Music of Remembrance: To Life! (on-demand until 11/8/2020)
$30 ($100 4-program pass)
Polina Nazaykinskaya — Haim
Hans Gál — Piano Trio in G major Op. 49b
Bohuslav Martinů — Duo for Violin and Cello H. 371
Polina Nazaykinskaya – Haim
Laura DeLuca, clarinet
Mikhail Shmidt, violin
Natasha Bazhanov, violin
Susan Gulkis Assadi, viola
Walter Gray, cello
Jessica Choe, piano
Erich Parce, narrator
Hans Gál – Piano Trio in G major, Op. 49b
Rachel Lee Priday, violin
Saeunn Thorsteindottir, cello
Craig Sheppard, piano
Bohuslav Martinů – Duo for Violin and Cello, H. 371
Mikhail Shmidt, violin
Walter Gray, cello
Mieczysław Weinberg – Clarinet Sonata, Op. 28
Laura Deluca, clarinet
Jessica Choe, piano
"Because of the violin, I was the only one that came out alive from 105 people who were shot to death or buried alive." – David Arben
Gifted Russian-born composer Polina Nazaykinskaya’s Haim (Hebrew for “life”) is a musical tribute to David Arben, a survivor of three concentration and four labor camps as a young boy who was saved by his violin when he was pulled from a crowd of 105 prisoners waiting to be shot or buried alive by the SS. After the war he came to America, penniless and barely speaking a word of English. Eventually he joined the Philadelphia Orchestra for 34 years, more than a dozen as Associate Concertmaster. In Arben’s words, “Music is Life. Music is Hope. Music is Peace.”
The program’s other composers have different stories about starting new lives in adopted homelands. Austrian-born composer and scholar Hans Gál became a vital part of Britain’s musical life, but only after enduring internment as an “enemy alien” by the wartime British government in camps that threw Jewish refugees together indiscriminately with actual Nazi sympathizers. Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů, a creative free spirit, left in 1923 for Paris, where he was influenced by trends that included jazz, neoclassicism and surrealism. With the German invasion of France in 1940, Martinů was forced to flee because of his involvement with the Czech resistance, and eventually reached the United States. He remained deeply engaged with events in Europe, and in 1943 he composed Memorial to Lidice in remembrance of the Czech town destroyed by the Nazis in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Polish-born composer Mieczysław Weinberg bears the unfortunate distinction of persecution at both Nazi and Soviet hands. With the German invasion of Poland soon after his graduation from the Warsaw Conservatory, he fled eastward to the Soviet Union. After the war, Weinberg fell prey to Stalin’s renewed wave of anti-Semitic purges. While Weinberg’s music was never officially banned, he was ignored for years by the Soviet musical establishment, yet he continued to write a prodigious output of serious music. While Weinberg didn’t consider himself a “Jewish composer,” a number of his works reflect Jewish themes and several contain Holocaust allusions.
Featuring MOR’s stellar instrumental ensemble drawn from the Seattle Symphony, and guest artists from the University of Washington School of Music.
The broadcast will begin November 1 at 5pm Pacific. Available until November 8.
Link to donate: https://www.musicofremembrance.org/support