ŠTETL FEST: HAAS 125/8 & SCHOENBERG 150

PAVEL HAAS
Study for strings
Suite for Oboe and Strings, Op. 17 (originally Suite for Oboe and Piano, arr. Ondřej Kyas)

ARNOLD SCHÖNBERG
Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4

Vilém Veverka oboe
Filharmonie Brno
conductor Alexander Liebreich

With the theme this year of “Jewish trauma in art from Kafka to Barbie”, the multi-genre international ŠTETL FEST affords a glimpse into Jewish culture and history. As part of the festival, Filharmonie Brno will commemorate two major composers of Jewish descent.

When Germans occupied the Czech lands, the Brno-based Pavel Haas (125 years since his birth and 80 years since his death) expressed his feelings in the Suite for Oboe and Piano (1939). In 1941 Haas was interned at the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he composed the Study for Strings (1943) for the local chamber orchestra. Camp officials recorded the premičre of the piece to provide evidence of the “beautiful life” Jews enjoyed in the camp, thus making Haas part of their farcical Nazi propaganda. A month later, the composer was deported to Auschwitz and murdered.

The Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg (150 years since his birth) also suffered Nazi persecution, but was able to escape to the United States. Celebrated for his atonal and twelve-tone music, in his early works he drew on the late Romantic ambience, as shown by both the music and the programme of his one-movement Verklärte Nacht (1899). The music relates and expressively intensifie the story of a woman who, following an affair with a stranger, becomes pregnant, yet is forgiven by her beloved.

The concert sold from 27 May 2024