Music for survival

Contributors

Bernhard Wulff

Program

Lecture by Bernhard Wulff with musical examples from the tape about his reconstructions of the symphonic works composed by Viktor Ullmann in Terezin concentration camp (Theresienstadt).

In 1989 Bernhard Wulff discovered and reconstructed the manuscripts of two symphonies and an orchestral overture by the composer Viktor Ullmann, a pupil of Arnold Schönberg, in Terezin. Since then, these works have returned to the concert stage and have been performed by many major orchestras around the world. This is the rediscovered music of an era that was brutally interrupted.

The encounter with music that was created under the extreme living conditions of a concentration camp touches on our own relationship to music. We can learn that music is not just an ornament of everyday life, but in some cases can be essential for survival from people who develop enormous creative potential in times of great need; for whom creative activity becomes the only source of hope and is as much a part of survival as food and drink.