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List Price: $16.98
Our Price: $14.99
You Save: $ 1.99 (12%)
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Manufacturer: Deutsche Gramophon
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0028947765462
Label: Deutsche Gramophon
Manufacturer: Deutsche Gramophon
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Deutsche Gramophon
Release Date: 2008-03-25
Studio: Deutsche Gramophon
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Editorial Reviews:
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The Swedish mezzo-soprano, Anne Sofie von Otter, is known as one of the most versatile stars of her generation. She is always in search of new musical challenges, whether with the songs of Cécile Chaminade or of Benny Andersson. Here, 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. On this album, Anne Sofie von Otter is joined by one of the greatest lieder singers of today, Christian Gerhaher, and their longtime pianists Bengt Forsberg and Gerold Huber, respectively. Together they present songs by Viktor Ullmann, Hans Krása, and so-called cabaret songs. DG's recently signed violinist Daniel Hope contributes the Sonata for Solo Violin by Erwin Schulhoff.
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Terezin revisited
Comment: Beautifully sung and played. Reminds one of the Berlin cafe music from the 1920s, which is probably where most of the composers found their niche. Sad to know that these people didn't survive, but their music lives on!
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Summary: Unspeakable Pain and Shame
Comment: Approximately 144,000 Jews, mostly from Germany and Czechoslovakia, were imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camp at Theresienstadt for varying terms between 1941 and 1945. Roughly 15,000 of them were children. At least 33,000 died of contagion or starvation. 88,000 were dispatched to Auschwitz or other extermination camps, where they were gassed, usually on the day of arrival. Of the children, no more than 1100 survived. Of the total transient population, there were only 17,247 verified survivors -- 17,247 witnesses to the Holocaust.
Among the Jews at Theresienstadt were some 470 Danish Jews who had not been successfully smuggled away to Sweden. The Danish government to the bold step of demanding that the International Red Cross be allowed to inspect the camp, and on June 23rd, 1944, such an inspection took place. The Germans prepared a mammoth hoax, cleaning, painting, building false fronts for shops, evacuating the sick and scrawny and cutting the population of prisoners to hastening the dispatch of thousands to Auschwitz. Theresienstadt had from the beginning been the "clearing house" for the Jewish intellectual elite, especially of Czechoslovakia. For propaganda purposes, Jews there were permitted certain cultural activities, under censorship. Thus the Red Cross was shown a thriving ghetto in which people conducted art classes, educated children, and performed music of all sorts - cabaret songs, Schubertian Lieder, modernist music not tolerated in Germany, even a children's opera. A film was made, to show the world the humanity of the Third Reich... The makers of the film were immediately sent to be executed. The composers of the music, including the opera, were soon sent to Auschwitz. Three of the composers on this CD - Hans Krasa, Pavel Haas, and Viktor Ullman - were sent to Auschwitz together on October 15th, 1944, and gassed immediately when they arrived.
One inmate of the death-to-come camp at Theresienstadt was a nurse, Ilse Weber, who wrote at least 60 songs which she sang during her night rounds among the sick. The first song on this CD, in the proper German of her murderers, begins like this:
Ich wandre durch Theresienstadt,
das Herz so schwer wie Blei.
Bis jäh mein Weg ein Ende hat,
dort knapp an der Bastei.
I wander through Theresienstadt,
my heart as heavy as lead.
Till suddenly my way ends
right there at the barrier.
When a throng of sick children were shipped from Theresienstadt to the death camp, Ilse Weber voluntarily accompanied them. Eyewitnesses report that in the gas chamber, she sang to the children her own lullaby, Wiegala, included on this CD.
Swedish opera star Anne Sofie von Otter and baritone Christian Gerhaher sing the 25 pieces of music composed by inmates of Theresienstadt with respect and pathos. Von Otter says: "I felt and feel profoundly moved by thoughts of the cruel and terrifying fate of these inncoent prisoners, of all the human beings, young and old, whose existence was obliterated by the Nazis."
This is a CD you need to own. The next time your humanity is insulted by the presence of a Holocaust-denier - there are such execrable creatures here in America - play this CD for him or her. Let's extend that: the next time any preacher of racial or religious hatred, any political scare-monger, any demonizer of immigrants, any ranter against cultural co-existence assaults your decency and intelligence, tell her or him the story of Theresienstadt.
Customer Rating:
Summary: wonderful musical tribute
Comment: Terezi'n/Theresienstadt by Anne Sofie Von Otter, Benct Forsberg, Christian Gerhaher and Daniel Hope is a wonderful musical tribute to the musicians murdered by the Nazis in the "model" concentration camp, Terezi'n. It is lyrical and lovely and worthy of listening to for many hours. I participate in an annual Holocaust Remembrance program, and I am trying to figure out how we can incorporate this CD into the program. I am pleased to have purchased it.
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Summary: CD of the year
Comment: "CD of the year" is what Jessica Duchen called this stunningly beautiful recording at her blog on Dec. 21, 2007: [...]. She wrote, in full:
"CD of the year: Terezin, recorded by Anne Sofie von Otter with Bengt Forsberg, Daniel Hope and friends. This is one of the most extraordinary discs that's ever come my way, and the most devastating. Ilse Weber, a young nurse, volunteered to go with the sick children of Terezin to death at Auschwitz so that she could take care of them em route; her songs are the heart of this recording. It's said she sang 'Wiegala' with the children in the gas chamber. The CD also features music by Pavel Haas, Hans Krasa and the solo violin sonata by Erwin Schulhoff, plus some amazing, black-humoured cabaret songs."
I will add that some of the songs are about being at Terezin (or leaving it to be murdered at Auschwitz), and some of these are unbearably sad, but others are sprightly. Some of the songs are poems unrelated to the Holocaust that composers set to music while at Terezin. The songs are sung in Czech or German, with the booklet containing translations into English and French as well. Some leave melodies running through your head, while others are more challenging, but all are wonderful. This CD is beautiful beyond words -- at least any words that I can come up with.
If you'd like to learn more about this music and its composers and performances, I recommend Music In Terezin: 1941-1945, by Joza Karas. It is not much as literature, but it contains the facts about the music at this concentration camp.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Haunting and Beautiful
Comment: I truly hope that this album is released in the US soon. I resorted to buying the 320Kb MP3 download directly from DG's website; but I assure you that this warrents a much wider distribution.
Anne Sofie von Otter is, I admit, my personal favorite singer. She simply would not release anything that was not fabulous. But that is not why I love this release.
This music stands, like other concentration camp music, as the ultimate statement of human will. In conditions as unbearable as those in Theresienstadt, men and woman survived by this music. It demonstrates human strength and the human ability to create beauty even from horror.
The performances are impeccable; including really beautiful German and Yiddish diction, sensitivity, and technical skills. The music stands on it's own as Leider and Chamber Music, even exclusive of it's original environment. Together, they make for a very poignant tribute to the millions who perished in this time period.
It is simply stunning.
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