Welcome to the final post in this series. I find it difficult to believe that forty-nine posts have come and gone, with today marking post #50. Where has the time gone? When I set out to create this series I knew very little about fugues and cantatas and symphony form. I was familiar with some of the more well known names such as Mozart, Beethoven and Handel, but other than that, I did not know their stories or why they composed what they did nor for whom. As a result of this series I hope that you, like me, have developed a keener sense of the relationship between classical music and history, between the composers who helped to shape history as well as reflecting it, and how the creativity inherent in these compositions has grown and broadened thanks to the courage of those who used their creative genius to push back against the boundaries of what music was expected to be. For my final post in this series, I have decided to close with a pair of stories about how music inspires us, providing hope when life looks most bleak. In both Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem” and Beethoven’s famous Ninth Symphony, the impact of each work has lived on far beyond being merely a part of each composer’s rich legacy. In both cases, these two compositions highlight the strength of the human spirit and have served/continue to serve as anthems around the world that promote peace, compassion and equality. Thank you all for following along throughout the entire course of this series. It has been my honour to have written these words for you. The time is at hand. Let’s begin our final two stories.
I will start with Beethoven’s glorious Ninth Symphony. As you may be aware, all symphonies from Beethoven’s time consisted of three to four standard parts. It is from the closing movement of his Ninth Symphony that Beethoven created for the world what is known as “Ode To Joy”. Ludwig van Beethoven possessed many creative gifts when it came to composing his music, but the fuel that inspired him most came from his belief in individual freedom and equality. It was this belief that caused him to create his Third Symphony (Eroica) based upon the outcome of the French Revolution and the democratic reforms it promised. It was also what inspired him to create his famous Fifth Symphony as he raced to complete it before going deaf. Through wars and oppression and physical health challenges, Beethoven fought to remain a creative force. This is best seen in his final fully completed symphony, the Ninth. By the time Beethoven finished his Ninth Symphony, he was completely deaf. The irony that he created arguably his most beautiful and important work and never actually heard it is profound. But it is also true. Using nothing but his memory of auditory composition and his newfound ability to “hear” by feeling the vibrations from his piano notes as he lay his head on his piano while he played, Beethoven created an innovative musical masterpiece. He was specifically inspired to create this final symphony after reading a poem by German writer and philosopher Friedrich Schiller called An Die Freude (Ode To Joy). In this poem, Schiller speaks of the glory of God and the many gifts we enjoy as humans upon this earth. The essence of the poem is his call for peace and brotherhood and compassion among all people. Beethoven shared this optimistic view. Thus, as he knew his time as a composer was drawing to an end, Beethoven embarked on a mission to translate Schiller’s poem into a symphony. The result was a groundbreaking symphony that was longer than most symphonies, that rearranged the usual formatting structure of the symphony form, as well as created an entire movement based upon human voices rather than the sounds from musical instruments. A symphony created for choir was unheard of at the time. But Beethoven knew that a composition about the potential for humans to exist in harmony required human voices singing in harmony, too. So he went against custom and created the choral movement that we all think of as “Ode To Joy”. It is hard to find a more uplifting and life-affirming piece of music than the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
When Beethoven staged his Ninth Symphony for the first time, he insisted on conducting it even though he couldn’t hear a sound. The orchestra members, along with those members of the choir all took care of Beethoven during the performance and basically ignored his directions as they were often out of sync with the performance as it was happening. The audience knew this and didn’t care. They applauded wildly as the genius of this composition became apparent. Even as they rose to their feet in rapturous applause, Beethoven did not hear it. He needed to have one of the soloists gently take him by the arm and turn him toward the audience in order for him to realize that his symphony was being received so well by so many. Not long afterwards, while working on his Tenth Symphony, Ludwig van Beethoven passed away because of complications from a variety of illnesses and maladies. But his music lives on. “Ode To Joy” has been used as an anthem for today’s European Union. It has been performed at numerous Olympic Games as the world’s athletes gather for friendly competition. It has also been performed at such historic events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in China, as well as the protests in Hong Kong for freedom. Wherever people gather and yearn to be free, this song has been played and sung. Without question, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D Minor is one of the most glorious pieces of music ever created. It is loved by all who believe in peace and freedom.
