Download KTM 439 THE COMPOSERS OF TEREZÍN theme Hello

KTM 439
THE COMPOSERS OF TEREZÍN
theme
Hello, welcome to Keys To Music on ABC Classic FM. I'm Graham Abbott.
I am an inveterate people-watcher. Maybe I'm just creepy and stare at people, but I like to think of
myself as an observer of humankind, especially as far as people's interaction with music is concerned.
For example, I am fascinated by the obvious need people have for some sort of music in their lives.
The most obvious manifestation of this can be seen walking down any street or sitting in any form of
public transport; it seems as if most people have music playing on some sort of portable device
pumping it into their heads via earpieces or headphones. People walk with music, jog with music,
shop with music, work with music...they need music. Is it just to block out the noise of the world at
large? Or is it because music makes them feel better? Who can say?
Add to this the ubiquitous muzak we can't escape in public places like shops and restaurants - plus the
fact that music is indispensible to television, movies, theatre, even computer games - and I can't help
but think that we humans are hardwired to not only like music, but to actually need it.
Some years ago I presented a Keys To Music program which looked at the important work music
therapists do with people in need, be they ill, disabled or grieving. We seem to find music especially
necessary when life is under threat. Whether it's just maintaining something familiar from "before"
when life was more predictable, or whether we find in the beauty and power of music something
which gives us strength to face adversity, time and again we know of occasions when music has kept
us going.
The obscenity of the Nazi persecution of Jews and other minorities in the 1930s and 40s is well-known
and well-documented. It constitutes one of the blackest chapters in human history, one which should
never be forgotten. Amid all the stories of courage that this period has brought to history, I want to
focus on one which involves music and specifically the work of five composers under horrific
circumstances. It also shows another example of humanity's need for music as an anchor and as
therapy in times which defy adequate description.
Klein Duo for Violin and Cello: 2nd movt
Praga Digitals 250 224 C17 (establish then continue under the following)
The fortress of Terezín was built in the 1780s by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II in what is now the
north-west corner of the Czech Republic. It was built as part of an unrealised plan to construct a large
series of forts and named after the Emperor's mother, Maria Theresa. In the 19th and early 20th
centuries the fort was used as a military barracks and prison.
In 1940 the Gestapo took control of Terezín. By the end of the following year the walled town had
become a concentration camp for Jews. It was not a death camp, in the sense Auschwitz and
Treblinka were, but it was used as a holding camp, a ghetto, for thousands of Jews before they were
sent east to the death camps and - for most of them - certain murder.
But this is not to say that Terezín was in any way a pleasant place for those incarcerated there. The
barracks of the old fort were designed to house 7,000 troops. Under the Nazis something like 60- or
70,000 people were crammed into this place. The Nazis presented Terezín (known in German as
Theresienstadt) to the outside world as a model settlement, supposedly designed to protect Jews
from the ravages of the war. In reality it was a place of hunger, sickness and sadistic treatment of
those forced to stay there. More than 30,000 people died at Terezín as a result of the appalling
conditions and lack of food; 16,000 died there in 1942 alone. Thousands more were transported east
to be murdered in places like Auschwitz after being held in Terezín.
1
music up, play to end of track
The abrupt end of that music is symbolic of the countless lives cut short by the horror of Terezín. It
was composed by Gideon Klein, a movement from his Duo for Violin and Cello, composed between
1938 and 1940. The vast majority of the Jews held in Terezín were Czech, and those held in the ghetto
included the cream of Czechoslovakia's intellectual and artistic elite. Skilled exponents from across
the arts were held there, but a high proportion of the inmates were musicians. Initially the Nazis
banned instruments in Terezín but many were smuggled in by those forced to be there. Eventually the
Nazis allowed music to be performed and before long a thriving cultural life sprang up in the midst of
this appalling place. Music was not only performed but created in Terezín; there were orchestras,
chamber groups, choirs and theatrical performances. Those for whom music had been an
indispensible part of their lives in the real world couldn't face what passed for life in Terezín without
music. It was a need which was unstoppable.
The cultural life in Terezín also suited the Nazis' desire to use the ghetto for propaganda purposes, in
their attempt to show the place as an idyllic refuge for Jews.
