Browsing through a local record store recently I came across a boxed set
entitled "Forbidden, Not Forgotten - Suppressed Music From 1938-1945."
It encompasses three CDs of music, written by composers who, to quote the
liner notes, "were persecuted, banned, isolated, imprisoned, or killed in
Germany and other European countries in the years between 1933-1945, on
the grounds of their race, religion, or political attitude." Hard to imagine
a set more pertinent to the concerns of this list!  It is a production of
Hommage records in Hamburg, Germany, and distributed by the International
Music Company AG.  I was able to purchase the set here in California for
less than $20!  It is also available from www.amazon.com - no affiliation.

The first two CDs are dedicated to composers from the Theresienstadt
ghetto, later killed in the German extermination camps to a man. The
(somewhat awkwardly translated) liner notes state:

   "...Some 60 kilometers outside Prague...A small 'camp' town was
   created...out of a former imperial and royal castle and garrison
   town and functioned as a collecting point and transit camp for the
   major extermination camps.  It was also a 'token camp' which was
   abused for propaganda purposes to impress international Red Cross
   delegations and was also the location of a documentary film, 'The
   Fuhrer gives a city to the Jews.'"

   "Through the concentration of so many well-known musicians, singers,
   conductors, and composers in one place, as of 1942-1943 Theresienstadt
   was able to develop into a unique, officially accepted music culture
   and production center."

   "...Instruments started turning up one after the other and choirs,
   orchestras and chamber music ensembles were formed.  Works from
   Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Smetana and Janacek
   were rehearsed without sheet music, learned off by heart and performed
   for an audience dressed in prisoner's clothing.  Admission was paid
   for in pieces of bread - in that moment it was of less importance
   than the cultural experience.  There soon followed premieres of the
   works of detained composers."

Disc one is dedicated to Gideon Klein (1919-1945) and Viktor Ullman
(1898-1944).  It contains Klein's 'Partita for Strings (1944)' and Ullmann's
'Piano Sonata No. 7, (1944)' 'Three Hebrew Boy's Choruses, (1943-44)' for
unaccompanied chorus, and 'Three Songs After Poems of Freidrich Holderlin
(1943-44),' for soprano and piano. Unfortunately, librettos are not
provided, but the pieces on this disc are quite remarkable regardless,
particularly Klein's lyrical yet not trite Partita, with its intricate
rhythms, and Ullmann's short choral pieces, simple and touching.

Disc two is dedicated to Pavel Haas (1899-1944) and Hans Krasa
(1889-1944).  It contains Pavel Haas' 'Study for String Orchestra,' and
Krasa's 'Passacaglia and Fugue for String Orchestra,' 'Overture for Small
Chamber Orchestra,' and a complete recording of his opera, 'Brundibar,'
a children's opera in two acts.

Haas' Study is brief, lasting around eight minutes, in four movements.
As you might expect from the title, it occupies a similar sound world
as Klein's Partita, making extensive use of driving ostinatos combined
with a Folk-inspired sense of melody.  It occupies the fascinating middle
ground between late-romantic tonality and the atonal 'abyss of infinite
possibilities.'

What's so striking - and heroic - about Krasa's works is their playfulness
and essential optimism, certainly the last thing one could expect given
the composer's circumstances at the time of their writing.  I can't help
but think of Shostakovich's statement on Jewish folk music: "It's almost
all laughter through tears." Krasa's technique also impresses, especially
in the Chamber Overture, colorful despite its smallish ensemble resources.
In addition, the variety, energy, and thematic transformation in the
Passacaglia from the Passacaglia and Fugue for String Trio is combined
with deft high-speed polyphony in the Fugue to great effect.

