Traum von Haiti // Music from Auschwitz

Traum von Haiti
[Dream of Haiti]
Stassi D. Tombulis (music) & Ralph Maria Siegel (text)
Music from Auschwitz
- Dance Band Arrangements by Members of the
Auschwitz I Men’s Orchestra
- Performed by Musicians from the University of Michigan
School of Music, Theatre & Dance - Oriol Sans, Conductor
The ten short pieces on this program were arranged by Polish political prisoners who were
members of the Auschwitz I men’s orchestra. Using popular German hits of the thirties and
forties, they arranged and orchestrated these tangos, waltzes and foxtrots for a dance band
that played Sunday concerts for the Auschwitz garrison near Commandant Rudolf Höss’s villa. The
resulting manuscripts, which University of Michigan Professor of Music Theory Patricia Hall began researching in May 2016, are preserved at the Collections
Department of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Occasionally prisoners signed
these manuscripts with their prisoner number, like Antoni Gargul, a violist and Polish soldier
(5665), or Maksymilian Piłat, (5131), a bassoonist with a conservatory degree who played in
the orchestra of the State Opera and Baltic Philharmonic in Gdansk after the war.
In realizing these manuscripts, we have maintained the original orchestration
as closely as possible, and made only minute alterations when there were obvious
errors. Silent for over seventy years, listeners will hear these works as close as possible to how
they would have sounded in 1942 or ’43, when they were performed in Auschwitz I. The lines
spoken by our singers are from testimonies and interviews with members of the Auschwitz I
men’s orchestra after the war.
ENSEMBLE PERSONNEL
Oriol Sans, Conductor
VIOLIN
Eugenia Cho
Beau Henson
Aidan Krieger
Alex Ott
Allison Taylor
Kisa Uradomo
Iris Wu
Caleb Zheng
VIOLA
Hannah Langenbach
Ben Martz
CELLO
Dakota Cotugno
CLARINET
Jesse Bruer
Ellé Crowhurst
SAXOPHONE
Salvador Flores
Brian Kachur
Roberto Campa
TROMBONE
Frankie Lazzara
TUBA
Jacob Taitel
VOICE
Jono Taccolini, tenor
Nicholas Music, tenor
Noah Rogers, baritone
Robert Wesley Mason, bass
TRANSLATIONS
Lee Rothfarb
Barbara Alvarez
TRANSCRIPTIONS
Patricia Hall
Joshua DeVries
Andrew Kohler
QUARTET COACH
Stephen West
LYRICS
Mein Traum von Haiti,
Märchen wie aus fernen Tagen,
Mein Traum von Haiti,
Warum muß ich Dir entsagen?
So fern from Haiti
Will ich immer Dein gedenken!
Du sollst allein die Erfüllung mir sein
Nur die Sehnsucht nach Dir wird mich lenken! Wo ich auch bin, hab’ ich Dich nur im Sinn, Denn zu Dir zieht es ewig mich hin!
My dream of Haiti.
Tales as though from distant days,
My dream of Haiti.
Why must I renounce you?
So far from Haiti
I will always remember you!
You alone should be the fulfillment.
Only the longing for you will guide me! Wherever I may be, I have only you in mind, For I am forever drawn to you!

[@jhjhjgafdhjgdgfsg-ox5cy]

Beautiful Music. Really Heart wrenching stuff.

[@JuergenBertram-ps7sy]

Tango Weisen !