The Life and Death Orchestra

                           Songs for the Betrayed World 
                 'When the Music Stops- What happens then'?

                                                       

                                                      Photo of bodies at Buchenwald-Ohrdruf taken by Colonel Park O Yingst: 
                                                      United States Holocaust Museum # 60630 in Public Domain

                      The work of The Life and Death Orchestra in commemorating the Holocaust is both  impressive and innovative  Two projects worthy of note are firstly  the CD 'Songs for the  Betrayed World' (2000) .Composed by Bill Smith & Bim Sinclair and  credited to the 'The Life & Death Orchestra Featuring Angi Mariani & Herbie Flowers', the CD  interprets both Holocaust related poetry and prose . The poets featured include Yehuda Amichai, Tadeusz Borowski, Czeslaw Milosz, Zbigniew Herbert, Hilda Schiff, Elie Wiesel, and Adam Zych. The music is quite something else, strangely alluring. Elements of cabaret, early tango, brooding  Jazz, with the occasional uplifting track such as 'Us Two ' whilst ' Never' confronts the whole horror of the Death Camps and the loss of faith in the benevolence of humanity . After a few listens to the work of The Life and Death Orchestra, strange to find oneself singing along to some of their songs. But challenging, thoughtful , and it is great to have a focus on lesser known work.

And then there is the opera 'This Way for the Gas Ladies and Gentlemen' , partly  based on Tadeusz Borowski's recollections of being a prisoner in both Dachau and Auschwitz as published in 1947 : Borowski (born 1922)  had been writing poetry whilst living underground during the German occupation, associated with the Resistance, and  was arrested on 25th February 1943. His partner Maria  Rundo, a Resistance fighter was also taken , and she was sent to Birkanau. Both survived, were re-united and married in 1946, living in Warsaw then travelling to France and Germany and back to Poland.  Borowski turned to Communism, and to writing about his experiences as a prisoner. In 1951 he died in unexplained circumstances most likely by suicide,after learning that a friend has been arrested and tortured by the new Communist regime of Poland.Some of Borowski's most remarkable work concerns the love poetry he wrote whilst in the camps.


The Sun of Auschwitz (extract)  Tadeusz Borowski

"                 I remember
your smile as elusive
as a shade of the colour of the wind,
a leaf trembling on the edge
of sun and shadow, fleeting
yes always there. So you are
for me today,in the seagreen
sky, the greenery and
the leaf-rustling wind. I feel
you in every shadow, every movement
and you put the world around me
like your arms.  I feel the world
as your body, you look into my eyes
and call me with the whole world"

(Translation that appears in 'The Auschwitz Poems' 1999)

The CD ' Songs of the Betrayed World ' interpretation  can be listened to Here

A personal favourite is Paul Celan 's 'Deathfuge' . The bitter ironic lyrics lend themselves well to a song and can be heard here  Reminds one of Brecht and Weill. Paul Celan  (1920-1970) was from a German Jewish family who were living in Romania . Celan was had to serve 18 months forced labour before escaping,  his parents both died in the camps. A poet, translator and lecturer in Paris after the War ended, Celan took his own life in 1970 after a severe bout of depression.

'Deathfuge'  (extract)

"Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening
we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink
we shovel a grave in the air there you won't feel toocramped
A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes
he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland your golden
                                                                 hair Margeurite
he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are all
                    sparkling he whistles his hounds to come close
he whistles his Jews in rows has them a shovel a grave
                                                               in the ground
he orders us strike up and play for the dance. ....."

(Translation as appears in 'The Auschwitz Poems' ,1999)

Finally Tadeusz Rozewicz poem 'Pigtail' , already covered by this blog for  Holocaust Memorial Day also adapts well to music and The Life and Death Orchestra's version is  available here


Interview with Bill Smith via email April 12th 2020

Have you had feedback from Holocaust survivors and/or from relatives of those who died in the Holocaust about the work of the Life and Death Orchestra?

When we first performed as the Life and Death Orchestra many survivors came in the audience. We have since met many survivors and their relatives and all were grateful for what we had produced.

It is noticeable that you have used the written word of some writers who were not directly caught up in the Holocaust, such as Adrian Mitchell ( 1932-2008) and Adam Zych ( born 1945) . What would you say in response to those who claim that it is impossible to write adequately about the Camps, or war in general, unless the writer has had first hand experience?

I don't agree with that. If you believed that you would have no art. Adrian Mitchell writes from the heart and understands what happened. Adam Zych was one of the principal curators of the Auschwitz Museum and we went there to meet him. He's a great composer too.

In the performance of the Opera in 2007, there is a section about Darfur , and also references to the Katyn forest massacre. The Opera shows Tadeusz Borowski's bitter disillusionment with Communism after surviving the German Death Camps. The CD has a track about the singer Victor Jara murdered by Chilean fascist in 1973. How far do you think that connections can be made with the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity?

The Holocaust was a unique occurrence in human history but I started to try to understand the evil that humans do so I think that there are links. Borowski and Daghani were not keen on Socialist realism !!!
To quote Arnold Daghani "If impressionism is painting what you see and expressionism painting what you feel, socialist realism is painting what you are told to see and feel."

