[Han Jeongho's Classic Lounge] Why Was the 'Music of the Holocaust' Held in Gwangju?

75th Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation and Classical Music

Han Jeong-ho, Guest Reporter · CEO of Etoile Classic & Consulting

At the dawn of the new year 2020, the classical music world was abuzz with plans to commemorate the 250th anniversary of composer Ludwig van Beethoven's (1770?1827) birth. Last month, at the Salzburg Festival celebrating its 100th anniversary, Jewish pianist Igor Levit performed all 32 Beethoven sonatas, but due to the impact of COVID-19, most attempts to encompass Beethoven's works regardless of region were canceled. Paradoxically, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) prompts a reconsideration of the commercial exploitation of composers through birth and death anniversaries.

In contrast, the quiet movement commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi extermination camps continues steadily. On January 26, Pope Francis appealed to future generations to remember the Holocaust that occurred at Auschwitz during a mass, delivering the message, "If memory is lost, the future is destroyed." The International Auschwitz Committee awarded the 'Gift of Remembrance' to Levit, following German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Pope Francis.

Although born in Russia, Levit grew up in Germany and harshly criticized far-right neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism attempting to enter real politics at the award ceremony. A survey conducted earlier this year in Germany revealed that about 40% of respondents around the age of 15 did not know the significance of Auschwitz. Merkel, Pope Francis, and Levit each resist the trend of forgetting the mass extermination issue in their respective positions and roles.

Since German philosopher Theodor Adorno (1903?1969) declared, "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric," the German and French art worlds have mainly addressed the camp issue through literature, theater, and film. French writer Jean Cayrol (1911?2005) opposed Adorno by defining "the essence of literature as disappearance," emphasizing that artistic reflection based on historical understanding is necessary to expand the scope of reality depicted by art.

Lee Sang-bin, president of the Korean Association for Comparative Literature and Culture, who studied the issue of artistic representation of camps, pointed out that while World War II victorious countries such as the UK and the US freely aestheticize the Shoah (Hebrew for "catastrophe") across artistic genres, Germany and France show strong resistance to aesthetic approaches involving fictional elements through literature and film. Jewish Italian writer Primo Levi (1919?1987) raised the possibility of distortion of camp memories in autobiographical texts such as memoirs and diaries.

Compared to literature and film, music is relatively free from the conflict between fact and fiction in camp discourse. While writer Romain Gary (1914?1980), who did not experience the camps, relied on imagination, Levit confronts Auschwitz and Beethoven from the standpoint that "the present is determined by the way we face the past."

After performing the complete Beethoven piano sonatas at the Salzburg Festival, pianist Igor Levit strongly condemned anti-Semitism. Photo by Robbie Lawrence

Movement to Remember Camp Tragedies Grows Stronger than Beethoven Birth Commemoration Buried by COVID-19
Jewish Pianist Levit Strongly Condemns Neo-Nazism and Anti-Semitism... Resists Massacre Issues and Forgetting

Levit was at the center of conflicts in the European music scene surrounding Auschwitz in 2018. When the European equivalent of the Grammy Awards, the Echo Awards, selected hip-hop artists Kollegah and Farid Bang, whose lyrics disparaged Auschwitz prisoners, as winners in April 2018, Levit led a campaign to abolish the awards ceremony. Jewish conductor Daniel Barenboim and violinist Renaud Capu?on joined him, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra removed past Echo Classical Award wins from their profiles. Due to their protests, the Echo Awards were abolished in 2018 and replaced by the newly established Opus Klassik Awards.

Levit pointed out that among immigrant groups in Germany, anti-Nazi education is not properly implemented in the hip-hop scene. The debate over whether Auschwitz is an untouchable subject within the realm of rap and hip-hop, which often challenges and provokes the existing order, has temporarily subsided.

A well-known classical piece related to the camps is Olivier Messiaen's (1908?1992) "Quatuor pour la fin du temps" ("Quartet for the End of Time"). Messiaen composed this work while imprisoned in the G?rlitz camp as a French soldier captured by the German army in 1940. The camp was lenient toward entertainment, with orchestras and jazz bands in the barracks, and upon learning of Messiaen's previous fame, he was transferred to a special barracks to focus on composition. Messiaen completed the quartet for cello, violin, clarinet, and piano?available instruments in the camp?and premiered it for fellow prisoners.

