Truly a remarkable movie, beautifully made. This should be screened everywhere, including film making classes.

As film, My Father was a  Nazi Commandant (2006) isn't nearly as well made, but it's about Monika, the daughter of Amon Goeth, commander of the work camp at Plaszow near Krakow, and her quest to make amends by contacting Helen, who was a slave in Goeth's luxurious dwelling.  Monika was brought up in ignorance, not understanding why her mother was a cold hearted bitch.  Helen tells her everything, and how the father was an evil killer who took pleasure in destroying thousands of lives. Helen's husband killed himself in 1980, haunted by memories. For Helen, making this film was a kind of closure because now her testimony is in the public domain. Monika is traumatized. It wasn't her fault, but she's devastated, practically hysterical throughout. "Your suffering is just beginning" says Helen. As documentary, this film feels very edited, so you wonder what really went on behind the scenes, and how the participants were treated. But Monika and Helen's feelings are so raw that it's a disturbing, emotionally draining experience. Monika, too, is a victim of the sadist who engendered her, and she's worthy of respect. She's a courageous woman, so I hope the trauma of making this film hasn't wrecked her.

Making documentaries like these isn't easy. Sometimes you wonder at what human cost is "good TV" created. But they need to be watched, to remind us that totalitarianism is never harmless or acceptable.

Terezin Theresienstadt Nash Holzmair Wigmore Hall

Is this an ordinary family making music? Look closely. Dad and the little girl are wearing  yellow stars. This is a drawing from Terezin Theresienstadt, by Helga Weissova-Hoskova, who was a teenager then. She survived and was at the Wigmore Hall for the Nash Ensemble's tribute last weekend.

Lots of people had come in from Israel and the Czech Republic. But the music of Theresienstadt speaks for everyone, because it shows how people can be creative in the most adverse situations, and that art has value, against all odds. That's why its significance resonates for all humanity.

Because camp conditions were strained, no huge Wagnerian orchestral extravagance. Instead, focus on chamber musi, song, things that ordinary people can do. Ilse Weber's poems and songs are loved because they are so simple and down to earth. They weren't meant to be fancy High Art but they  are moving because of their context. Terezin-Lied came from Emmerich Kálmán's hit operetta Countess Maritza,. Everyone knew the tune, so changing the words gave it another level of meaning. Trained voices not needed, everyone could sing along together.

Wolfgang Holzmair's song grained voice suited the songs he chose for this concert, which included Carlo Sigmund Taube's Ein jüdisches Kind, Zigmund Schul's Die Nicht-gewesen and Viktor Ullmann's Drei Lieder op 37.  Taube's song is gentle, but haunting: Ullmann's songs more barbed. Holzmair's diction sharpened well for Der Schweizer, savage satire on the Swiss Guards and the Pope. The original poem  was written in the late 19th century by Conrad Ferdnand Meyer, a Swiss radical. Another pointed adaptation.

The Nash played Gideon Klein's String Trio, written in camp in 1944. Perhaps this is the piece being played in Helga Weissova-Hoskova's drawing? It doesn't matter, but the thought gives the music extra poignancy. Klein's music is so elegant that it's good to hear whatever the context, but on this occasion, the connotations did take on extra meaning, and rightly so. Holzmair sang Klein's song in the encore. including the wonderful Lullaby.
  
Hans Krása's Brundibar is famous all over the world these days, performed in many languages. At the Wigmore Hall, in the presence of people who took part in the original performances, it was unique. The Nash  played two Hans Krása works for string trio, the Passacaglia and Fuga, and Tanec, so Brundibar can be appreciated in the wider context of the composer's work.


The Nash Ensemble came out in full force for the second evening concert, which placed Terezin music in the wider context of Czech music. Here, too, adaptation and renewal. Smetana's Overture to the Bartered Bride, but in a new arrangemnt by David Matthews (who was at Aldeburgh the previous day).  You can see a a film of the opera on this site HERE, in full, It's quite unusual, because it was made in the UFA studios in Germany during the Third Reich but features Czech singers and looks like it may have been filmed in Bohemia. It's in German, which is no big deal, as opera was frequently sung in different langauges in the past, but it does make you wonder about what was going on in UFA despite the official Nazi control..
 
Then Petr Pokorny's arrangement of Krása's Brundibar for 13 instruments. Although the opera is worth hearing because it's such a good piece for children's voices, hearing the Suite highlights the composer's orchestration. As music it works well, especially when performed by top notch musicians, which isn't always the case with the opera. 