Brundibar, a children's opera in two acts, was Krasa's main work while
at Theresienstadt.  To quote the liner notes:

   "Brundibar is the story of the brother and sister Sepperl and
   Annerl they are supposed to fetch milk for their sick brother
   but they have no money.  They try to earn street corners like
   the organ grinder Brundibar but fail.  They are only able to
   collect some money when they are helped by a cat, a dog, and a
   sparrow to sing a lullaby.  Brundibar steals it from them but
   with the help of the animals they are over to find and overpower
   him.  The piece was extremely popular with children due to its
   simplicity, the clear message, and the hidden allusions to the
   circumstances of the day...all the voices and the figures have
   their own characteristics and especially the animals are of a
   loud and childish appeal, without ever appearing too cute."

   "Brundibar also quickly became a plaything of the propagandists
   on account of its sensationally positive effect and had to serve
   as fabricated proof of the 'good and normal' treatment of the
   Jews in Theresienstadt at all imaginable official occasions and
   visits.  Rehearsals and performances were interrupted time and
   time again by the transportations until finally the last of the
   children left Theresienstadt for good at the end of September
   1944.  Hans Krasa followed them just a few days later and was
   murdered in Auschwitz in October 1944."

   "Brundibar is an important document of unbroken human hope and
   is eternally valid in its message - we can only exist if we are
   united when confronted with evil."

Brundibar is the longest, and in some ways the most brilliant, piece
in the set in question, and even though I don't understand a word of it,
I'm quite fond of it.  It's not difficult to follow the storyline even
without the libretto.  The singers are all children, and do a really
fine job, - even their occasional insecure notes are thoroughly idiomatic
and add character.  I really don't have enough words of praise for this
piece!  Together with disc three, it is the recording I most often like
to hear on the set.

It's hard to imagine a more powerful contrast in style than between
Krasa's music on disc two and the music of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, a
German and conscientious objector, on disc three.  The only composer
included in "Forbidden, Not Forgotten" to have survived the war, Hartmann
is probably also the most well-known.  His Symphonies are works of great
genius, and one or two complete recordings of his eight are available,
at least.  These works aren't included on disc three of "Forbidden, Not
Forgotten," but perhaps his most popular piece is: the Concerto Funebre
for violin and orchestra, in four movements.

Hartmann's music is more 'modernist' than the music on the previous two
discs; indeed, it seems shot through with inescapable sorrow and anger.
It's no accident that the overall mood that in addition that in addition
to the 'Funeral Concerto,' the longest piece on this disc is a 'Funeral
March' in a piano sonata.  That sonata is entitled, "Sonata, April 27
1945." It is in three movements, and the Funeral March dominates - eleven
minutes to the first and thirds' three-and-a-half and five, respectively.
Its use of sustained tone clusters and jagged figurations evokes an
inescapable atmosphere of pain.

The Concert Funebre follows, and I think this work is familiar enough
that additional comment is pretty unnecessary; it is what it purports
to be.  The moments that most remain in my mind are the extremely dramatic
uses of the violin's extreme upper registers - "a voice crying out in a
wilderness of privation."

Last on the disc is the Second String Quartet; using similar
instrumentation as the Krasa Passacaglia and Fugue, it's a totally
different world, one transfigured by the sorrow of the Nazi regime's
totalitarianism and murderousness.  Hartmann's works seem to attempt to
plumb the 'madding depths,' those sorrows only alluded to in the pieces
of the other two discs.  This is ironic, in a way, as Hartmann was the
only composer herein to actually live through the war.  It is almost as
if he saw his role as to express the terror which those millions murdered
by the Germans and their allies were unable to express.  And it is
appropriate that those with voice would speak for those so cruelly
rendered mute.

The performers on all three discs are primarily Italians, - the Quartetto
d'archi di Venezia, and the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, for example.
There's nothing to complain about and much to praise in the performances
of any of the many musicians involved, and recording quality is high,
there being no irritating hisses or pops that I could hear on my relatively
high-quality soundsystem.  These facts, combined with the general
difficulty or impossibility of finding these works in recording from
other sources, and the extremely generous pricing of the set, makes
"Forbidden, Not Forgotten" an invaluable document of that music in the
human spirit which it is impossible to silence.

- John R. Sisk