Thursday,
January 26
at 7:30 PM
Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022
Admission: free
However, tickets are required
For reservations, please click here
This concert is presented in cooperation with the Austrian Cultural Forum
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Weary, weary of too much death
A Musical-Literary Collage
In remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust
With:
Jeannie Im (Soprano),
Bruce Rameker (Baritone),
Dan Franklin Smith (Piano),
Gregorij von Leïtis (Recitation) This musical-literary collage is a testimony to the creative energy, imagination and humanity of two outstanding composers: Pavel Haas and Viktor Ullmann. While interned in the ghetto and transition camp Terezin (Theresienstadt), these two composers never gave up. Despite degrading living conditions, despite hunger and pain, despite fear in the face of terror and death, they continued to be creative. Their art helped them to endure the daily suffering. Ullmann was convinced that “music and words can diminish evil”. In an essay, written in Terezin in 1943, Ullmann said: “Therefore Goethe’s maxim ‘Live in the moment, live in eternity’ seemed for me to reveal the basic idea, the purpose of art...We did not sit moaning at the Rivers of Babylon and our will to be creative was as strong as our will to live.” In the fall of 1944, Ullmann and Haas were transported to Auschwitz and killed there. But their music was saved and survived the Holocaust. The songs by Pavel Haas and Viktor Ullmann are complemented by pieces written by artists who were persecuted by the Nazis but could escape and found a safe haven in the United States. Among those artists are Paul Aron, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Robert Stolz, Richard Beer-Hoffmann, and Hans Sahl. |
