The Music of Lori Laitman, now available as PDFs
Todesfuge — for mezzo-soprano and cello (priced for 2 copies)
SM-000534733
- Composer
- Lori Laitman
-
Lyricist
-
Paul Celan
-
Translator
-
John Felstiner
- Publisher
- Enchanted Knickers Music
- Genre
-
Classical / Song
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Mezzo-soprano
- Scored for
- Duo
- Type of score
- Score for two performers
- Duration
- 6'5"
- Language
- English
- Year of composition
- 2010
Description
Todesfuge (Death Fugue) was commissioned by Austrian baritone Wolfgang Holzmair. The poem was written in Romanian in 1944 by Paul Celan, but published in German in 1948. The work is one of Celan’s most famous and was one of the first to address the horrors of the Holocaust by using strikingly grim images to create an atmosphere of extreme and haunting power.
The poem’s unusual structure borrows from the concept of a musical fugue, with phrases that repeat and recombine. I mirror this musically, with miniature leitmotivs that repeat and recombine — a challenge, in that the repetition of musical content requires different considerations than the repetition of words.
I composed two settings: one in the original German and one using the English translation by John Felstiner. Slight musical changes accommodate for differences in grammar and the songs can be sung separately or together.
Link to the premiere recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv7mDRm465o