Gideon Klein

Composer of the Week marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz with a series commemorating some of the musical voices that were silenced by the atrocities of the Second World War. Across the week, Donald Macleod focuses on the penultimate destination of these musicians, the Nazi concentration camp at Terezin, and the incredible story of creative resistance in the face of unthinkable adversity and persecution which unfolded there.

Today, we meet one of the camp’s youngest composers, who was murdered 80 years ago today, on the 27th of January 1945, at the age of 25. Czech-born Gideon Klein’s musical studies may have been cut short by the war, but he soon became a key figure in the cultural activities of the camp's clandestine musical activities, helping to rescue an old legless piano and writing music for his fellow detainees.

Bachuri Le’an Tisa (my Boy, Where are you going?)
Counterpoint
Robert de Cormier, conductor

Lullaby
Jitka Hosprová, viola
Kateřina Englichová, harp

String Quartet, Op 2 (iii. Adagio)
Kocian Quartet

Divertimento for Winds (iii. Adagio and iv. Allegro)
Philharmonia Octet Prague

Folk Songs for Male Chorus: 'Už mně koně vyvádějí' (They have untethered my horses)
Flemish Radio Choir
Bart Van Reyn, conductor

Piano Sonata
Ivo Kahanek, piano

String Trio
Goldberg Trio

Produced by Amelia Parker for BBC Audio Wales and West