THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 22, 1995 TAG: 9503220270
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Music review
SOURCE: BY MARK MOBLEY, MUSIC CRITIC
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 38 lines
The Nazi Holocaust left more than shattered families and tattooed forearms. There is a musical legacy - of beautiful pieces written and played in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.
Music from Terezin was at the heart of a concert by the Audubon String Quartet Tuesday at the Jewish Community Center of Tidewater. In 75 minutes of lively performance and engaging conversation, the quartet paid tribute to artists interned at the camp, most of whom were transported to the gas chambers of Auschwitz. It was a moving but not wrenching evening, thanks to the players' passion and the variety and triumphant humanity of the works.
The program began with a sweet tune. Then first violinist David Erlich explained that it was a ``Song Without Words'' by Terezin inmate Frantisek Domazlicky. Erlich went on to say that Terezin was unlike any other Nazi prison. Famous Czech artists were sent there and allowed to compose, to play, to sing with a freedom denied them outside.
The quartet, which is in residence at Virginia Tech, surveyed both serious and light works by a variety of composers. Among the most interesting were the comic, Janacek-like ``Coach, Coachman and Horse'' by Pavel Haas and a wide-ranging Theme and Variations on a lovely, quirky song by Hans Krasa.
But perhaps the most eloquent testimony to the enduring scars of the Holocaust came from violist Doris Lederer. As Erlich revealed that her parents were Terezin survivors, and that her father was a particularly important musician there, she sat nervously fingering her viola, adding vibrato to a silent song of pain. by CNB