Programme
Max Brod (1884–1968)
Tod und Paradies. Zwei Lieder nach Texten von Franz Kafka (Death and Paradise. Two Songs on Texts by Franz Kafka) Op. 35
Ilse Weber (1903–1944)
Ich wandre durch Theresienstad (I Wander Through Terezín)
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940)
Sbohem a šáteček (Waving Farewell), Op. 14
O skladatelích
Max Brod (1884–1968), a native of Prague, was one of the significant personalities of the Czech-German-Jewish cultural milieu of pre-war Czechoslovakia. A law graduate, he was active as a writer, translator, and composer, authoring 38 musical works. He played the piano from the age of six. He was a member of the Prague Circle, alongside his friends Franz Kafka and Franz Werfel, whose works he promoted. His collaboration with the composer Leoš Janáček was also significant, translating Janáček's operas into German, which helped them achieve international success. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, he was appointed vice president of the Jewish National Council. In 1939, he emigrated with his wife Elsa to then-Palestine. From 1939 to 1968, he was the dramaturg of the Israeli state theatre Habimah, and from 1948 also served as a music critic for the Tel Aviv daily Jedioth Chadashot.
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940) was born in Brno, where she lived and studied before moving to Prague and later to Paris. After the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, she never returned to her homeland. She maintained active contact with the avant-garde of her time, particularly with Bohuslav Martinů, with whom she had a close relationship. Her best-known works include the Military Sinfonietta, Op. 11, which she conducted at its premiere in London in 1938 with the BBC Orchestra. The concert was broadcast to the United States, and the press wrote about the piece in superlatives. Just two years later, Kaprálová, who sympathised with the resistance, died in French exile at the age of 25. Her music has been increasingly performed at concerts and festivals in recent years. Today, one of her best-known songs, Waving Farewell, Op. 14, a meditation on parting and reunion set to the text by Vítězslav Nezval, will be performed. The piece was composed in Kaprálová's final year at the Prague Conservatory.
Ilse Weber (1903–1944). Her texts and music express the grief, shattered dreams, and torment of persecuted musicians deported to the former Josephine fortress in Terezín from 1941 onwards. Weber was born in 1903 in Vítkovice near Ostrava, and although her parents did not want her to pursue the arts, she began writing songs, poems, plays, and stories at an early age, achieving success. Her works were published in newspapers, released in multiple editions, and broadcast on the radio, such as her story Das Trittrollerwettrennen (The Scooter Race, 1927), her fairy-tale play with songs and dances Der blaue Prinz (The Blue Prince, 1928), and Jüdische Kindermärchen (Jewish Fairy Tales, 1928). With the rise of antisemitism in the 1930s, Weber fell silent. After the occupation of the border regions, she moved with her husband and two sons first to Prague and in 1942 was deported to the Terezín ghetto, with only one of her sons sent to safety. In Terezín, Weber worked as a nurse in the children's hospital, reading and singing to the children and trying to give them hope with her texts. In October 1944, she was murdered in Auschwitz, along with her son and the Terezín children she cared for. Her texts and songs, widely known in the camp, were partially smuggled out of the ghetto and later recorded by survivors from memory. Some were accompanied by Weber herself on the guitar. The author of the preserved piano accompaniments, which have a very diverse style, is unknown, and many cannot be reconstructed with certainty. Her husband, who survived the war, compiled her poems and songs into a collection. They were first published in Israel in 1964, and a German edition was released in 1991. Her song Ich wandre durch Theresienstadt (I Wander Through Terezín) is one of her most well-known. “I wander through Terezín, my heart turning to lead,” it resigns, “my path suddenly ending where the fortifications begin... Sadly, I turn back, my eyes veiled by tears: Terezín, Terezín, when will our suffering end, when will we be free again?”