If there is one poem about the Holocaust that you think that readers should read, what would it be ?

'Again ' by Kevin Carey and the book 'Night' by Elie Wiesel.

What are the future plans for the Life and Death Orchestra? Any chance of staging 'This Way to the Gas..' again ?

We're very hopeful that we can stage the Opera again in a significant way in 2021. We are publishing the full life cycle of song so any orchestra can play the songs. We hope to do a Life and Death Orchestra in late 2021 featuring other composers as well.

Do you think that the Allies could have intervened in some way by bombing some of the major death camps or the rail links to them?

Yes I do think that the Allies could have taken the genocide much more seriously and could have adopted measures to save millions......and the world looked on and the world looked away as we sing in our opera. Mainly our leaders !
( Bill directed me to the following article from 'The Independent' of  April 18th 2017 titled 'Allied forces knew about Holocaust Two Years Before The Discovery of the Concentration Camps Secret Documents Reveal ' )


I wish to thank Bill for his time. 


 Felt appropriate to end with some lines from 'Again ' by Kevin Carey

"Since then My Lai
Kampuchea, paralysis
in the face of ethnic cleansing. If
I have to say it. If I have to say it
again
I will say it again
for  there is no such thing as compassion fatigue
only compassion forgetting. If I
have to say it
again."

( From the booklet that accompanies the CD 'Songs For the Betrayed World'. Originally from Kevin Carey's poetry collection 'Klaonica' -which is Serbo-Croat for 'slaughterhouse'. )





Links

The Life and Death Orchestra  website

The Links page on The Life and Death Orchestra website provides a massive guide to Holocaust research and commemoration organisations.

Never  as performed by The Life and Death Orchestra in 2007

Us Two  as performed by The Life and Death Orchestra in 2007

Tracks from Youtube selection of Life and Death Orchestra tracks -audio

Culture Poland website page on Tadeusz Borowski

'The Keep' archive page on Arnold Daghani  ( Artist referenced above by Bill Smith)

Recommended Reading 

'Holocaust Poetry', anthology edited by  Hilda Schiff  ,St Martin's Press, 1995

'The Auschwitz Poem' anthology edited by Adam A. Zych, Auschwitz- Birkenau State Museum 1999




Other blogs by Michael Bully 



New blog launched 3rd February 2023  BleakChesneyWold Charles Dickens/ 19th century history 

The poetry of George Macbeth and A War Quartet (1969)

                    Too young to fight, too old to forget.


                               

                                        A  U boat shells a merchant ship which has remained afloat
                                        after being torpedoed at the Battle of the Atlantic.
                                        Public domain, courtesy of 'Wikipedia' 




George Macbeth was born in Shotts, Lanarkshire, Scotland 1932. His father was a miner. The family moved to Sheffield when George was three , where he remained until  attending New College, Oxford. Later to become a prolific poet , novelist, and poetry editor. ,Macbeth spent many years working for BBC, particularly wish such programmes as Poets Voice ( 1958- 1965) , Poetry Now  ( 1965-1976) and New Comment  (1959-1964). Associated with 'The Group', a loose alliance of poets based in London during the 1950's and 1960's whose work often tackled controversial subjects such as death, religion and war. In 1964, Macbeth was published in the 'Penguin Modern Poets' series along with Jack Clemo and Edward Lucie-Smith. He also read his work at the famous Poetry Olympics at the Albert Hall in 1965. Giving up broadcasting in 1976, Macbeth wanted to devote himself to writing. In 1992 he died from complications arising from motor-neuron disease.

I have  recently read Jeff Nuttall  ( 1933-2004 ) seminal work 'Bomb Culture'  (1968)  about the British Underground from 1956-1967. Nuttall's argument , borrowing heavily from Norman Mailer, was that the teenagers of the 1950 's were the first generation of young people who had to grow up with the knowledge that humanity could destroy itself into extinction via the use of the H-bomb. This led to a whole new sub-culture created by the young generation. Nuttall also felt that the use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki ensured that the older generation would be tarnished in the eyes of the young. The Bomb thus served as a complete break with the wars of the Past.

Interesting to see that George Macbeth, though only a year older than Nuttall, had a much more complex relationship with World War 2, George Macbeth's upbringing  had seen some harrowing moments. A land mine dropped in an air raid detonated and wrecked the family home whilst George and his family sheltered under the stairs. A few months later, George Macbeth's father, who was serving as an air raid warden, simply did not come home from working during an air raid, and was never seen or heard of again. Effectively joining the 'missing' of World War 2.

Macbeth's poem 'The Creed', written upon realising that had reached the age of 46 ,mentions how World War 2 would forever be a presence in his life.

"Child of that sluggish war,
As I am that will never die
There will always be bombers there
At the back of my burning head.
And my father in uniform."


In 1969, George Macbeth published his most ambitious World War 2 poetry collection 'A War Quartet' The books cites quite an extensive bibliography and Macbeth makes it clear that the four poems are the product of dedicated historical research. The four poems depicted four turning points in World War 2; the Battle of El-Alamein , the Battle of Britain, ,the Battle of the Atlantic, and the Battle of Stalingrad. (These four poems are arranged  out of historical sequence ).

