Thomas Pasatieri: Letter to Warsaw

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
This recording of a cycle of six songs separated by instrumental sections represents a fusion of two cultural worlds widely separated in time and space but strangely compatible in style and spirit. The texts are by Pola Braun, a Polish poet and cabaret artist born in 1910; two of the poems were written in the Warsaw ghetto, while the rest were written at the Majdanek concentration camp, where she was murdered in 1943. Before her deportation, Braun belonged to a literary group that met at the ghetto's "Szuka" café-cabaret; among its members was the pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, whose war-time memoir became the basis for the film "The Pianist." The music is by Thomas Pasatieri, a prolific American composer of more than 400 songs and numerous operas. This background gives him a singular affinity for the cabaret-inflected but haunting, tragic nature of the poetry. His settings of Barbara Milewski's English translations follow the prosody with natural simplicity, and the instrumental accompaniments and interludes, played beautifully and very expressively by the ensemble, underline mood and atmosphere. The poems focus on the women's experience of the Holocaust with an anguish of numbing, wrenching depth and intensity. One describing four mothers who have lost their sons and, though of different nationalities, mourning them with the same maternal despair, is truly unbearable. The final song, sung in Hebrew, is the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead, the "Kaddish." Is this hymn of praise intended to contrast man's inhumanity with the greatness of God, or to cry out to Him for letting it run amok? The work was written for Gerard Schwarz and Jane Eaglen, who sings it with deep commitment; her climaxes are vocally thrilling and emotionally riveting. It is dedicated to Mina Miller, who founded Music of Remembrance in 1998 in Seattle to keep alive the Holocaust musicians' memory and art. --Edith Eisler

Album Description
WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING Letter to Warsaw is the extraordinary musical setting of one woman’s intimate first-hand account of life in the grip of the Holocaust. American composer Thomas Pasatieri created this powerful song cycle in 2003, setting six texts by poet/cabaret artist Pola Braun. Braun wrote these texts while in the Warsaw ghetto and in the Majdanek concentration camp, where she perished in 1943. Letter to Warsaw opens a window to the emotional life of all women trapped in the web of Holocaust tragedy. Braun’s voice of witness ensures that she will not be swallowed up by the anonymity of history. Through Pasatieri’s music, her words tell a story and remind us that each victim of the Holocaust was an individual. Letter to Warsaw was commissioned by Music of Remembrance, a Seattle based non-profit organization dedicated to remembering Holocaust musicians and their art.

Tracks:

Jew
Allegro Mesto
Tsurik A Heym
Allegro
Andante
Moderato Martiale
Mother
Allegro Molto
Letter To Warsaw
Allegro Martiale
Lento
An Ordinary Day - Moving Day - Kaddish

Amazon.com

This recording of a cycle of six songs separated by instrumental sections represents a fusion of two cultural worlds widely separated in time and space but strangely compatible in style and spirit. The texts are by Pola Braun, a Polish poet and cabaret artist born in 1910; two of the poems were written in the Warsaw ghetto, while the rest were written at the Majdanek concentration camp, where she was murdered in 1943. Before her deportation, Braun belonged to a literary group that met at the ghetto's "Szuka" café-cabaret; among its members was the pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, whose war-time memoir became the basis for the film "The Pianist." The music is by Thomas Pasatieri, a prolific American composer of more than 400 songs and numerous operas. This background gives him a singular affinity for the cabaret-inflected but haunting, tragic nature of the poetry. His settings of Barbara Milewski's English translations follow the prosody with natural simplicity, and the instrumental accompaniments and interludes, played beautifully and very expressively by the ensemble, underline mood and atmosphere. The poems focus on the women's experience of the Holocaust with an anguish of numbing, wrenching depth and intensity. One describing four mothers who have lost their sons and, though of different nationalities, mourning them with the same maternal despair, is truly unbearable. The final song, sung in Hebrew, is the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead, the "Kaddish." Is this hymn of praise intended to contrast man's inhumanity with the greatness of God, or to cry out to Him for letting it run amok? The work was written for Gerard Schwarz and Jane Eaglen, who sings it with deep commitment; her climaxes are vocally thrilling and emotionally riveting. It is dedicated to Mina Miller, who founded Music of Remembrance in 1998 in Seattle to keep alive the Holocaust musicians' memory and art. --Edith Eisler

