Music of Isolation

Created by Natalya Sakharova
Director: Svetlana Prokhorova 
Performers: Alexander Trostyansky (violin), Yelena Rolbina (violin), Ilya Golfman (viola), Olga Dyomina (cello), Vitaly Yegorov (piano), Yevgeny Samarin, and Yulia Abdel Fattah.

Terezin was special among the Nazi camps. It was made as an "example" and used for propaganda purposes. The world was told that the Fuhrer had given the Jews a city where they could live freely and pray to their God. The reality was quite different.

Almost the entire Jewish elite was moved to Terezin. The inhabitants of the camp were allowed to keep musical instruments, visit the library, and stage performances, but otherwise it was a perfectly proper prison with barracks, lice, hard labor, and meager food on a strictly scheduled basis.

In these inhuman conditions, writers and philosophers, artists and composers survived, continued to write, lecture each other, and perform concerts for each other.

At this time, the composers forming the Terezin Four came together – Gideon Klein, Pavel Haas, Viktor Ullman and Hans Krasa. They knew they were doomed to destruction, yet they wrote music. Their works are performed here by Honored Artist of the Russian Federation Alexander Trostyansky (violin), Honored Artist of Tatarstan Yelena Rolbina (violin), laureate of international competitions Ilya Gofman (viola), Olga Dyomina (cello), and Vitaly Egorov (piano), while their stories are told by actors of the Electrotheatre company Yulia Abdel Fattah and Yevgeny Samarin.