«Home is there, far away, there»: songs by P. Haas from the concentration camp Theresienstadt

Abstract

The article focuses on a work by the Czech composer Pavel Haas, which has become a vivid embodiment of the theme of home and homelessness in music, that is Four Songs to the Words of Chinese Poets. The three leitmotifs based on the melody of the St. Wenceslas Chorale, the main symbol of home, do not unite here, suggesting that home in the overall concept of the work remains an unattainable dream. The author of the article attempts to take a new look at the finale of the cycle, which in foreign musicology is traditionally understood as “the return home”.

Keywords

Archetypes of home and homelessness, Pavel Haas, Four Songs on Chinese Poetry, St. Wenceslas Chorale, music in Theresienstadt concentration camp, Czech music