While there is a sense of symphonic pageantry to any performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the same cannot be said of Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem”. The story of how this composition came to be is nice, but it is the meaning of this composition to those in times of desperation that has created its legacy. First, let me give you the background of its creation.
When Italian composer Gioachino Rossini (the man who created the “William Tell Overture”, among many other famous compositions) passed away, fellow Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, along with a dozen or so other Italian composers, organized the creation of a symphonic tribute. (The term requiem means a composition created for a Catholic funeral). Giuseppe Verdi was known mostly for his operas, including the larger than life opera known as Aida. As he worked on his contribution to Rossini’s requiem, other people involved in the project felt that Verdi was incorporating too many operatic stylings and that his piece wasn’t suitable for performance in a church. Because it was felt that Verdi was being “too showy”, the Rossini tribute bogged down and was abandoned. This infuriated Verdi! Shortly after this, Italy lost another great Arts contributor when writer and poet Alessandro Manzoni passed away. Verdi decided to expand his initial Rossini composition and make it a full fledged requiem to honour both men. He did so on his own and called the finished composition “Messa da Requiem”. This composition was performed in public a short while later and was received with a mixture of adulation from those who admired Verdi’s craftsmanship and the thoughtfulness of his gesture in honouring both men and condemnation from those who felt as though Verdi was attempting to curry favour by creating the tribute on his own. Regardless of where the truth lay in this case, the fact remains that “Messa da Requiem” was created, performed and both Italian greats were honoured appropriately and in a timely manner. But that is not why this composition is so special. In order to understand the emotional impact of this composition, we must journey forward to one of the world’s darkest moments in history…the Holocaust.
In the 1940s, the German government under the direction of Adolf Hitler established a set of formal policies aimed at ridding Germany of all people of Jewish ancestry. At an infamous meeting known as the Wannsee Conference in January of 1942, high government officials met to begin organizing the logistics of carrying out what has become known as “The Final Solution” to the question of how to move all Jewish people out of German occupied territories. Part of the logistical solution that these officials came up with was to establish a series of concentration camps in Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland. Jewish people would be rounded up in their home territories, held in local ghettos established to contain them and then they would be transported by cattle cars along railway lines to these concentration camps where they would be placed into slave labour and/or be executed immediately. By the end of WWII, it was estimated that over six million Jewish people had been killed in these Nazi concentration camps.
One of the questions that emerged in the aftermath of the War was how the Germans managed to set up such an elaborate network of slaughterhouses and kill so many people for so long without being detected by the outside world. A small part of the reason was that they did a good job disguising their intentions through the creation of camps that were used for propaganda purposes. One of these camps was established in a western city in German occupied Czechoslovakia known as Theresienstadt. The camp at Theresienstadt was set up with the purpose of staging photo opportunities for organizations such as The International Red Cross. The idea was that Germany would admit to removing Jewish citizens from German occupied territories but would claim to be treating them humanely while awaiting the opportunity to relocate them to other countries willing to accept them. At the Theresienstadt camp, Jewish prisoners were housed in clean cabins, and they were allowed to wear their own clothes that they had brought with them, but most importantly of all, they were allowed to maintain their cultural traditions. In fact, the camp was even “run” by a council of Jewish leaders that became known as the Council of Elders. However, when the visiting delegations had left and the cameras were turned off, the barbarity of the Nazi guards would return and life at Theresienstadt became as difficult as could be for the Jewish inmates there.
