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Notes in a bottle: reviving music composed in the Holocaust

Megan Williams tells us about composers Victor Ullmann and Gideon Klein who died in the Holocaust; of their struggle to create under the most horrific conditions; and of a group of modern-day scholars and musicians dedicated to reviving their long-silenced music.
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A still photo from the Nazi propaganda film, "Der Fuehrer Schenkt den Juden eine Stadt" [The Fuehrer gives the Jews a City]. Karel Ancerl conducts the Theresienstadt Orchestra. (The United States Memorial Holocaust Museum)

Megan Williams tells us about composers Victor Ullmann and Gideon Klein who died in the Holocaust; of their struggle to create under the most horrific conditions; and of a group of modern-day scholars and musicians dedicated to reviving their long-silenced music. **This episode originally aired May 19, 2009.
 

"Terezin was and is for me, the school of form. In old days when one didn't feel brute force of physical life because the magical comforts of civilization pushed them aside, it was easy to create a beautiful form. Here everything musical is in utter contrast to its surroundings. Here even in everyday life one must subdue resistant matter through form. And so if you agree with Schiller, that the secret of artwork is to destroy resistant matter through the exercise of form, and to do this is the mission of everyman, and not only aesthetic but also of ethical man, then here – Terezin --  is the true master school. What must be emphasized is that Terezin has served to enhance, not impede my musical activities. That by no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon and that our endeavour with respect to art was commensurate with our will to live." -- Viktor Ullman
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Viktor Ullmann
Austrian composer Viktor Ullmann was perhaps the greatest musical talent to perish during the Holocaust. Ullmann was born more than a century ago in Teschen, a small town on the Polish-Czech border and was raised in Vienna, where his prodigious musical and intellectual talents were recognized early. Later, he moved to Prague and studied and worked with some of Europe's leading musicians.

Gideon Klein in 1938 (Jewish Museum in Prague)
Another Jewish composer in Prague at the time was the very young and promising Gideon Klein. Like Ullmann, Klein was deeply involved in the cultural movements of the time. The apartment he shared with his older sister Eliska served as a meeting place for poets, musicians and anti-fascist activities. A survivor later described him as "a stunningly beautiful person in every sense -- musically, physically and personally; a man of romantic literature."

In the early 1940s, UIllmann and Klein were sent to the Terezin concentration camp. Despite its appalling conditions, Terezin had a special status among camps as a "model ghetto." The Nazis claimed that Jews weren't prisoners, but were merely being "re-settled." By smuggling in paper and an old piano, the musicians were able to spend precious moments composing. It was here, despite the horror, where Ullmann and others managed to flourish creatively.

The inscription above one of the entrance gates at the concentration camp of Terezin, Czechoslovakia, reads 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (Work Makes You Free). (Keystone/Getty Images)
By the end of the summer of 1944, though, despair took hold of those who remained in Terezin. Germany was losing the war and was in a hurry to rid Europe of its remaining Jews. The transports to Auschwitz left with anguishing regularity. Viktor Ullmann prepared to save his music.Then, in the fall, Ullmann and Klein were put on train with other leading European musicians and composers, and sent to Auschwitz. The astonishingly rich, varied and accomplished musical life of Terezin fell silent.


Now more than 70 years later, a world-wide quest to recover and restore the music to its rightful place in the pantheon of 20th Century classical music is underway.


Megan Williams explores the musical and spiritual evolution of Ullmann and Klein by talking with some of modern-day musicians and experts fuelling their musical resurrection: James Conlon of the Los Angeles Opera, musicologist Michael Beckerman of New York University, Bret Werb of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Simon Wynberg, artistic director of the ARC Ensemble of Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music, and pianist and conductor Francesco Lotoro in Rome.

Through the exploration of Ullmann and Klein's lives, painful, but fascinating questions are raised.

What is the relationship between creativity and suffering? What role does music play in political resistance and psychological escape? What secret messages can we glean from the works composed by musicians who knew they would soon be killed?


Related websites:


Music featured in the program:

  • Seerauber-Ballade (A Fragment), by Viktor Ullmann, violinist Laura Aprile. CD: KZ Musik 4, Encyclopedia of Music Composed in Concentration Camps (1933 – 1945) Francesco Lotoro, pianist, organist, conductor. Associazione Musikstrasse, Via Romeo Romei, 15 00136 Roma Italia.
     
  • Die Seejungfrau, by Alexander von Zemlinsky, Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Choirs, conducted by Thomas Dausgaard. CD: August Enna Alexander von Zemlinsky, DACAPO Records, Copenhagen, 2006.
     
  • Der Kaiser von Atlantis, by Viktor Ullmann, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, conducted by Lothar Zagrosek. CD: Ullmann Der Kaiser von Atlantis, The Decca Record Company Limited, London, 1994.
     
  • Quartetto per Archi in Fa Diesis Minore N. 2 OP. 10 by Arnold Schönberg. NBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos.
     
  • Piano Sonata, by Gideon Klein CD: KZ Musik 3, Encyclopedia of Music composed in Concentration Camps (1933 – 1945) Francesco Lotoro, pianist, organist, conductor. Associazione Musikstrasse, Via Romeo Romei, 15 00136 Roma Italia.
     
  • On an Overgrown Path, by Leos Jánacek. Josef Pálenícek, Piano. CD: Jánacek, Piano Works, Josef Pálenícek Supraphon, 2005.
     
  • Ballad of Mack the Knife, from The Three-Penny Opera (1928) by Kurt Weill. Performance: Bert Brecht (vocal), The Lewis Ruth Band. Conductor: Theo Mackeben. CD: Entartete Musik. ORIGINAL SOUND DOCUMENTS of the Exhibit Entartete Musik (Degenerate Music) Dusseldorf 1938/88. Licenced by POOL, Musikproduktion BmbH Berlin.
     
  • Piano Sonatas Nos 5 - 7. Variationen und Fuge über ein hebräisches Volkslied. Cadenzas to Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 1 + 3, op. 54 by Viktor Ullmann. CD3: KZ Musik.
     
  • Sonata (piano) by Gideon Klein Cut 1 - Allegro con fuoco; Cut 2 - Adagio; Cut 3 - Allegro Vivace. CD 3: KZ Musik. 
     
  • String Quartet No. 3, (1943) by Viktor Ullmann. The Colorado Chamber Players. CD: Uplifting Discoveries from a Generation Lost, Centaur Records, Inc., Baton Rouge, LA 1997.
     
  • Partita for Strings by Gideon Klein (arr. Saudek). The Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. CD: Bartok – Martinú – Klein.
     
  • Brundibar, Complete Children's Opera by Hans Krasa Joza Karas.
     
  • Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello, by Gideon Klein. Cut 4 - Allegro; Cut 5 - Lento - Va0riations on a Moravian Folk Song Theme; Cut 6 - Molto Vivace. CD: Music Written in Terezin. Jaromir Klepac piano, Czech String Trio. 1997 BONTON Music
     
  • Der Kindertotenlieder, by Mahler.
     
  • Duo: Allegro Con Fuoco, by Gideon Klein. Laurent Korcia, violon, Tatjana Vassiljeva, Violoncelle. CD: Laurent Korcia Doubles Jeux. Naïve Classics.