The programme of the event comprises music by Beethoven, Max Bruch, Vittorio Monti and Polish composer Szymon Laks. Featured musicians include Gemma Rosefield and Raphael Wallfisch (cello), Benjamin Nabarro (violin), Simon Callaghan (piano), members of Ensemble 360, and students from the Royal College of Music. British actor Jason Isaacs is the narrator.
Born in 1901, Szymon Laks graduated from the Warsaw Conservatory of Music. In 1926, he moved to Paris, where he continued his musical education and composed. In 1941, he was arrested by the Germans and deported to Auschwitz, where he played the violin in the men’s camp orchestra, and later served as its conductor.
At the end of 1944, Laks was transferred to Dachau, where he was liberated. By mid-May 1945, he was back in Paris and two years later became a French citizen. In addition to composing, he wrote articles for music periodicals as well as books, the latter including Music of Another World, an account of his two years in Auschwitz. He died in 1983 in Paris.
In a programme note for the concert, Wigmore Hall writes on its website: “Incredibly, there were orchestras in most Nazi concentration camps – music became a means of control. Popular ballads conjured an illusion of normality for camp arrivals, while marching tunes imposed order on slave labourers. On Sundays, performing prisoners were forced to entertain their tormentors.”
On January 27, a group of some 50 Holocaust survivors, as well as politicians and royalty from across the world are to take part in a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz by the Soviet Army.
Source: wigmore-hall.org.uk/X/@holocaust_music
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