For me the high point of the evening was Erwin Schulhoff's Duo for violin and Cello. Schulhoff wasn't in Terezin. He was a Communist and non-religious, which made him an outsider both in Nazi Germany and in Czechslovakia.  The Duo dates from 1925. It's quite remarkable. Its starts with brio, hurtling incisively into the first theme: no messing about. The violin (Marianne Thorsen) flows a long melody at the upper ends of the range: exquiste. The cello (Paul Watkins) listens, pauses, then repeats the melody in  a lower timbre. The second movement is a Zingaresca, gypsy dancing, but muted, a nostalgic memeory rather than a dancer in the here and now. The Andantino's edgy, decidedly modern. Strings plucked, jerkil : folk music this is not, despite the references. The final movement, marked Moderato, sounds almost pentatonic, alien to the Austro-German tradition. Part way it breaks off in false ending, then resumes, brighter and firmer.

Ian Brown played Viktor Ullmann's Piano Sonata no 6, writtten in Terezin, and Holzmair returned to sing Krása's Three Songs and Pavel Haas's Four Songs on Chinese Poetry.  Enjoy these and more on his CD, reviewed HERE.on this site, where there's plenty more Theresienstadt and suppressed music. The second evening concert is being broadcast on  BBC Radio 3 on Monday 5 July and will be available on line on demand for a week.

Terezin Theresienstadt Children Brundibár

These are the children of Theresienstadt, or Terezin (depends whether you come from east or west). They're singing cheerfully but  those who made the film were connected to those who would murder the children. The full propaganda movie can be downloaded, but I can't do that. It's too awful; there is a surreal scene where a prisoner is beating steel to the soundtrack of the cancan.....mail me if you want the link. There are actually two films, this one from 1942 and another recently unearthed.

This coming weekend the Nash Ensemble will be holding a weekend of Theresienstadt/Terezin music, films and talks, and some survivors will be there - maybe some of the children in this very film.  I've been writing about this for months, so use the search facility at right and go to the Wigmore Hall website. There'll be a short bit on Hans Krása's Brundibár an opera written for the children of the camp. It's not as powerful as Viktor Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis but Krása was trying to cheer the kids, not depress them. Brundibár gets performed all over the world, in many languages and rightly so. Kids need to know.

Here is a link to an excellent article in the Observer by Ed Vulliamy about the Nash Ensemble's Theresienstadt project at the Wigmore Hall.

You don't need to know Italian to be moved by the film below. These kids are even happier, their eyes shine, they're so innocent, even though they've already seen things no child should ever experience. It's like this everywhere, no matter how barbaric the world is, kids are kids, and they are pure. .I used to do a lot of work about war and camps (not Europe), and those who were kids would remember differently from those who were older and wiser. Which is a mercy. (My mother is in some very famous newsreel photographs, she just happened to be around when the camera crews came by.)

Theresienstadt Terezin Orchestra

Today marks the liberation of Auschwitz, but Holocaust Day commemorates all people destroyed in that madness, and by extension, those destroyed in other madnesses. I steeled myself to watch the propaganda movie made in Theresienstadt, to show the world what a "fun" place it was. There are shots of obviously urban people merrily digging vegetable plots, looking healthily suntanned and smiling. And shots of women working at menial factory jobs (though you can tell even from these glimpses that was not how they would have been in normal times). You want to scream because you know what was really going on and what was going to happen. I won't show the film, it's awful, but the photo above is a still from it.

Then, the propaganda film shows the Theresienstadt Orchestra. Alice Sommer Herz was one of those musicians. When her mother was deported in one raid, Herz, left behind, defiantly played her piano even though some other tenants in her building were Nazis. Eventually her time came, too. As she was being taken, one of her neighbours told her "I am eternally grateful to you" he said, for the music had helped his family, too. Music saved her life, literally, for in Theresienstadt she became one of the musicians in the camp orchestra, playing over one hundred concerts. She said that even though she was starving, the idea of looking forward to playing music in the evening kept her mentally healthy. Alice Sommer Herz is still alive, aged 106.

Jacques Stroumsa arrived in camp and was asked to play a violin. He was astounded because he could not believe that music and the evil of concentration camps could coexist. But play he did, and everyone around was moved. The Nazi said he hoped Stroumsa would not die for he played so well. "I'm not planning to" said Stroumsa boldly. "You don't know", said the Nazi, "what a concentration camp is".

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was the cellist in the camp orchestra, whose conductor and leader was Alma Rosé, niece of Mahler, and a great musician in her own right. She describes the "crazy group" of music they had to play, operettas and above all marches for the slave labourers. Once Josef Mengele visited and asked her to play Schumann's Traümerei.

Camp guards used to step in and listen on breaks from their work. Yet, Lasker-Wallfisch says, there was never any doubt that they could all be suddenly killed, and would leave the camp "as smoke". I met Mrs Wallfisch once, and told her how she'd inspired me. "Nuts" she said, "I'm not trying to inspire anyone, I'm just telling it like it is". (or words to that effect).

