On this CD, von Otter has chosen a project with a serious and historically significant background. She interprets pieces written in the Theresienstadt concentration camp by a group of Jewish composers who were imprisoned there and yet managed to foster a rich cultural life even under the most extreme conditions. Most composers were later murdered in Auschwitz.
CD
$16.75
Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days.
Weber (I): Ich Wandre Durch Theresienstadt
Svenk: Pod Destnikem
Svenk: Vsechno Jde! (Terezin March)
Weber (I): Ade, Kamerad!
Weber (I): Und Der Regen Rinnt
Strauss (A): Ich Weiss Bestimmt, Ich Werd Dich Wiedersehn!
Anon: Terezin-Lied
Roman: Karussel - Wir Reiten Auf Hölzernen Pferden
Weber (I): Wiegala
Krása: 3 Songs After Poems By Arthur Rimbaud - Ctyrversí
Krása: 3 Songs After Poems By Arthur Rimbaud - Vzrusení
Krása: 3 Songs After Poems By Arthur Rimbaud - Prátelé
Haas: 4 Songs On Chinese Poetry - Zaslech jsem divoké husy
Haas: 4 Songs On Chinese Poetry - V bambusovém haji
Haas: 4 Songs On Chinese Poetry - Daleko mesic je domova
Haas: 4 Songs On Chinese Poetry - Probdená noc
Schulhoff: Sonata For Solo Violin - Mvt. 1
Schulhoff: Sonata For Solo Violin - Mvt. 2
Schulhoff: Sonata For Solo Violin - Mvt. 3
Schulhoff: Sonata For Solo Violin - Mvt. 4
October 2007
*****
“…despite all their suffering, the music that was written and performed there expresses a strong will to live and attests to the power of the creative spirit… Such feelings are omnipresent in this beautifully recorded recital performed with wonderful sensitivity and immediacy by singers Anne Sofie von Otter and Christian Gerhaher and their highly responsive instrumental partners.”
October 2007
“The music on this CD is beautiful, some of it comic, some of it elegiac, all of it almost unbearingly touching. All these composers were incarcerated in the concentration camp at Terezín in what is now the Czech Republic. One survivor, the pianist Alice Herz-Sommer has written: "Music allowed many inmates to bare their hearts...even in the darkest corners of the earth...it was, at least for the moment, a liberation." The songs by Ilse Weber and Karel Svenk are in the cabaret style, deceptively jolly tunes, overlaid with bitter irony in the words. Anne Sofie von Otter sings them with exquisite tenderness; Bengt Forsberg at the piano and Bebe Risenfors on guitar accompany lovingly. The three best-known composers whose works have survived from Terezín are Pavel Haas, Hans Krása and Viktor Ullmann. Krása's Three Songs on texts by Rimbaud, Ullman's Six Sonnets and Haas's Four Songs on Chinese Poetry are all major works that change the perspective of the history of the German Lied. Christian Gerhaher sings the Krása and Ullmann with noble spirit.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
Weber (I): Ich Wandre Durch Theresienstadt
