The most exquisite carved Chinese jades were created during a period of great chaos in Chinese history. Even when a house is burning down, we wave a blanket. Creativity continued in the Concentration Camps. Though I make my bed in Hell, &c. The process of reconstruction begins from the centre of destruction. It is not that we ignore the pressing issues of the day. We have to concentrate on the Causes, and not the Effects. And who is to decide what the Causes are? Especially when a misinformation campaign of industrial proportions keeps the Causes from being Revealed? An inspiring view is given by Karl Paulnack:
“One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp.
He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.
Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture why would anyone bother with music? And yet from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”
From a welcome address given to the parents of entering freshmen at the Boston Conservatory, given by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of the Music Division.
