Performing Commemoration: Musical Reenactment and the Politics of Trauma

Fauser, Annegret

doi:doi:10.3998/mpub.11560559

Performing Commemoration: Musical Reenactment and the Politics of Trauma

Annegret Fauser and Michael A. Figueroa, editors 2020

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Public commemorations of various kinds are an important part of how groups large and small acknowledge and process injustices and tragic events. Performing Commemoration: Musical Reenactment and the Politics of Trauma looks at the roles music can play in public commemorations of traumatic events that range from the Armenian genocide and World War I to contemporary violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the #sayhername protests. Whose version of a traumatic historical event gets told is always a complicated question, and music adds further layers to this complexity, particularly music without words. The three sections of this collection look at different facets of musical commemorations and reenactments, focusing on how music can mediate, but also intensify responses to social injustice; how reenactments and their use of music are shifting (and not always toward greater social effectiveness); and how claims for musical authenticity are politicized in various ways. By engaging with critical theory around memory studies and performance studies, the contributors to this volume explore social justice, in, and through music.

Series

Music and Social Justice

ISBN(s)

978-0-472-05466-4 (paper)
978-0-472-07466-2 (hardcover)
978-0-472-12721-4 (ebook)

Subject

Music:Musicology

Citable Link

Figure 1.1. Eighteenth-century musical score for James Hewitt, The Battle of Trenton, measures 21‒33

James Hewitt, The Battle of Trenton, mm. 21‒33.

From Chapter 1

Figure 1.1. James Hewitt, The Battle of Trenton. New York: James Hewitt, [1797], mm. 21‒33. Library of Congress.

Figure 1.2. Eighteenth-century musical score for James Hewitt, The Battle of Trenton, measures 254‒62

James Hewitt, The Battle of Trenton, mm. 254‒62.

From Chapter 1

Figure 1.2. James Hewitt, The Battle of Trenton. New York: James Hewitt, [1797], mm. 254‒62. Library of Congress.

Figure 1.3. This image represents the moment of armistice, recording artillery activity with a “sound ranger” (an apparatus invented in World War I to measure enemy artillery positions). It shows the cessation of fire in the flattening of white lines, which, before 11:00 a.m., oscillated with the noise

Sound Ranger Oscillograph

From Chapter 1

Figure 1.3. This image represents the moment of armistice, recording artillery activity with a “sound ranger” (an apparatus invented in World War I to measure enemy artillery positions). It shows the cessation of fire in the flattening of white lines, which, before 11:00 a.m., oscillated with the noise. Imperial War Museum, London, American Embassy Collection, Q 47886.

Figure 1.4. The Marching Wounded. Film still of wounded soldiers from the sequence accompanying the song “Remember My Forgotten Man,” in Gold Diggers of 1933 (Warner Brothers)

The Marching Wounded (Gold Diggers of 1933)

From Chapter 1

Figure 1.4. The Marching Wounded. Film still from the sequence accompanying “Remember My Forgotten Man,” in Gold Diggers of 1933. Warner Brothers.

Figure 2.1. Poster for the performance of Viktor Ullmann, Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke, Leeds, June 17, 2016

Poster for Viktor Ullmann, Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke

From Chapter 2

Figure 2.1. Poster for the performance of Viktor Ullmann, Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke, Leeds, June 17, 2016. Performing the Jewish Archive.

Poster for June 2016 UK Performances of the New Budapest Orpheum Society

From Chapter 2

Figure 2.2. Poster for June 2016 UK performances of the New Budapest Orpheum Society. Performing the Jewish Archive.

Gustav Pick, “Wiener Fiakerlied”

From Chapter 2

Figure 2.3. Gustav Pick, “Wiener Fiakerlied” (“Viennese Coachman’s Song”), cover of published sheet music. Source: Original sheet music. Hamburg: Verlag August Cranz, 1885.

Figure 2.4. Playbill for the “Literarisches Strauss Brettl,” Terezín/Theresienstadt, ca. 1943. It shows a flower bouquet with the names of the performers

Playbill for “Literarisches Strauss Brettl"

From Chapter 2

Figure 2.4. Playbill for the “Literarisches Strauss Brettl,” Terezín/Theresienstadt. Source Lisa Peschel, ed., Performing Captivity, Performing Escape: Cabarets and Plays from the Terezín/Theresienstadt Ghetto (Kolkata: Seagull, 2014). Original: ca. 1943.

Figure 2.5. The cover for the best-known and most widely distributed collection of Yiddish songs, Morris Rosenfeld’s Lieder des Ghetto from 1902, with a tree and a harp as illustrations

Morris Rosenfeld, Lieder des Ghetto, cover

From Chapter 2

Figure 2.5. The cover for the best-known and most widely distributed collection of Yiddish songs, Morris Rosenfeld’s Lieder des Ghetto (1902), which was lavishly illustrated by E. M. Lilien. Source: Morris Rosenfeld, Lieder des Ghetto, trans. Berthold Feiwel, 6th printing (Berlin: Hermann Seemann).

