TEREZIN MUSIC FOUNDATION
  • Welcome
    • Our Mission & Work
    • Who We Are >
      • Founder/Director >
        • Senate Honors for Mark Ludwig
      • Board
      • Artists
      • TMF Educator Anna Ornstein
      • TMF Staff
  • Concerts & Tours
    • Concert Films
    • A TMF Prague Spring Festival Concert
    • Tours
  • Commissions
    • Complete list of commissions
    • Commission Programs
    • Commissions Advisory Council
    • Sponsor a TMF Commission
  • Education
    • Education >
      • Lectures
      • Curriculum Guide
      • Master classes
      • TMF educator Simon Gronowski
      • TMF Educator Anna Ornstein
      • Anna Ornstein: "Could It Happen Here?"
      • TMF Educator Edgar Krasa, in memoriam
  • Listen
    • Listen >
      • TMF Music on CD >
        • "Previn Plays Previn" CD
        • Viktor Kalabis CD
    • Tracks of the Month, 2016-22
    • A TMF Prague Spring Festival Concert
    • Our Will to Live: Music Tracks
  • Connect
    • Join our mailing list
    • Press
    • Donate
    • TMF Staff
    • Volunteer
  • Donate
    • Donate
    • Sponsor a TMF Commission
    • Raise funds
    • Volunteer
  • Event Signup Confirmation

Track of the Month: August


Hans Krasa's Passacaglia movement from his String Trio ​(Terezín 1944)

In the Passacaglia movement of his string trio, Hans Krása masterfully weaves hauntingly rich sonorities. This last complete work was composed in August 1944 —  just weeks before he was sent to the gas chambers of Auschwitz on October 16, 1944. Performed and recorded by Si-Jing Huang, violin; Mark Ludwig viola; and Sato Knudsen, cello.
Picture
HANS KRASA (1899-1944) was a leading figure of the cultural life of Terezín and is best remembered as the composer of the children's opera "Brundibar" ("The Bumble Bee"). He was an important member of the Czech- and German-speaking artistic community that defined Prague's distinctive cultural life in the first decades of the twentieth century. His youthful works include song cycles, several chamber works, a cantata, and an opera based on a Dostoevsky story. His 1923 symphony for small orchestra was performed in Zurich by his mentor Alexander Zemlinsky, the Boston Symphony with Serge Koussevitsky, and the Philadelphia Orchestra with Leopold Stokowski (1926-27). While Krása's style was influenced by Stravinsky, Mahler, early Schönberg, and French impressionism, his music remained melodic and lyrical. He wrote, "I am sufficiently daring, as a modern composer, to write melodic music. This reflects my whole attitude to music, whether it is called modern or anything else."

"Brundibar" was the last work Krasa completed before his arrest by the Nazis in 1942. In Terezín, he reworked the opera for the available players, and it was performed there fifty-five times as well as in the infamous propaganda film and a staged International Red Cross Committee visit in 1944. 

Krasa was transported to Auschwitz along with Terezín composers Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, and Gideon Klein. He was murdered there in October 1944.

Picture
Children in the cast of Hans Krasa's "Brundibar" in Terezín.
TEREZÍN MUSIC FOUNDATION  Executive Director Mark Ludwig
TMF is a non-profit organization dedicated to honoring the artist of Terezin with concerts, commissions, and programs in Holocaust education in Europe and the U.S.