Musical Responses to the Holocaust

Music in the Holocaust

• Many camps had orchestras, but Jews were barred when non-Jewish musicians were available

• Many composers continued to write in the concentration camps

• Concerts were given for commandants and prisoners

•“There could be no other place where one could feel the effect of music more deeply.”•Theresienstadt was well known for its rich cultural life

Music from the Holocaust

• Over 70 compositions have been written in response to the Holocaust by art music composers alone

• A large number of these works have won prizes and received public attention, although critics are wary of Holocaust exploitation by composers

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)

•Austrian composer of atonal and serial music

•Invented the twelve-tone technique

•Extremely controversial musically and politically

•Music was labeled as “degenerate” by Nazis

A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46 (1947)

• “I offer the sacrifice of my art to the Jewish cause. And I bring my offer enthusiastically, because for me nothing stands above my people.”

• The piece depicts a group of Jews at the moment of deportation and their final resistance to the Nazis by singing the Shema Yisrael

• Utilizes twelve-tone techniques• One of the more successful of his later works• Premiered by an amateur orchestra in New

Mexico

Luigi Nono (1924-1990)• Italian intellectual

and electronic music composer

• Influenced greatly by Schoenberg

• Used music to promote a communist political ideology

Ricorda cosa ti hanno fatto in Auschwitz (1965)

• Direct response to the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials

• The piece was a reduction of a mass of material to only what was necessary

• Translates literally to “Remember what they did to you in Auschwitz”

• Space, silence, & fleeting sounds form a haunting atmosphere

• One of many Nono pieces dealing with social injustices

Steve Reich (b. 1936)•American pioneer of minimalist composition

•Began explicitly using Jewish themes in the 1980s

•Musically seen as diametrically apposed to Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system

Different Trains (1988)• Three movement work: I. America – Before the warII. Europe – During the warIII. After the war• Won a Grammy Award in

1989• Utilizes recorded speech

for melodic material• One of the first classical

compositions to utilize sampling

• Recorded by the Kronos Quartet

•Result of a personal revelation regarding his life as an American Jew in the 1940s versus the life a European Jew at the same time

John Zorn (b. 1953)• American avant-

garde composer, record producer, and saxophonist

• Reconnection with his Jewish identity in the early 1990s

• Works within many genres resulting in a postmodern musical aesthetic

Kristallnacht (1992)• Seven movement

work:I. Shtetl (Ghetto Life)II. Never AgainIII. Gahelet (Embers)IV. Tikkun

(Rectification)V. Tzfia (Looking Ahead)VI. Gariin (Nucleus—The

New Settlement)• Combines multiple

styles to create more emotional complexity

• Marks the genesis of Zorn’s Radical Jewish Culture series

• Second movement comes with a warning from the composer

Liner Notes to Kristallnacht

The Nazi Ideal The Nazi Reality

Includes short excerpts on Jewish identity by novelist Lynne Tillman, poet Edmond Jabès, and playwright Richard Foreman

Conclusions

•Music as rebellion against fascism

•Music as remembrance

•Music as personal testimony and healing

•Music as social commentary