Raising the Dead

Seriously...

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.1 • 885 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2016

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

For the past few decades music teacher and pianist Francesco Lotoro has been collecting music written in concentration camps from the Second World War. Francesco's life is entirely given over to recovering the creations of composers and performers, many of them Jewish, who died in the camps. A massive amount of music was written in camps. Classical music by established composers, but also songs, symphonies, sonatas, operas, lullabies, jazz riffs often scribbled on old sacks, toilet paper or scratched into mess tins. Francesco has discovered works by important composers as Hans Krasa, the Czech creator of the masterpiece 'Brundibar', as well as Viktor Ullmann and Gideon Klein - all killed by the Nazis in 1944, but writing music until the very end. Composer Adam Gorb is head of composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Working closely with the BBC Philharmonic, Adam travels to Italy to meet Francesco and together they pick through his 8000 piece archive, much of which has never been heard before. In this special documentary, which broadcasts in the days running up to Holocaust Memorial Day, Adam Gorb returns to Britain with a piece of unfinished music written by Viktor Ullman before his death. This piece will be performed by the Philharmonic for the first time. Producer: Caitlin Smith.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Seriously,
0:05.0	Seriously, with me Testament.
0:07.0	In a small town in southern Italy lives Francesco Latoro,
0:10.0	a pianist and music teacher who was given his life over to one quest. This quest is to recover the
0:16.6	creations of musicians who died in concentration camps. Over the last 20 years Francesco has discovered thousands of songs, symphonies, operas, lullabies, jazz riffs,
0:28.0	often scribbled in dairies, loose pages or even toilet paper.
0:32.0	We joined Jewish composer Adam Gore, he's head of composition at the
0:35.6	Royal Northern College of Music, as he travels to Italy to meet Francesco and work together
0:40.4	to explore these pieces of music, many of which have never been heard before.
0:44.8	In this special Radio 4 documentary, Adam joins the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra performing
0:49.4	a piece written by Victor Aulman on the days leading up to his death in 1944. This is Raising the Dead.
0:57.0	It's taken months to get to this point. The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra is about to start rehearsing a piece of music written in a concentration camp during World War II. Adam Gore, who most of you are able, though, who runs the competition, who runs the
1:20.2	composition department of the wrong of and he's been out to it to lead to the scores.
1:25.0	So I thought it be helpful maybe if Adam just said a few words.
1:28.0	At the top, Adam Gore.
1:30.0	Thank you.
1:31.0	What you're going to be playing. I saw as a sort of handwritten fragment of one movement, then a fragment of another movement.
1:38.0	And what came across is the sort of intensity and how the composer knew exactly what he wanted.
1:43.7	There's a certain sort of white heat of inspiration that I'm sure you're going to recapture
1:47.4	wonderfully.
1:48.4	So thank you. One well's up a bit.
1:55.0	Beyond each page, each sheet, each sketch, each fragment of this music, there is a great history,
	...

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