Read HERE about We Want the Light, a much better modern film where Herz, Wallfisch and Stroumsa speak. Please see other posts on this site about Theresienstadt Terezin music and related subject

Update: see Alice Sommer Herz, in footage made when she was 98, on the BBC IPlayer for the next seven days. (there's a lot in the archives, still unreleased). Much of this film is footage not used in the longer film. Two things she says, she learned from her mother : to be "always learning" and to "be grateful". Learning is taking on board new ideas, new experiences. Being grateful is to welcome life, "Everything is a present"
Read more about Alice Sommer Herz (A Garden of Eden in Hell) and Anita Lasker Wallfisch. (Inherit the Truth)

Der müde Soldat

Ein kahles Mädchen. Heckenblaß entlaubt.
Sie steht am Weg, ich gehe weit vorbei.
So stehen sie alle Reih' an Reih'
und Haupt an Haupt.

Was weiss ich noch von heiligen Gewässern,
was von des Dorfes Abendrot.
Ich bin gespickt mit tausend Messern
und müde... müde von dem vielen Tod.

Der Kinder Augen sind wie goldner Regen,
in ihren Händen glüht die Schale Wein.
Ich will mich unter Bäumen schlafen legen
und kein Soldat mehr sein.

A bald girl, white as a ghost. She was standing in my way. I had to go past. And they were all there, standing row on row, head to head.

What do I know of holy waters, or the village sunset. I've been pricked by a thousand daggers. I'm tired - tired of too much death.

The children's eyes are like golden rain. In their hands glow goblets of wine. I willl go and lie under the trees to sleep and be no more a soldier.

A poem written by Li Po, a thousand years ago about China, translated in the 19th century by a German poet, set as a song by Viktor Ullman in 1943. In Theriesenstadt.  My translation from German

More music from Terezin (Theresienstadt) von Otter South Bank

Why would people write and perform music in a concentration camp ? As Viktor Ullmann, who was at Terezin but was murdered at Auschwitz, wrote: "We did not simply sit down by the rivers of Babylon and weep but evinced a desire to produce art that was entirely commensurate with our will to live".

Last week I was at a recital at the South Bank.The audience was very mixed, young and old, music regulars and people who don't usually go to concerts. The programme notes were minimal, because the performers talked about the music and read the poems in the songs, in English. It was much more personal than an ordinary recital. I didn't much like the CD but I loved the recital, because of its informal, direct format (and better choice of music). Read about the concert HERE. Quite a lot of detail about the music and background not that easy to come by. Read about Karel Berman's Reminiscences, which I'd really like to hear Forsberg record in full. Also Erwin Schulhoff, and the amazing Viktor Ullmann of whom I'll be writing more at some stage (a favourite).

The sketch is by Bedrich Fritta, an artist in Terezin, who made this drawing in 1943.

There's more on Terezin music and music suppressed by the Nazis on this blog, follow the label Entartete Musik

More Terezin Theresienstadt music - Von Otter

For obvious reasons, music from Terezin (Theresienstadt) wasn't heard outside the camp. In the immediate post-war years, people were still too traumatized to deal with the music. Now, though, the music is enjoying a renaissance, as lost materials are collated, transcribed and performed more regularly, including by big-name professional musicians.

Recently I praised Wolfgang Holzmair's CD on Bridge Records (see HERE) and was asked about other recordings. So here's a bit about another recent issue. It's Terezin/Theresienstadt with Anne Sofie von Otter, Daniel Hope and Christian Gerhaher, issued by Deutsche Grammophon. Huge label with plenty of money behind and megastar performers so you'd assume it might be a "first choice"? But in musical terms, Holzmair on Bridge is infinitely the better buy.

Anne Sofie von Otter came relatively late to Terezin music though she's an excellent singer and champion of unusual repertoire. She'll be doing a concert of Terezin songs at the South Bank on 30 September, so it's worth finding out about her 2007 recording. pictured here.

The advantage of the DG CD is that it includes material not available elsewhere, such as the songs of Ilse Weber, who was a mother who became a camp nurse and sang to the children. Her poem Ich wandledurch Theresienstadt is good as a poem, particularly recited with the force Holzmair gives it on the Bridge recording. Von Otter sings it as a song, together with four others. Weber was heroic: she sacrificed her life to accompany the children when they were shipped to Auschwitz. Her husband survived. But as music the songs are charming rather than impressive. Which is utterly appropriate. She wrote them to keep the children happy. They were never meant to be great art. So they're worth listening to as a record of human goodness.

Similarly, there are songs here from Karel Švenk, Adolf Strauss, Carlo Sigmund Taube, Martin Roman and one poignantly "anonymous". Its remarkable that anything survives at all, so each fragment means a lot. But most of these are minor work as music, preserved as a testimony to history.

