Maine Perspective Front Page
Center Stage
Music in Terezin
During the Holocaust, a number of esteemed Eastern European musicians were imprisoned at Terezin Concentration Camp. There, under horrific conditions, they composed remarkable works of art that continue to speak to and about the enduring human spirit.
The works of four of those artists will be performed in a concert Sunday, Feb. 6 at 2 p.m., Minsky Recital Hall, by pianist Phillip Silver and three other members of the School of Performing Arts faculty.
The pieces also will be featured on Maine Public Radio's "Live at 11" with Dave Bunker on Tuesday, Feb. 1.
For Silver, who lost members of his family in the Holocaust, bringing "Music in Terezin" to the stage is his way of ensuring that the people and the past are not forgotten. As an artist, Silver is honoring the memories and the music of the two murdered in Auschwitz and two who died in forced labor camps.
"I find it difficult to separate the music from the circumstances under which it was composed," says Silver. "In the midst of complete horror, the human urge for survival, beauty and communication comes through. It is an example of the human spirit refusing to bow down."
Gideon Klein, whose Piano Sonata will be performed by Silver, was 23 when he was sent to Terezin and had not yet established his career as a composer. Viktor Ullmann, whose music was known and performed prior to his incarceration, said his writing in the camp "was commensurate with his will to survive." He wrote 25 works, including an opera, in a two-year period.
Ullmann's Piano Sonata No 7 in D Major was completed two months before he died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Along with this work, Silver, with soprano Nancy Ogle, will also perform a second Ullmann work, Six Sonnets de Louïze Labé. This work was composed for his wife Elizabeth, who also perished in Auschwitz.
"Through such music, we find messages and codes being passed between the prisoners," says Silver. "Symbolism permeates the music."
Like Ullmann, Pavel Haas had a composing career prior to incarceration, with a number of his works conducted by major conductors in Europe. One of Haas' works, composed immediately after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, Suite for Oboe and Piano, an impassioned work of defiance, will be performed by Silver and oboist Louis Hall.
The concert also includes the only work known to exist by Robert Dauber, Serenata for Violin and Piano, performed by Silver and violinist Anatole Wieck. The Nazis allowed a cafe to be formed, and Dauber wrote salon music.
Works by the other composers were composed for permitted musical/cultural series utilized by the Nazis as part of an elaborate hoax to quash rumors of the the atrocities being committed at other camps, and present Terezin as a typical example of concentration camp life.