MPR’s Marianne Combs reports on Chamber Music Society of Minnesota’s presentation of the Midwest premiere of "Camp Songs" - 5 poems from the holocaust set to music.
Many people might imagine music inspired by the holocaust to be mournful, respectful of the dead. What sets these songs apart is their bitter defiance and humor in the face of war and death.
MARIANNE COMBS: When composer and pianist Paul Schoenfeld describes the poetry of Alexander Kulisiewicz, he quotes Joseph Conrad, calling it "the face of a joke on the body of truth."
PAUL SCHOENFELD: "I was very taken when I saw the movie The Producers actually when it first came out. It was one of the best protests to God about the Holocaust that I'd ever heard before since Kulisiewicz had the same idea. He's biting sarcastic poems. They show such dignity and such strength."
MARIANNE COMBS: The Nazis arrested Polish journalist Alexander Kulisiewicz for his political beliefs. He spent six years in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. During that time, he wrote 54 songs mocking Nazi Germany, the lives of the prisoners, and even God. Once liberated, Kulisiewicz devoted much of his life to collecting and documenting the music and poetry created in the Nazi camps.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C, acquired the collection upon Kulisiewicz death in 1982. It was there Paul Schoenfeld discovered his work and was immediately drawn to its character and sarcasm.
PAUL SCHOENFELD: Oh, yeah. That's really sticking out the third finger of both hands and shaking it hard.
MARIANNE COMBS: Schoenfeld set Kulisiewicz's songs to grand lively music that draws together Gustav Mahler, Kurt Weill, klezmer, folk and jazz. Vocalist Maria Jette sings three of the Camp Songs, including one titled The Corpse Carrier's Tango. It's about a prisoner who works in the camp crematorium. Eventually, he's kicked to death by soldiers.
MARIA JETTE: It kind of sets the scene where you're surrounded by horror, but at least it's nice, and cozy and warm.
[MARIA JETTE, THE CORPSE CARRIER'S TANGO"]
MARIA JETTE: Oh, beautiful, lovely Lady Death. OK. Poor thing. She's looking for a partner. And you, dear fellow, are the guy that she's ogling. She'll eat you right up with her hungry eyes. You ask her to rendezvous at the corpse seller, and there you allow her to gaze at your festering wound. Soon its stink will give way to a tender, decadent tete-a-tete.
[MARIA JETTE, THE CORPSE CARRIER'S TANGO"]
MARIA JETTE: And if they've got a disturbed, perverse charm to them. They've got an ironic, extremely dark humor, which makes them a little bit easier to swallow, I think.
MARIANNE COMBS: Jette says the energy in the language and music makes these songs inspiring. They evoke the grim determination needed to survive such horrid circumstances. She finds the songs particularly relevant today.
MARIA JETTE: Especially during times of war to do pieces like this, it feels heavy in a good way, I guess. But it's hard to sing music like this even during happy times. But it feels important.
MARIANNE COMBS: Camp Songs was commissioned by Music of Remembrance, a non-profit organization dedicated to remembering Holocaust musicians through their art. Composer and pianist Paul Schoenfeld performs camp songs with the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota this Sunday at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul.
I'm Marianne Combs, Minnesota Public Radio.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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