On the cover of 'A War Quartet '  Macbeth advised that he wrote " For me, as for so many of my generation-too young to fight, too old to forget.The War was a formative event. and it remains an obsessive memory.To treat it as a dream-like trauma, rather than as lived experience may at worst provide a convenient filter, and at best a chance of insight."

The phrase 'a chance of insight' is intriguing. A historian's case against War Poetry having an influence on how a conflict is viewed,  is often based on the notion that a poem will not explain why the war began or ended, in other words will not disclose why someone is serving in the ranks or caught up in an air raid. A poet's defence is that poetry records or recreates  impression  of crucial  human experience. People turn to poetry in times of emotional intensity, to read out at a funeral, or wedding, or at an Remembrance event.  For example Sassoon poem to the World War 1 dead - 'Aftermath' with the refrain 'Have you forgotten Yet' ? can say more in two minutes hard hitting language than a whole book on the subject ever could.

Yet the problem is that 'A War Quartet' doesn't quite work. One sort of admires Macbeth for attempting such an ambitious project. Particularly in 1969 when the Vietnam War was of a concern to the younger generation, he seemed to be going against the grain. In the seminal biography 'Walking Wounded-The Life and Poetry of Vernon Scannell 'by Andrew Taylor, Macbeth  is portrayed as being hesitant to write about World War 2 due to the fact that he was not a combatant. Vernon Scannell, born ten years earlier in 1922, served in the North Africa campaign and the Normandy invasion, is shown to have encouraged George Macbeth to have written poetry about World War 2.


Firstly the Battle of El Alamein , which opens 'A War Quartet ' was part of the Desert War : This was the one campaign within  World War 2 that was so covered by poets, many of them who actually fought there. Keith Douglas,Hamish Henderson, Edwin Morgan, Sorley Maclean, G S Fraser, George Campbell Hay. Great initiatives took also took  place with organisations such as The Oasis Trust to encourage those in uniform to write whilst they served in North Africa.. George Macbeth's take on the Desert War doesn't seem add anything to what had been written before.

"So when, days later,we
Looked back from Libya, saw the flowing line
of turret after turret, fortress like
As if a city stirred, such awkward tears
Throttled us, that we blinked in strange grit, steamed
Inside the famous metal, touched it felt
Victory tangible.
             And those we killed,
Or captured after so much turmoil, where was their star bound?"

Next section 'Autumn Victory' about a Battle of Britain shows an improvement, featuring bomber crews preparing for take off.

                    "In a blur
of green and reaching leaves, hitting the wind,
All  plunged against their boundary, split and pulled,
Easing the joy-stick to their mid-riffs, wings
Gather of others' muscles, to quick fans
Cloud-ramming, jubilant
                        In a surge of air
The sky flowered with fighters."

The main character, the pilot, visits London where he manages to find a woman serving as a WAAF for quick sex which is interrupted by an air raid. The pilot then wanders, stunned in the aftermath of the bombing

The next sequence is under the sea. Featuring a U boat commander who has to surrender to the Allies. Again the notion of the war just being some of perverse dream is raised . It manages to convey the claustrophobia of life on a U-boat

"             A sort of morbid fear,
Acute-sensed, looked over, swelled my body.
Became an instrument, as if the sea
Entered my blood, mixed with it.
                                           In strange salts
Her monsters watched
                      In my narrow bunk, awake
Under the blue alarm light, I would like
Listening to each miniature noise-pit flick
of the gyro compass, an irregular click
Like someone sharpening a pencil, control-noise
Lifted or fallen.."


The final and shortest section of 'A War Quartet' concerns Stalingrad , and is written from a German point of view. Somehow just doesn't quite flow. In the introduction to 'A War Quartet, Macbeth cites the success of James Schevill's lyrical sequence 'The Stalingrad Elegies' from 1964 , based on the letters of German soldiers, to show that a poet does not need to be an eye witness to the events that they are writing about.

                                           " After
the fire-war from the air, the snow-war from
The ground

                Settle in cellars, bombs
Mines and grenades expended, we came down to guns
Duelling.
             Each had heroes, men
Who never wasted fire
                                    The was the month
Of the sniper.
                      We had a crack one under tin
A hundred years off.
                     In six days, he ruled
The area we could walk in, pinned our lives
With quadrant fire
                 Then, in a fit of risk
Lifting a mitten on a stick, he lost
Full Secrecy....."


NOTES  & LINKS

George Macbeth's Collected Poems '1958-1982 'has been out of print for many years.

'A War Quartet ', George Macbeth, was originally published by Macmillan in 1969, and reprinted twice in 1970, then seems to have fallen out of print. Both 'Collected Poems' and 'A War Quartet ' were available on Amazon Co UK last time I checked.

Tribute to George Macbeth from  King Edward VII school Sheffield

Feature on George Macbeth from High Windows Press

Further work by Michael Bully

Bleak Chesney Wold   Charles Dickens / 'dark' Victoriana

13th century history blog

A Burnt Ship  17th century war and literature blog