14 July 2008

Music from Auschwitz


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miLV0o4AhE4



This movement is actually from the words scratched into a cell wall in the Gestapo's headquarters in Zakopane by Helena Wanda Blazusiakówna, praying to the Holy Mother.

Taken from "HOLOCAUST - A Music Memorial Film from Auschwitz".

For the first time since its liberation, permission was granted for music to be heard in Auschwitz and a number of leading musicians were brought there to perform music for the film.

This part of the film is from Henryk Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. It is performed and filmed in Auschwitz.



http://claudet.club.fr/Terezin/Ullmann/BBCAuschwitzDVD.html :


HENRYK GORECKI
Symphony No. 3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", II Movement
Sinfonietta Cracovia
conducted by John Axelrod
Isabel Bayrakdarian -
soprano solo

A prominent living Polish composer, Gorecki comes from the city of Katowice which is not far from Auschwitz.

The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is one of his best known works, based on poetry connecting with the theme of motherhood.

The text of the second movement, heard in the film, comes from a message found inscribed on a Gestapo prison cell wall in 1944 by an 18 old-year girl, Helena Wanda Blazusiakowna.

The Canadian-Armenian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian gives a powerful performance of the music, not least given that the snowy conditions in which she sings in the film are real.

This movement is actually from the words scratched into the Gestapo's headquarters in Zakopane by Helena Wanda Blazusiakówna, praying to the Holy Mother.