Terezin did hold top-rank composers, so the DG set includes Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, Hans Krása and Erwin Schulhoff. Both sets have Pavel Haas's Four Songs on Chinese Poetry. so it's a question of whether you like Gerhaer or Holzmair. Both singers have a similar light, soft grained timbre, Holzmair having the edge with a shading of melancholy. The Ullman songs on the DG are from his op 34, rather than the striking op 37 (with Der Schweiz) that Holzmair does with such vigour. On the other hand, the DG set goes beyond piano and voice, and includes Daniel Hope , playing Schulhoff's Sonata for Solo Violin. In many ways, this is the main draw of the recording. Hope will be playing at von Otter's QEH concert. Devotees of this genre will of course have the ancient multi CD set of Ullmann songs with Christine Schafer and Axel Bauni. Schafer's excellent, Holzmair again has the edge on the songs he shares with Bauni.

Music from Theresienstadt - Holzmair Ullmann

Even in Theresienstadt (Terezin) , music thrived, against all odds. "Our will to create culture was as strong as our will to live" wrote Viktor Ullmann, the theosophist and composer. In the concentration camp, Ullmann wrote extensively, even producing an opera, the Emperor of Atlantis. Others, like Ilse Weber, wrote poems. "Ich wandle durch Theresienstadt", she writes. She stands on a bridge looking out on the valley. "Wann sind wir wieder frei"? Others articulated their thoughts only in abstraction. Karel Berman's Auschwitz - Corpse Factory describes in jagged piano what is too horrible to put in words.

Wolfgang Holzmair and Russell Ryan have just released a new recording, Spiritual Resistance : Music from Theresienstadt. (Click on link for more). There are many recordings of music from the camps. This new CD matches sincerity with artistic merit, so it is a must. Holzmair has long pioneered entartete Musik : his version of Hanns Eisler's Hollywood Liederbook was the finest version before Goerne came along. Holzmair's older now, but it gives his voice greater credence. Much as I've liked so many previous recordings, Holzmair's Der Müde Soldat is so good that it shows why this song means so much in the repertoire of music about war.

The poem on which Der Müde Soldat is based was written a thousand years ago in China but the sentiments still pack a punch. A soldier passes a girl, head shorn bare, who reminds him of the many others he's seen Reih' und Rieh', und Haupt und Haupt. He's seen too many burning villages. The eyes of children haunt him. He's müde von dem vielen Tod, and want to be a soldier no more.

This is perhaps the most famous song in this set, which contains all 12 songs of Der Mensch und sein Tag op 47 . These are short, but cryptic. They set poems written by Ullmann's close friend Hans-Günter Adler who collected Ullmann's effects when Ullmann was taken to Auschwitz in 1944. It's thanks to Adler we know so much of what happened in Theresienstadt, for he survived, and preserved as many of the hand-written manuscripts as he could.

Pavel Haas is famous for his string quartets - the Pavel Haas Quartet is named in his honour. Here we hear his Four songs after words of Chinese poetry. Hans Krása's Fünf Lieder reveal his more delicate style, quite different from Brundibár, the opera he wrote for the children of the camp. Listen to the Rilke setting Mach, dass etwas uns geschiet. Holzmair doesn't overload the fragile line wir wollen uns erheben wie ein Glanz, so it rises, like light.

Gideon Klein's songs are here, too, Three Songs, and his Lullaby, where a father speaks of "going into the furrows". Although the song is in Czech, one can't help but associate the feelings this song evokes with the circumstances in which it was written. Not a soothing lullaby.

Another reason for getting this CD is that it includes large portions of Karel Berman's Reminiscences. a long series of works wrtten from 1938 to 1945. They range from straightforward images of home to the quite unsettling Typhus in the Kauffering Concentration Camp. Its flickering, febrile notes are like halting breath. Berman was a singer, so perhaps it's significant that he chooses piano to express these images - photographs in sound, to bear witness without words. Russell Ryan, the pianist, Holzmair's long-time accompanist, plays thoughtfully. At times Berman's music breaks into vaguely effusive colour, but Rachnaminoff like flourish would not be appropriate. Ryan's sober approach works well. As Ullmann said "The deepest pain cannot become music".

Oddly enough, it's the pacifist Viktor Ullmann who comes up with explicit protest.. Der Schweizer is a savage blast at the Swiss Guards, who mutiny because the Pope won't pay them enough. "We'll auction off your Apostolic Throne!" It's a swipe at piety, at hypocrisy of all kinds, not solely Christian. Quite understandable in the circumstances.
IN June 2010 the Nash Ensemble and Holzmair will be doing a weekend at the Wigmore Hall on Theresienstadt music - do not miss !