Music composed in the Nazi camps that still longs to be heard

For Marianka Zadikow May, a survivor of Theresienstadt concentration camp, the performances of Verdi’s Requiem given by her and other prisoners were unforgettable. As she told the Defiant Requiem Foundation: “[The conductor] explained: this was our battle, good against evil, music against violence and death. And we will survive. This music will be put to the highest heights from the deepest depths because in such a place like this it was never sung before.”

Situated at Terezín in the present-day Czech Republic, Theresienstadt was presented by the Nazis as their “model camp”, sometimes described as a ghetto. Central to the positive slant they wished to fabricate was a cultural programme, and propaganda films were made of the musical activities. In reality, more than 30,000 people are estimated to have died there.

The performances of Verdi’s Requiem may have been a significant point for some, but there was much else. As well as concerts of symphonic and chamber works, jazz and operas, there was new music being written mostly by Jewish composers of Czech origin, such as Pavel Haas, Hans Krása and Gideon Klein, and the Austrian Viktor Ullmann.

In advance of Holocaust Memorial Day on Thursday, the BBC devoted one of its Total Immersion days to their music last weekend. Under the title “Music for the End of Time”, it comprised a documentary, a talk and three concerts, shared between students from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

It is remarkable that any music at all could have been composed in those conditions, not only because of the immense suffering, but also the practical difficulties, such as obtaining instruments and manuscript paper. Works were made to fit the resources available, as in Haas’s violently rhythmic String Quartet No. 2, From the Monkey Mountains, where percussion is unexpectedly added to the mix.

That was one item in the afternoon programme, in which choral and chamber music was interspersed with readings. The most moving of those was a parent’s diary following the rare birth of a baby in the camp, to which Ullmann’s Yiddish Songs, marvellously sung by the BBC Singers, added a poignant accompaniment. The final entry in the diary told of the family’s forthcoming deportation from the camp. Ullmann was himself subsequently deported to Auschwitz, where he was killed.

The evening concert paired two major works. Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis is a biting satire, part cabaret, part opera, with the flavour of Kurt Weill. Its allegory of Emperor Overall, a dictator who declares universal war, fell foul of Nazi censorship before it could be performed but, against the odds, the manuscript survived. The piquant mix of instrumental sounds, including banjo and accordion, was well caught in this semi-staged performance conducted by Josep Pons, but despite (or perhaps because of) amplification, not many words came across.

Meanwhile, Olivier Messiaen was interned in a prisoner of war camp at Görlitz in eastern Germany. Finding a violinist, cellist and clarinettist among his fellow inmates, he composed his chamber masterwork Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) with himself as pianist. In a very fine performance by the young Guildhall musicians, this visionary music did indeed feel timeless, a still-living voice from the past not to be silenced.

★★★★☆

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