Hans Krása - Tanec String Trio

Live performance from April 2, 2023 at St. Mark's Anglican Church, Arlington Texas. A production of Mount Vernon Music.

Mark Miller, violin
Ute Miller, viola
Laura Ospina, cello

Hans Krása received instruction on violin and piano as a child, and pursued formal study of composition at the Music Academy in his native Prague. After graduation he worked in the Neues Deutsches Theater (now the State Opera) in Prague, where he met Alexander Zemlinsky, who mentored him in Berlin and introduced him to other major German and French composers. He gained acclaim for his art songs and chamber music, symphonic works which were performed internationally, and an opera based on the novel Uncle’s Dream by Dostoyevsky. He wrote the children’s opera Brundibár for the Jewish orphanage in Prague, eventually staging it multiple times for the ghetto/concentration camp/transit station of Terezin (Nazi name “Theresienstadt”) after his arrest in the summer of 1942. His music was appropriated for an infamous propaganda film made by the Nazis in 1944 to show the world how well they treated their Jewish prisoners. Red Cross observers unwittingly aided the effort by commenting on the culture and lack of crowding at Terezin, something achieved prior to their visit by mass deportations to Auschwitz.

Krása responded to his imprisonment with brilliant creativity, composing and performing and conducting for his fellow inmates. He wrote Tanec (Dance) not long before his own final journey by train, to Auschwitz, where he was immediately killed.

It is satisfying to hear this short (six minutes) trio simply as an edgy Czech folk dance, albeit one created in defiance of horrifying circumstances. But one can also let the details of the music convey the reality of Krása’s ordeal. Those repeated notes of the cello at the opening, don’t they sound like a rumbling train, and why does that violin melody remind us of some mean child’s taunt? A sad, dissonant, almost prayerful interlude provides brief respite before the menacing music returns, with the viola driving the piece to a close, playing the mocking melody heard moments earlier in the violin.

Hans Krása was 44 years old when he died in an Auschwitz gas chamber along with fellow composers Gideon Klein, Victor Ullmann and Pavel Haas. As if the crime of mass murder were not enough, the fascist state perpetrated a massive cultural theft by denying humanity untold works of art and music. Against such a sin, the music of composers like Krása speaks to us even now, as a warning.
(Notes by Mark Miller)