One of those inmates was a man named Rafael Schachter. He was a pianist and composer in his life before the Nazis swept through Czechoslovakia. When Schachter arrived at Theresienstadt camp and discovered that inmates were being allowed to maintain some of their customs and traditions to give the world the illusion that Jewish people were being treated humanely, he immediately set about establishing a choir. Working with the help of others, Schachter was able to dig out a basement beneath one of the barracks being used to house male prisoners. Somehow, a piano was smuggled in and brought into that barrack basement. In his possession, Schachter had a single copy of Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem”, along with a few other pieces of music that he had managed to hide from the guards. Each week, through meticulous planning and cooperation from the non-singing prisoners, Schachter was able to assemble the members of his choir in the basement of the barracks. It was there that he taught them how to sing Verdi’s requiem. By candlelight, in tones that barely registered louder than a whisper, music was brought into the grim world of a Nazi concentration camp. As you can appreciate, membership in the choir dwindled as time went by. Witnesses/survivors from the Theresienstadt camp state that Schachter’s choir was able to perform the “Messa da Requiem” sixteen times before it became Schachter’s turn to leave. His final performance of Verdi’s requiem occurred when German guards forced him and his choir to perform before a contingent of visitors to Theresienstadt by the Red Cross. As SS officers formed a perimeter around the assembled choir, several dozen Jewish men sang words out loud, strongly and definitely, that were written by an Italian opera master about freedom and glory and everlasting life. Schachter was later quoted as saying that he was proud to have been able to sing aloud thoughts that would have been unthinkable to say to the Nazis at any other time. Shortly after this performance, Schachter was placed in a cattle car and shipped to the extermination camp at Auschwitz. As the war was nearing its end and Germany was evacuating the death camps in an attempt to cover their murderous tracks, Schachter was made to walk away with the rest of his fellow emaciated prisoners. He died on the death march just as allied troops liberated Auschwitz.
As the horror of the Holocaust began to become clear, various acts of resistance by Jewsih prisoners began to become known. The Schachter Choir in Theresienstadt was one such act of courage and determination that came to light. As part of the Allied effort to “Never Forget”, many of the concentration camps were preserved as teaching museums. One such camp that was preserved was Theresienstadt. Each year since 1990, memorial ceremonies have been held in which Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem” has been performed in the town. Rehearsals for each performance take place in the actual barracks basement space that Schachter used with his own choir. Never forget.
Whether through the darkness of the human spirit or deafness in the world of sound, music has been used to bring a sense of solidarity, dignity and meaning to the lives of others. Music is not just for the powerful and privileged, it is for everyone. Beethoven knew that. Verdi knew that. People like Rafael Schachter knew that, too. Where there is music, there is hope. Where there is hope, there is life.
Thank you for reading my words for these fifty posts. May the beauty, strength and hopefulness of music fill your lives forever more.
The link to one of my favourite videos ever…a flash mob playing “Ode To Joy” by Beethoven in a town square…can be found here.
***I have told this story before but for anyone who hasn’t heard it…..during the final 33 days of my teaching career I decided to augment the standard curriculum by sharing 33 stories of wonder and magic and heroism as a parting gift to the kids to take with them as I moved on into retirement. Each day I chose an event that had some correlation to the number of days we had left in our year. For example, with 11 days to go, we watched real time news footage of the astronauts of Apollo 11 landing on the moon. With four days to go, the kids got to see The Beatles as they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. On Day #9, we talked about “Ode To Joy”. With every story I shared during those 33 final days, I expressed my hope that they would focus on the beauty and wonder of the world around them. There is truly magic everywhere, if you only take the time to look. This video of the flashmob performing “Ode To Joy” is my proof.
The link to a video for the trailer for a documentary called Defiant Requiem about the efforts of Rafael Schachter to bring Verdi’s “Messa da Requiem” to life in the Theresienstadt concentration camp can be found here. If this video doesn’t stir your emotions, then I don’t know what to tell you. Powerful, powerful stuff. Music matters! It surely does.
The link to the Theresienstadt museum can be found here.
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