MUSIC FOR RAVENSBRÜCK

Choral music

Format: CD

Code: 116094

EAN: 3838898116094

The album entitled “Music for Ravensbrück” is a recording of a concert at the City Museum of Ljubljana, at which the vocal group Gallina, accompanied by accordionist Neža Torkar and zither player Franja Kočnik, presented a unique project that connects Slovenian artists – singers, instrumentalists and composers – with historically remote events in Ravensbrück, Germany, in an extraordinary way.

Ravensbrück was the largest women’s concentration camp of the Second World War, and for several years now, on the initiative of organiser Christoph Wichtmann, concerts of various ethnic groups have been taking place on the site of the camp’s former textile factory. In 2018, the vocal group Gallina was invited to participate. Together with two instrumentalists, they performed a concert of premiere performances of new works by composers Katarina Pustinek Rakar, Melani Popit, Teja Merhar and Ana Zlobko. The performers and composers were selected partly on the basis of their age, as they are the same age as most of the girls and women who were interned in the original labour camp.

Today, eighty years later, the singers of the vocal group Gallina, accompanied by accordion and zither, perform the cycle of songs Meni se zdi da prihaja pomlad (It Seems to Me that Spring is Coming) by Katarina Pustinek Rakar. The work was created on the basis of songs sung in Ravensbrück by Slovenian interns, also known as the “Ravensbrück magpies”. They sang the songs quietly, at night, under the watchful eyes and ears of lookouts, who were careful to make sure that none of the camp guards sneaked into the vicinity and punished the women for their nocturnal singing.

In memory of the events in Ravensbrück, and as a reminder of them, new original compositions were created by young female composers. The composition Das Ende (The End) by Melani Popit is written for narrator, vocal quartet and accordion, based on a dry, prose text comprising camp statistics. Based on a text by Simon Gregorčič, the composition Zimski dan (Winter Day) by Ana Zlobko is written for vocal quartet and accordion, it contains elements of jazz composition. Teja Merhar’s Hrepenenje (Longing) for vocal quartet and zither is based on a text by France Zbašnik.

These new works are unique in the Slovenian music repertoire, as they are the first compositions for female vocal quartet, accordion and zither. With haunting compositional means and sensitive performance, the musicians remind us that only a short span of time separates us from the horrific events of the Second World War. At the same time, placing a mirror before society, expanding awareness and preserving memory serves to remind future generations of these events.

- Ana Erčulj, artistic director of the vocal group Gallina