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Re: Music and the Holocaust
- From: JeffSchan <JeffSchan...>
- Subject: Re: Music and the Holocaust
- Date: Wed 09 Apr 1997 13.54 (GMT)
Jenny:
I wanted to answer your e-mail on how Jewish musicians deal with the
Holo-
caust by recounting some of my own personal struggles with the issue. I
may
have a different perspective than others because I am a child of
survivors, but
I hope that some of this will be useful to you.
Like many second generationers I know, I compartmentalized my life to a
great extent. My second generation identity was, as Helen Epstein
eloquently
wrote: "an iron box buried so deep inside me that I was never sure just
what it
was." Add to this that my mother told me when I was young not to ask my
father about his experiences during the War, it would be too painful for
him.
So the question of the Holocaust was something which I tried not to
allow to
impinge on other parts of my life, including my music.
My father died 4-1/2 years ago. I had idolized him all of my life, and
like
most other 2nd generationers, attempted to shield my parents from pain
and
suffering because they had been through so much. Needless to say, I
could
not shield him from death. Since he was such a large part of my
personality,
after his death I pretty much had to rediscover and redefine who I was.
In
doing so, I realized I could no longer keep the Holocaust bottled up
some-
where deep inside me. After his death I wrote "Totenmarsch" for violin
and
orchestra in his memory - he survived a death march from Buchenwald.
Unfortunately this piece has never been performed. Writing this piece
helped
me deal with and perhaps express many of the unresolved feelings towards
him.
I then wrote "Lament for Erik," for baritone and viola, for my half
brother
Erik Schanzer, who survived the War and was reunited with my father, but
who died of leukemia two years before I was born. Erik's picture in our
house was the only item which related in any way to my father's life
before
the War. It also dealt with my feeling (and that of most second
generationers)
that my life is meant to make up for those who did not survive.
My next work was more political and less personal. "No More In Thrall"
for
string quartet and percussion was written to commemorate the 50th
anniversary
of the liberation of Buchenwald. Buchenwald was unique because the camp
was liberated by resistance fighters from among the prisoners. Because
most
of the Buchenwald resistance was communist (I am a communist -
Trotskyist -
as well), this story is almost unknown in the land of J. Edgar Hoover
and
Joseph McCarthy. This piece has just been released on the CRI label. I
will
put a separate post on it today.
My most recent piece "A Mother's Story - 1939-40," for mezzo-soprano
Isabelle Ganz and cello, is a setting of my mother's oral testimony of
her
escape from the Nazi blitzkrieg of Poland. This will be premiered at a
Holocaust Memorial Concert I am curating at The Kitchen in New York.
Last year, I was at the WNYC radio station doing an in-studio broadcast
of
"No More In Thrall" and an interviewer asked me whether I felt that the
creation of art was an appropriate response to something as horrific as
the
Holocaust. I felt that this was an interesting question. In writing my
mother's
piece, I also felt I came up with a better answer than I gave on the
air. It
occurred to me that one of the earliest functions of music and song -
even
before man created written language - was to pass down stories - and
history -
from one generation to the next. Here I am sitting in my living room at
the
verge of the 21st century, composing on a piano and entering the music
immediately into the notation program on my computer - and I'm doing the
same thing that musicians have been doing for thousands of years -
handing
down stories from one generation to the next. Unfortunately some of
those
stories are not so pleasant.
So for me and most 2nd generationers, the question of keeping the
memories
of our parents, many of whom have died and are getting older, is of
para-
mount importance. I also appreciate others writing and presenting
concerts
dealing with the Holocaust when it is done in a serious and respectful
way.
As I said above, I am curating a Holocaust Memorial Concert, half of
which
will be music composed in Terezin and half by second generation
composers.
However, I also agree with Yoel Epstein who believes that pieces dealing
with
the Holocaust should be programmed with other music. Concerts of music
dealing with the Holocaust have an important function in enhancing our
resolve to keep the memory of what happened alive so that we can fight
to see
it never happens again, but it does have some of the character of
preaching to
the converted. The premiere of my "Lament for Erik" was one piece on a
baritone's recital, and I found that the reaction was quite interesting
in that
people were not used to being force to deal with a "real" subject at a
concert.
One thing I have found quite frustrating is the lack of interest in
"modernist"
music dealing with the Holocaust from the traditional Jewish arts
institutions,
who seem to be interested in presenting nothing more modern than Yiddish
folk music. I have been working on locating other second generation
compos-
ers and producing a concert of our music for years now. It is finally
going to
happen at The Kitchen - an alternative art space - and not at a Jewish
institu-
tion. If you or anyone else is interested, you can contact me for names
of
other second generation composers to program on concerts dealing with
the
Holocaust.
Jeffrey Schanzer