Album Description

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING Letter to Warsaw is the extraordinary musical setting of one woman's intimate first-hand account of life in the grip of the Holocaust. American composer Thomas Pasatieri created this powerful song cycle in 2003, setting six texts by poet/cabaret artist Pola Braun. Braun wrote these texts while in the Warsaw ghetto and in the Majdanek concentration camp, where she perished in 1943. Letter to Warsaw opens a window to the emotional life of all women trapped in the web of Holocaust tragedy. Braun's voice of witness ensures that she will not be swallowed up by the anonymity of history. Through Pasatieri's music, her words tell a story and remind us that each victim of the Holocaust was an individual. Letter to Warsaw was commissioned by Music of Remembrance, a Seattle based non-profit organization dedicated to remembering Holocaust musicians and their art.

Customer Reviews:

Pasatieri's "Letter to Warsaw".......2005-05-17

Thomas Pasatieri's song-cycle for soprano and orchestra, "Letter to Warsaw" (2003)is a worthy companion to Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 and Beveridge's "Yizkor Requiem" as a large-scale work written in commemoration of the Holocaust. Pasatieri (b. 1945) is an American composer of opera and song. This CD was my first experience with his music. He composed the work under a commission from Music of Remembrance, a Seattle-based organization formed in 1998 dedicated to commemorating Holocaust musicians. "Letter to Warsaw" received its first performance from Music of Remembrance on May 10, 2004, Holocaust Memorial Day, in Seattle.

"Music of Remembrance" is a song-cycle of approximately 70 minutes in which six songs for soprano solo, movingly performed here by Jane Eaglen, alternate with orchestral sections. The work is directed by Gerald Schwarz with Mina Miller, the driector of Music of Remembrance, playing the piano, which figures importantly in this score. The texts were composed by Pola Braun (b; 1910), a Warsaw poet and cabaret singer. Braun was deported from Warsaw in 1942 and killed at Treblinka in November, 1943. Two of the six poems, "Jew" (no. 1) and "Tsurik a Heym" (no. 3) were written in Warsaw while the remaining poems, "Mother" (no. 7), "Letter to Warsaw" (no. 9), and "an ordinary day" and "moving day" (no. 12) were written at Treblinka. The final poem is a setting of the Jewish Mourner's Kaddish, the prayer for the dead.

I tend to be skeptical of topical pieces. But "Prayer for Warsaw" succeeds both as a commemoration of the Holocaust and as a work of music. The music has an almost immediate, visceral appeal; and it tugs at the heart from the opening few bars in which the violins sing a song of grief. Ms. Englen has a darkly-hued soprano voice which brings out the emotion, passion, and sorrow in Braun's texts. I thought the vocal writing moves beatifully between declamation and lyricism, with a moment of cabaret-style chanteuse singing in the climactic "Letter to Warsaw". The orchestral sections are also effective, with long melodies in the strings alternating with solos for brass, flute, and clarinet. At times the work has a klezmer-like feel. In particular, sections 4-6 of the work are an integrated piece of orchestral writing within the framework of the piece as a whole. I was reminded of Mendelssohn's symphony no. 2 "Lobesgang" at times, with its alternating voice and orchestral sections and its spiritual theme, as well as of the more obvious antecedents in Gorecki and Beveridge.

This work is part of the Naxos "American Classics" series and sells at a budget price. It includes full and informative program notes as well as the song texts. This disk will appeal to those listeners wanting to explore new works of contemporary American music as well as to those listeners wanting to hear artistic meditations on the Holocaust.

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