Olivier Messiaen composed and performed the Quartet for the End of Time in a prisoner-of-war camp. (C) Classical Music Indy

In the 21st century, the Auschwitz victim receiving belated recognition is Czech composer Pavel Haas (1899?1944). He experimented with various styles across chamber music, symphonies, and operas, but the Nazis labeled him a "degenerate composer" and transferred him to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1941. Although he was allowed to compose and conduct during imprisonment, Haas died in a gas chamber shortly after composing music for a Nazi propaganda film. Conductor Karel An?erl (1908?1973), who was in the same line, testified that Haas, who suffered from asthma, coughed in the gas chamber queue and was killed. An?erl lost his entire family in the camp and was the sole survivor. The Pavel Haas Quartet, formed by Czech musicians, has brought attention to Haas's legacy.

Composer Viktor Ullmann (1898?1944), also from Czech Silesia, has similarly gained attention through recordings and performances. Like Haas, he was branded a degenerate musician by the Nazis and murdered in the Auschwitz gas chamber. Among his seven piano sonatas, Nos. 1?4 were composed in Prague, and Nos. 5?7 in the camp. Before imprisonment, he studied under Schoenberg but did not strongly embrace atonality, instead expressing reverence for Mahler and Mozart in his piano works. Musicians calmly examine Ullmann's path through his scores rather than written records.

Works by Soviet composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919?1996), originally from Poland, also shine in connection with camp issues. In 2010, the Bregenz Festival staged Weinberg's opera "The Passenger," conducted by Teodor Currentzis. The work is based on a play by Zofia Posmysz, a survivor of Auschwitz, depicting the relationship between two women (guard and prisoner) on a ship traveling to Brazil after World War II. Weinberg fled to the Soviet Union following the Nazi invasion of Poland and lost his entire family in the Holocaust.

The Weinberg opera "The Passenger" deals with the tension between two women who survived the Holocaust. (C) Lynn Lane

Music in Jewish collective camps served multiple purposes. The character of music used between ghettos, where Jews lived collectively, and extermination camps, where mass killings occurred, differed. Upon arrival at camps, musicians played Johann Strauss waltzes and Leh?r's "The Merry Widow" at the disembarkation points to welcome prisoners. The Nazis used music to instill the perception that life there was not much different from society, calming prisoners.

When prisoners went to work, Schubert's military marches were repeatedly played, allowing SS officers to momentarily forget the guilt of their murderous duties. Through the refined culture of "music," the Nazis maintained values they wished to protect. Music was an essential element in camp operations under the Nazis.

Historical research has debunked the myth that camp music was simply a symbol of "spiritual resistance" transcending tragic reality. Cheryl Gillbert, a history professor at the University of Southampton, defined music in her book "Music of the Holocaust" as "a means for people inside the camps to connect with the outside world." She emphasized that "songs were needed as a repository of vocal memory to testify about what happened there." As the generation that can "testify" disappears, and society passes through periods of "memory" and "mourning" to reach the "history" phase, art requires aesthetic contrasts by genre on how to engage with Auschwitz's past beyond the moral duty of "remembering."

Music events addressing Auschwitz issues are rare in Korea. Last December, the Gwangju Philharmonic Orchestra held a special concert themed "Holocaust and Music ? Music of Nazi Victims." Works by composers Pavel Haas and Hans Kr?sa (1899?1944), who died in Auschwitz, were featured. Professor Choi Yoo-jun of Chonnam National University, who participated in the planning, pointed out that "music created in the face of death in camps offers various questions and reflections on humanity under extreme conditions."

If classical musicians and others in Korea seek opportunities to contemplate and reflect on music and humanity, Gwangju, with its experience of democratic uprisings, is an optimal place to embody musical "locality" in many respects.

Guest Reporter, Etoile Classic & Consulting CEO