Czech Music Encore: The Terezin Ghetto children's opera Brundibar in a new English recording
It is quite possible that you will have heard Hans Krasa's famous children's opera Brundibar, but it is less likely that you will have heard it performed in English. Naxos has now come out with a first English language recording.
We recently featured music by Hans Krasa on Encore, and as we mentioned
then, he is, tragically, best known today not for his enormous musical
gifts, but for the fact that, like many gifted Czech and German Jewish
musicians, he was transported during the German occupation to the ghetto
in Terezin (Theresienstadt), and later to Auschwitz, where he perished.
Hans Krasa
The children's opera Brundibar was staged 55 times in Terezin by the
children imprisoned there. It is chilling to think that the cast had to be
renewed constantly as a growing number of the children were transported to
Auschwitz.
The performance on this CD is by a group called Music of Remembrance,
along with the Northwest Boys Choir - Joseph Crnko, director - from
Seattle. Lovely music, and nicely written for children
It was composed just before Krasa's internment. Amazingly Krasa did continue writing music in the appalling conditions of Terezin, and the CD also includes his Overture for Small Orchestra, written for the players he had at his disposal in the ghetto - that is 2 clarinets, 2 trumpets, 4 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos and piano.
There are reports from survivors that the Nazi commandants pushed him to write this as an overture to Brundibar, which was hugely popular among the prisoners, because the Nazis thought that, to be a proper opera, Brundibar needed an overture. As it uses themes from the opera, this is not unlikely.
CDs reviewed in this programme are provided by Siroky Dvur