Lyrics to the first verse of “Hiroshima Song of Peace” (1947), in Japanese and English translation.

Shigezono Yoshio, "Hiroshima Song of Peace"

From Chapter 3

Figure 3.1. “Hiroshima Song of Peace” (1947), first verse

The Pasteur Amia subway station in Buenos Aires

From Chapter 4

Figure 4.1. Lyrics to “La Memoria” in the Pasteur Amia subway station, Buenos Aires 2017. Photograph by author.

Figure 4.2. The black-and-white title page for the newspaper Página/12, with a large photograph of the crowd, overlaid by the headline “150,000 People Fill Congreso Plaza in Repudiation of the AMIA Attack and to Demand Justice”

Cover page of Página/12

From Chapter 4

Figure 4.2. “150,000 People Fill Congreso Plaza in Repudiation of the AMIA Attack and to Demand Justice.” Cover page of Página/12, July 22, 1994. Courtesy of the Centro de Documentación e Información sobre Judaísmo Argentino Marc Turkow at the AMIA.

Sarajevo’s Baščaršija (Bazaar)

From Chapter 7

Figure 7.1. Songs of flight, Sarajevo 2017. Photograph Janusz Ratecki.

Figure 7.2. Photograph of the Shalekhet (Fallen Leaves), an installation by Menashe Kadishman comprising more than ten thousand steel faces representing the victims of war and violence, arrayed on the floor of the Jewish Museum in Berlin

Menashe Kadishman, Shalechet

From Chapter 7

Figure 7.2. The Sound of “Walking on the Bones of the Dead.” Menashe Kadishman, Shalechet, Jewish Museum, Berlin (Wikimedia Commons).

“The Citizen Betrayed – The Memory of Holocaust Victims from Hungary”

From Chapter 7

Figure 7.3. The permanent exhibition The Citizen Betrayed—The Memory of Holocaust Victims from Hungary, Block 18, Auschwitz I, uses projections and sound effects, such that visitors “become part of the past themselves, for a moment,” according to its designer, László Rajk. Photograph László Rajk.

Screenshot from Shoah

From Chapter 7

Figure 7.4. Screenshot of Simon Srebnik returning to sing in Chełmno from Shoah (dir. Claude Lanzmann)

Hotel Modern’s Kamp

From Chapter 7

Figure 7.5. Reenacting genocide: Hotel Modern’s Kamp. Photograph: Leo van Velzen (www.hotelmodern.nl).

Figure 8.1. Four photographs from the “Festival of Freedom” at the Castle Square in Warsaw, taken on June 4, 2014. They show crowds, placards, and official promotional installations

Festival of Freedom, Warsaw

From Chapter 8

Figure 8.1. “Festival of Freedom,” Warsaw, Castle Square, June 4, 2014. Photographs by the author.

Figure 8.2. The Unveiling of the Monument for Fallen Shipyard Workers in Gdańsk on December 16, 1980. The night scene shows a large crowd surrounding the monument, which consists of three high pillars

Unveiling of the Monument for Fallen Shipyard Workers, Gdańsk

From Chapter 8

Figure 8.2. The unveiling of the Monument to the Fallen Workers, Gdańsk, December 16, 1980. Source: Ośrodek KARTA, photographer unknown.

Figure 8.3. US president Barack Obama and Polish president Bronisław Komorowski in conversation while listening to Włodek Pawlik’s Freedom on August 4, 2014

Koncert Włodek Pawlik

From Chapter 8

Figure 8.3. US president Barack Obama and Polish president Bronisław Komorowski (far right) in conversation while listening to Włodek Pawlik’s Freedom. Screenshot from “Koncert Włodek Pawlik z okazji 25-lecia wolności,” NCKultury, August 4, 2014 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xrQqLr1S9Q).

Performing Commemoration: Musical Reenactment and the Politics of Trauma

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James Hewitt, The Battle of Trenton, mm. 21‒33.

James Hewitt, The Battle of Trenton, mm. 254‒62.

Sound Ranger Oscillograph

The Marching Wounded (Gold Diggers of 1933)

Poster for Viktor Ullmann, Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke

Poster for June 2016 UK Performances of the New Budapest Orpheum Society

Gustav Pick, “Wiener Fiakerlied”

Playbill for “Literarisches Strauss Brettl"

Morris Rosenfeld, Lieder des Ghetto, cover

Shigezono Yoshio, "Hiroshima Song of Peace"

The Pasteur Amia subway station in Buenos Aires

Cover page of Página/12

Sarajevo’s Baščaršija (Bazaar)

Menashe Kadishman, Shalechet

“The Citizen Betrayed – The Memory of Holocaust Victims from Hungary”

Screenshot from Shoah

Hotel Modern’s Kamp

Festival of Freedom, Warsaw

Unveiling of the Monument for Fallen Shipyard Workers, Gdańsk

Koncert Włodek Pawlik