Gideon Klein was born in 1919 and is the youngest of the composers covered in this program. He was
a prize-winning student at the Prague Conservatory before the Nazi occupation forced him to end his
studies. Nazis laws against Jews meant he couldn't work as a pianist, and in December 1941 he was
sent to Terezín; he was 22.
In the three years he was in Terezín, Klein found himself in the presence of a large number of highly
talented and skilled artists and intellectuals. For him, at an artistic level, the experience stimulated
him to compose. He was appointed to organise chamber music in the camp, and he performed often
as a pianist in concerts, sometimes in chamber works, sometimes giving solo recitals.
The music Klein composed in Terezín included his Two Madrigals, for five unaccompanied voices
setting two very different texts, one in German by Hölderlin, the other in French by Villon. This is the
Hölderlin setting, entitled The Agreeable Things of the World.
Klein Two Madrigals: Das Angenehme Dieser Welt
Koch 3-7230-2 C9
Gideon Klein's most famous work composed in Terezín is his String Trio, written in September and
October of 1944. It is an important work, synthesising his Expressionist side (the style of Schoenberg
and Berg) with his Czech side (as inspired by the music of Janáček). This is the trio's final movement.
Klein String Trio: 3rd movt
Praga Digitals 250 224 C3
Nine days after completing the trio, Klein was transported to Auschwitz, and then to Fürstengrube,
where he was murdered three months later, aged 25.
Pavel Haas was another composer held at Terezín. He was born in Brno in 1899, making him twenty
years older than Gideon Klein. Haas studied at the Brno Conservatoire and eventually became a
student of Janáček. Before the war Haas had a flourishing career, writing major orchestral works
(including symphonies), as well as choral works, songs, chamber music and music for theatre and
cinema. His opera, The Charlatan, was premiered in Brno in 1938 to huge acclaim.
In 1941 Haas was deported to Terezín. Not long before his arrest he divorced his wife so that she and
their daughter would not suffer a similar fate. While in the camp, Haas became seriously depressed,
and it was Gideon Klein who encouraged him to compose again.
Very little of Haas's music from Terezín has survived, but among the little which has are the Four
Songs on Chinese Poetry. These songs, for baritone and piano, set Czech translations of Chinese
poetry from the 7th to 9th century. These are the first two songs from the set. The first begins, "Your
2
homeland is there, / far away in the distance, / you should go home, / my errant heart." The second
describes a minstrel sitting alone in a bamboo grove quietly playing his lute.
Haas Four Songs on Chinese Poetry: I heard the wild geese; In the bamboo grove
DG 477 6546 C18+19
One of the many other musicians held at Terezín was the Czech conductor Karel Ančerl. Ančerl was
not only involved in the musical activities of Terezín but was also responsible for much of the music
composed there surviving at all. Ančerl managed to survive the horrors of the Holocaust and after the
war he returned to Terezín and recovered much of the discarded musical materials, thereby saving
them for posterity. Music by Pavel Haas, including his Study for String Orchestra, was among the
music he saved from oblivion.
Haas's Study for String Orchestra was included in a Nazi propaganda film about Terezín and Haas
himself can be seen in the fragments of the film which survive, taking a bow after Ančerl has
conducted a performance of the piece. The film was officially called Terezín: A Documentary Film of
the Jewish Resettlement but it is more popularly called The Führer Gives the Jews a City. It was an
attempt to show the outside world that Terezín was a cultured haven for the mostly Czech Jews who
lived there. Even a delegation from the Red Cross, which visited Terezín at the insistence of the
Danish government, was fooled by the facade. The inmates were coerced into taking part in the film,
of which more a little later.
After the film had been made, some 18,000 prisoners were sent from Terezín to Auschwitz-Burkenau
to be murdered in the gas chambers, Haas and Ančerl among them. Ančerl later told the story that at
Auschwitz, Joseph Mengele was about to send him to the gas chamber, but Haas happened at that
moment to cough. Mengele then decided to send Haas to die instead. Even though Ančerl himself
survived Auschwitz, his wife and young son (who was born in Terezín) died there.
After the war Ančerl achieved great distinction as one of the 20th century's finest conductors, most
notably during his tenure as chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. He died in 1973.
Krása Brundibár: Serenade
Koch 3-7151-2 H1 C24 (1'02)
Hans Krása was another composer interred at Terezín. Krása was the same age as Haas, and he
studied in Prague. After graduating he worked in opera, during which time he met and was strongly
influenced by the composer and conductor Alexander Zemlinsky.
