A dark journey into the past
During World War II, many members of the Jewish cultural elite in Nazi-occupied lands were sent to a camp at Theresienstadt, a town about 40 miles north of Prague. The convergence of intellectuals, writers, and musicians made Terezin - its Czech name - look more like an artists' colony than a concentration camp. This was no coincidence: The Nazis skillfully used Theresienstadt as propaganda for their supposedly humane treatment of prisoners. For all the exalted cultural activity, though, it was for most simply a way station to death at Auschwitz.
Musical activity was especially rich at Theresienstadt. The camp boasted no fewer than four orchestras, as well as choruses and other ensembles. Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, Erwin Schulhoff, and Hans Krasa were only the most notable of its composer-prisoners. In recent years a number of organizations dedicated to exploring and preserving the music written there have sprung up, including the Boston-based Terezin Chamber Music Foundation.
Anne Sofie von Otter is the latest artist to roam this haunted musical landscape. The Swedish mezzo-soprano's most recent CD is called "Terezin/Theresienstadt" (Deutsche Grammophon), one of the most historically important releases in recent memory. She and some colleagues explore a wide variety of music composed at the camp, not only that of the composers listed above but also lesser known figures, making it a significant part of the ongoing reclamation project.
Von Otter - who's singing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde" and its upcoming concert version of Berlioz's "Les Troyens" - had a deeper and more personal motivation for the project. Last October she told a BBC interviewer that, "As the disc was finished, from nowhere really, I recognized that I had done this for my father as well." The elder von Otter, a Swedish diplomat, was stationed in Berlin during the war. On a train one night he was approached by an SS officer named Gerstein, who spent the entire trip telling him about the mass killing of the Jews, with which Gerstein himself was directly involved. Tormented by his conscience, he begged von Otter to go to the Swedish foreign ministry with the information.
He did so, but to no avail. "The man in charge listened to my father and nothing happened," she said, adding that no one has found any trace of the existence of his report. Gerstein, who was convicted of war crimes, killed himself in prison, three days before the diplomat's written testimonial of his honorable intentions arrived. Her father, she said, never came to terms with his guilt. In addition to its artistic and historical value, the recording is also an act of reparation on his behalf.
Stylistically, the music on "Terezin/Theresienstadt" is a mix of 20th-century art music and simpler offerings flavored with folk and jazz elements. Some of the most haunting selections are songs by Ilse Weber, a poet and musician who worked as a nurse for the camp's children. She wrote songs to sing on her night rounds, accompanying herself on guitar as she coaxed the children to sleep.
Weber died in 1944. Along with her son Tommy, she went voluntarily with a group of Theresienstadt children to the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
Her songs are simple and affecting, yet knowing her story makes them almost unbearably poignant to listen to, never mind perform. Ironically, the cool detachment and focused beauty that von Otter brings to everything she does works perfectly here. Her objective stance allows the essential truth of this music to emerge on its own terms.
"I'm not an overly sentimental person when I perform," she told the BBC when asked how she avoided melodrama while making the recording. "After all, I'm not singing these songs to break down in tears myself. I'm singing them because I want other people to be moved and think a little bit about what's going on in the world."
Landmarks' summer
The Boston Landmarks Orchestra has announced its annual series of free summer concerts, which will run from July 9 through Sept. 10. The orchestra will perform each Wednesday evening at the Hatch Shell. There will also be "Neighborhood Concerts" in Cambridge, Jamaica Plain, Quincy, and Dorchester. Finally, the orchestra offers children's concerts in Dorchester and Roxbury, each featuring a new piece by Anthony DiLorenzo called "John Adams: The Voice Heard 'Round the World." The season-opening concert on the Esplanade will feature Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "A Lincoln Portrait," as well as Dvorak's "New World" Symphony. 617-520-2200, landmarksorchestra.org
