Had it not been for that most legendary of Swedes, honorary US citizen Raoul Wallenberg, little Janos from Budapest, Hungary would have been dead by the age of six.
Half a century later the King and Queen of Sweden watched their country's leading concert pianist, Janos Solyom, perform in the ornate City Hall of Stockholm, venue of the famed Nobel Prize banquets. Together with the Swedish Government and representatives of the Diplomatic Corps they listened to music written in Terezin (Theresienstadt), that weirdest of concentration camps, a "paradise-ghetto" created by the Nazis to fool the world.
Music resurrected
Mr. Solyom's revival of Czech-Jewish composers Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein and Viktor Ullmann, all victims of the Holocaust, turned out to be a milestone in Scandinavian musical life, and a major media event at that. Representing the best of mainstream 20th century piano music, these murdered composers are the missing link between Mahler and Messiaen, a link that the Nazis wanted to eradicate from the memory of Man. Their music is a shattering testimony of despair and hope, and of their belief in culture as the ultimate saviour.
Memorial concerts
Mr. Solyom has performed music by Haas, Klein and Ullmann at numerous lecture-recitals in concert halls, schools and colleges, including the National Conventions of the Swedish Lutheran Church and that of the German Evangelical Churches.
A typical Terezin recital may include:
- Pavel Haas: Suite for piano op. 13 (1935)
- Gideon Klein: Sonata (1943)
- Viktor Ullmann: Sonata No. 7 (1944)
This constitutes, together with encore(s), a full-length recital.
Pavel Haas (1899-1944) was born in Brno, Bohemia, but moved to Prague in his teens. A stupenduous talent with more than 50 compositions to his credit before even having embarked on a higher musical education: string quartets, songs, even a symphony. More was to follow: a highly successful opera called The Charlatan, works for the piano and film music. In 1941 Pavel Haas was deported by the Nazis to the concentration camp of Terezin where he continued to compose to the bitter end. This came in 1944 when he was murdered in Auschwitz.
Gideon Klein (1919-1945) studied composition for the legendary Czech modernist Alois Haba but was first and foremost a hugely gifted pianist. His debut at the age of 20 had to be a clandestine affair due to the curfew imposed on Jewish citizens in Nazi-occupied Prague. On this occasion he performed Brahms' 2nd concerto with another piano accompanying instead of an orchestra. He continued giving concerts under assumed names, thereby circumventing the racial laws of the time. He too was interned by the Nazis in Terezin, where he became one of the most active figures in the famed musical life of that ante-room to Hell. Gideon Klein perished in a coalmine called Fuerstengrube at the beginning of 1945, three days before liberation and not yet 26.
Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944) was a seeker, a true European intellectual. Born as son of a Protestant officer in the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Army, he eventually converted to Catholicism and later became an ardent anthroposoph.Even so, he was to perish as a Jew in the gas chambers of Auschwitz that fateful autumn of 1944.
Ullmann was a central figure in the hectic musical life of between-the-wars Prague: composer, conductor, essayist and music critic.As befits a disciple of Arnold Schönberg, he was at first strongly influenced by his mentor's 12-tone theory. But after deportation to Terezin in 1941 his music mellowed , becoming much more melodious and accessible. Once in Terezin, Ullmann became the prime mover behind the hectic musical life under the weirdest of circumstances, an activity with all the characteristics of a resistance movement. His productivity as a composer was enormous: operas, string quartets, piano sonatas, songs, even a projected symphony. Music for Viktor Ullmann meant civilization, hope and survival, as shown by the title page of his 7th Piano Sonata, one of the last works to be finished before he perished in Auschwitz on Oct. 18,1944.
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| Translation of the German text at the bottom of the page: "All rights of performance are to remain the property of the composer for life." |