Saturday to the concert · Music as a lifesaver
The Auschwitz Women's Orchestra
Guest musician & contemporary witness Anita Lasker-Wallfisch · Reading & concert

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch cannot travel from London to Salzburg due to the pandemic and will therefore tell us her moving story via video.

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch is a contemporary witness, she was the cellist of the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra. She survived because the orchestra lacked a cellist. Lasker-Wallfisch tells us her moving story and reminds us of the role of music in the Nazi era as forced labor and lifesaver. A concert commemorating the crimes of National Socialism, when many Jewish composers and musicians were murdered or forced to emigrate.

Conductor Elisabeth Fuchs on the program: "On the one hand, we play music that has Jewish references, such as Prokofiev's overture on Hebrew themes, the klezmer piece 'Shalom aleckhem - Rov Feidman!', the touching film music from Schindler's List by John Williams or the Premiere of the 5th movement of Leon Keuffer's violin concerto. And on the other hand, the program includes 'German' music that Lasker-Wallfisch played or had to play in the women's orchestra in Auschwitz or that people liked to listen to during this devastating time: Richard Wagner's 'Tannhäuser Overture', the Bozner-Bergsteiger March by Sepp Tanzer and Robert Schumann's "Traumerei". "