In the late 20s Krása went to Berlin and made strong connections there with French music (mainly
through Albert Roussel and the members of Les Six) as well as major German and Austrian composers
of the period. He became famous as a composer of orchestral music, songs and opera before the war.
The last work Krása completed before being sent to Terezín was a children's opera called Brundibár.
He was sent to Terezín in August 1942 and while in the camp arranged for Brundibár to be performed
(in a scaled-down version) some 55 times by the children of the camp. Brundibár featured in the
infamous propaganda film I referred to earlier. The nasty hurdy-gurdy man of the title was
immediately seen by the prisoners of Terezín as being a symbol of Hitler, but the stark truth was that
as the performances went on in the ghetto, new children had to be constantly brought in and taught
the parts of those who were transported to the death camps.
The Terezín version of Brundibár was recorded in 1996 and a moment ago we heard the short
entr'acte (called Serenade) which Krása wrote for the Terezín performances. This is the opera's
conclusion, where the children sing of their triumph over the nasty Brundibár.
Krása Brundibár: Act Two, Scenes 5 and 6
Koch 3-7151-2 H1 C29+30
3
Virtually all the children involved in the filming of that finale for the propaganda film were sent to
Auschwitz as soon as the filming was completed.
Of all the composers interred in Terezín, perhaps the best-known today is Viktor Ullmann, who is
mostly remembered for a single work, a one-act musical play called Der Kaiser von Atlantis (The
Emperor of Atlantis). Ullmann was a year older than Haas and Krása and his family background gave
him an unusual mixture of affiliations: he was a German-speaking Czech Jew whose family was
Catholic. He was an excellent pianist but his main career focus was composition. Before and after the
first world war he studied with Schoenberg, but in 1919 he left Vienna, where he had been based, and
went to Prague to study with Zemlinsky. He worked as a conductor at the New German Theatre in
Prague and he worked there, under Zemlinsky, until 1927. The following season he was appointed to
head another opera company in Prague but his repertoire choices (including works by Richard Strauss
and Krenek) were regarded as too modern for the company and he was dismissed.
Throughout the 20s and 30s Ullmann developed a major reputation as a composer in Germany,
Austria and Czechoslovakia. His works were very modern for their time - he even enrolled in a class in
quarter-tone techniques in Prague in the mid-30s - and by the early 40s he had a considerable
number of works to his credit, up to 41 opus numbers. These included orchestral works, chamber
music, piano works and songs. Apart from a few copies of a few of these works, most of them are now
lost.
Ullmann was deported to Terezín in September 1942. He became involved in the many musical
activities of the ghetto and one statement by him summarises the place of music in the lives of those
imprisoned there: "By no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon. Our
endeavour with respect to the arts was commensurate with our will to live".
Most of Ullmann's music composed in Terezín has survived and this too comprises a considerable
body of work: the last three piano sonatas, the third string quartet, many songs, and other theatre
pieces in addition to The Emperor of Atlantis. This is part of the third string quartet, composed around
the start of 1943.
Ullmann String Quartet No 3: Finale and Coda
Koch 3-7109-2H1 C19
The Emperor of Atlantis, Ullmann's most famous work, was written in Terezín between the middle of
1943 and January 1944. It was scheduled for performance in the Autumn of 1944, conducted by
another notable prisoner of Terezín, the conductor Rafael Schächter. The SS commander, though,
heard some of the rehearsals and noticed the parallels between the character of the Emperor and
Hitler, so the performance was prohibited. Peter Kien's libretto for the piece is a very clear allegory on
the nature of fascism and the low value it places on human life, so it's hardly surprising that the piece
was never performed at Terezín. This is an intermezzo which introduces the second scene, called
Totentanz, or "dance of death".
Ullmann Der Kaiser von Atlantis: Scene 2 Intermezzo (Totentanz)
Decca 440 854-2 C8
The work's subtitle is The Refusal of Death, and Death himself is one of the characters in the piece.
The plot revolves around the refusal of Death to be involved in the Emperor's war and the resultant
chaos this brings, when people are sick or wounded but cannot die. The Emperor begs Death to
return, which he agrees to do on condition that the Emperor himself will be the first to experience the
new reign of death. Realising it is the only hope for mankind, the Emperor allows himself to be led
away.
