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Chorale for the Cauldrons of Hell (2005 rev. 2006) |
For large mixed ensemble - c. 10'
When I was a Fulbright Scholar in Warsaw, 1972-74, Poland was a country struggling in the clutch of the Soviet Union and obsessed with the slaughter of World War II. Hardly a day went by without reminder of a Nazi atrocity perpetrated 30 years earlier in some corner of the country. My travels around Poland were a mixture of picture postcard mountain scenes, green pastures and dark forest inevitably thrown into stark relief by grotesque places of unspeakable horror - Treblinka, Belsec, Sibibor, Chelmno and Auschwitz.
On a cold, autumnal day in late November 1973 I was on a short holiday in the beautiful Tatra Mountains region. On the way back to Warsaw I went to Oswiecim, the small town more famously known by its German name - Auschwitz. It was undistinguished except for the gruesome death camp museum in the town centre. I visited the museum and was stirred to travel further that afternoon to the camp extension outside of town, the massive concentration camp at Auschwitz/Birkenau.
I found the railway spur off the main line and walked a few kilometres along the rusty tracks. It was getting dark and an icy mist began to rise from the damp earth. The sun was low and crimson. I stumbled along through the thickening fog and soon made out a ghostly silhouette in the mist; the railway arch at Birkenau. It was ominous, ghoulish and unforgettable. The gate was open. The tracks ran through the brick watch tower and stopped. No one was there and I realised I was alone. I walked in cautiously, my mind on fire with the implacable evil this huge, industrial expanse represented. I wandered for an hour through the quiet ruins as long shadows lengthened in the fading light. I was suffused with thought, breathless, and choked by the grip of this monstrous tomb, this silent witness. Suddenly I realised it was dark, pitch black, and I was lost. Lost in a vast maze of decaying barracks and broken furnaces surrounded by miles of barbed wire fences designed for only one exit. I was overwhelmed, trapped under a pall of darkness. I talked to myself. I tried to stay calm but my heart quickened. Around me the dark air stirred with the muted screams of millions. That night I believed in ghosts. I was scared, very scared, and had to keep telling myself I was just a visitor: only a cold, frightened tourist detoured for a few, freezing hours one dark and lonely night in the belly of the beast; in one of earth’s cold cauldrons of Hell.
Chorale for the Cauldrons of Hell – in memoriam Auschwitz, Belsec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sibibor and Treblinka was commissioned by Contemporary Music Making for Amateurs, UK and commemorates the 60 th anniversary of the liberation of Poland from the Nazis.
© Stephen Montague 2005