Never Forget: Weary Air, And then I Saw the Sky, Red Snow

Abstract

Never Forget is a 17-minute chamber piece in three movements. It illuminates the importance of keeping the memory alive for those who suffered in the Holocaust. Never Forget is made for the concert hall but might also be enhanced played in museums, memorials, synagogues etc. The instrumentation for movement one and two is: flute, B-flat clarinet, marimba, harp, piano, violin, viola, 2 cellos, and double bass. The instrumentation for the third movement is a smaller sect of this instrumentation: flute, B-flat clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and cello. The first movement “Weary Air,” paints the fear, uneasiness, loneliness, and tiredness of European Jews in the 1930s. “And then I saw the sky” seeks to re-humanize those who were dehumanized when registration number tattoos were forced upon their bodies. Pitch-classes are used to represent these registration numbers in the music. The harp part embodies the love of two survivors who met at Auschwitz. Their numbers are intertwined as they steadily proceed in the left and right hand of the harp. Most of the material in the movement is generated from their registration numbers. “Red Snow” grapples with good and evil and prays to G-d and humanity. The Solomon Sulzer melody to The Sh’ma (שְׁמַע) grows out of the texture. The Sh’ma is a central prayer in Judaism. It is the first prayer one learns and the last prayer uttered before death. During the Holocaust, it was the dying prayer as people were being murdered. This prayer also calls to the people to take action, an important sentiment that extends to today, “Hear oh Israel, the Lord is our G-d, the Lord is One.”