This is how the piece ends, with the Emperor's aria preparing for death and the ensemble welcoming
death back into their lives. The tune Ullmann used as the basis for the final ensemble is the Lutheran
hymn, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott.
4
Ullmann Der Kaiser von Atlantis: Conclusion
Decca 440 854-2 C19+20
On 16 October 1944, shortly after the banning of The Emperor of Atlantis, Viktor Ullmann was
transported to Auschwitz. He died in the gas chambers a couple of days later. The Emperor of Atlantis
had to wait more than 30 years for its first performance, receiving its premiere in Amsterdam in 1975.
Gideon Klein, Pavel Haas, Hans Krása and Viktor Ullmann were four gifted composers whose lives
were cut short by unspeakable bigotry and cruelty. They were but four of the countless musicians,
artists, writers, intellectuals and all manner of skilled and highly educated people in Terezín who were
murdered, in addition to thousands and thousands of ordinary men, women and children. The loss to
European art, European culture, European learning and European life is incalculable. That we have
what we have and know what we know of these men is little short of miraculous. Better perhaps to
reflect on their achievements, rather than what might have been.
There are a number of different responses we might have to the story of the composers of Terezín.
The most common, and most understandable, is admiration at the ways these people were able to
make music under the direst and most horrible of circumstances. It is a moving example of courage
and determination.
But if I might return to my comments at the start of the program, the music composed and performed
at Terezín shows us yet again that we humans need music in our lives and that it does us good to have
it in our lives. While it's nice to say that ironing or traffic or peeling potatoes are all easier when you
have music on in the background, such an equation can cheapen the value of music by demoting
music to little more than a tranquilliser, a drug, which gets us through somehow.
Music can be that but there's so much more to it. Music isn't just a shield, it's a weapon. It's not just
medication, it's also food and drink. The inmates of Terezín used music as a means of fighting their
oppressors, of maintaining their dignity, their humanity, and of providing enrichment for their minds
when they were in all other ways impoverished. This is a fact which can apply to us and take our
response to the story of Terezín beyond admiration and into practical experience.
One Terezín prisoner, the pianist Alice Hertz Sommer, in 2010 (at the age of 106) looked back on her
time there. She said, "Music is mankind's greatest miracle. From the very first note, one is transported
into a higher, other world, and that is how it was when we played or listened in the ghetto".
Music offers us a mental enrichment which helps us live beyond the present, to be greater than our
circumstances, to actually be better people. I have long believed this and the more I live in a world full
of music the more I experience it in my own life. I have never experienced anything remotely
approaching what the inmates of Terezín experienced - I pray the universe none of us ever do - but in
whatever circumstances in which we find ourselves, we do well to remember that a mind enriched by
music is a mind which inhabits a better world. Maybe that can be the lesson we all learn from Terezín.
I said at the top of the program that I wanted to mention five composers who were imprisoned at
Terezín, and indeed, there is one more, someone who slightly stands apart from the four composers
I've already mentioned.
Ilse Weber was a remarkable woman, born in 1901. She was a poet and noted children's author. She
was also a skilled performer on many instruments but only ever regarded herself as an amateur
musician. When her husband Willi Weber was deported to Terezín she volunteered to go with him,
taking their young son with her.
At Terezín Ilse Weber worked as a night nurse in the children's hospital, working as best should could
to look after sick children without any medicines, which were forbidden to Jewish patients of any age.
She wrote some 60 poems for her young patients and set many of them to music. This is one of them,
Farewell, my friend!
5
I Weber Ade, Kamerad!
DG 477 6546 C4
In October 1944 Willi Weber was deported to Auschwitz and Ilse volunteered to go with him with
their son, because she didn't want to break up the family. Ilse and her son were sent to their deaths
as soon as they arrived; Willi Weber survived another 30 years.
Weber's most famous song is Wiegala, known in English as "Lullaby". It has been recorded many
times, but perhaps none so simply and movingly as the version with guitar sung by Anne Sofie von
Otter with which we'll end this program. Its simple nobility speaks for itself. Eyewitnesses reported
that Ilse Weber sang this song to children from Terezín as they entered the gas chamber together.
Technical production for Keys To Music is by Michael Rogers and my name's Graham Abbott.
I Weber Wiegala (Lullaby)
DG 477 6546 C9
6