New release-Jewish music by holocaust survivor Anita Lasker Wallfisch

[PHAB Music US <phab...>]

Dear Jewish-Music Members,

 It is a very fortunate privilege to inform you of a record of great musical 
and historical significance. This is the story of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a 
very young musician whose life was saved by her cello.  It is also a testament 
to life in Auschwitz and the founding of a musical dynasty.  Anita 
Lasker-Wallfisch narrates her own story which is illustrated by music chosen 
and played by herself, her son Raphael Wallfisch and grandsons Benjamin and 
Simon.  The highlight of the recording is the rarely heard and very beautiful 
"Requiem" Op. 66 for three cellos and piano by the 19th century Jewish 
Composer, David Popper.  It is played here by three generations of Wallfisch 
cellists. 

 Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was born in Breslau (now Wroclaw), to a middle-class 
assimilated Jewish family and the youngest of three sisters. Her musical talent 
afforded her the opportunity to learn to play the cello which would eventually 
save her life. The family's attempts to arrange emigration before the outbreak 
of World War II failed, except for an older sister who fled to England.  In 
1942, Anita's parents were deported and she was never to see them again. Anita 
and her other sister were sent to an orphanage.  Anita could write in Gothic 
script, which the Germans used on official documents, so she started to forge 
papers for escapees.  "If the Nazis were going to kill me, I wanted to die for 
what I had done, not for what I was."  

 Anita and her sister tried to escape too, but were arrested at Breslau 
station, imprisoned as troublemakers and deported to Auschwitz/Birkenau in 
1943.  Her life was saved by becoming the only cellist in the small women's 
orchestra under the leadership of Alma Rosé, the niece of Gustav Mahler.   She 
played every day, sitting at the gate, accompanying other prisoners in and out 
of the camp to Strauss's Radetzky March.  They were in Auschwitz for a year, 
living in a hut opposite the gas chamber.  


Anita was transferred to Bergen-Belsen in November 1944 and liberated by the 
British Army on the 15th of April 1945. She has lived in England since 1946 and 
became a founder member of the English Chamber Orchestra.  

 This is the only studio recording of a rare performance with son Raphael and 
grandsons Benjamin and Simon Wallfisch, celebrated musicians in their own 
right.  As you listen to this musical memoir, it will uplift and inspire you as 
you remember for the future.

 "I had many illusions when I was liberated. I thought that our suffering was 
an atonement for all time, and that the generations to come would be free from 
prejudice forever. Alas, I was wrong."    

                                                                           
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch

 

Testament by Anita Lasker-Wallfisch is available from Amazon.com, Tower Records 
& Barnes and Nobel.

 

Track listing includes:

>From Jewish Life: no 3, Jewish Song

Baal shem: 2nd movement, Nigun

Suite for Cello solo no 3 in C major, BWV 1009: 6th movement, Gigue

Suite for Cello solo no 3 in C major, BWV 1009: 4th movement, Sarabande

>From Jewish Life: no 3, Supplication

Melodies hebraiques (2): no 1, Kaddisch

>From Jewish Life: no 1, Prayer

Requiem for 3 Cellos and Orchestra, Op. 66

Nigun-Liberation 

Aeternum

  Thank you for your attention to this message.  Barbara DeFoe