{"content":"\n
\n \n About work:

Oświęcim, a one part cantata for chorus, two speakers and orchestra with use of amplifiers, represents a composition in which the author puts all the characteristics of his music at the service of a profound social and moral thought. The aim of Mikuláš Kováč's text and of Zeljenka's music is not to bring back to mind the horrors of the inferno of human history. This work – and this appears to be paradoxical – is more a poetical meditation than a descriptive drama. But it is precisely the lyrical confrontation of the world of text and music with the nerf-racking reality which is so much present in every one of us that is not necessary to recall it and thus multiply it, for no artistic work can describe its horrors, still less out do it – this confrontation gives birth to a new, in its way mobilising, quality of the work concerning the experience of present-day listeners which experiences have a potential actualness. The emotional result of this confrontations hides in itself the enormous effect found in Oświęcim.
The following elements have a share in the final artistic and emotional experience produced by Zeljenka's composition: melody, rhythm, and the final sound effect. The melody represents either expressive fragments of rather large interval jumps reminding us of certain musical aphorisms, forming characteristic steps with limited spots filled with restless expressiveness or they take the form of larger forms cantabil in character which, especially in the string instrument parts and in the chorus create a balladic atmosphere full of internal emotion and restlessness. The most remarkable element of Oświęcim – apart from its melodic and rhythmic element – is the final sound picture of the composition resulting out of a unique combination of the factors we have mentioned with an effective use of reproduction technique in the places where the chorus whispers and also in those sections where we hear some kind of a Faust dialogue between comentator and a voice of the dead.
But all this would not confer such an effect to this work were it not for the topic, the theme, which, unfortunately remains ever actual, and then were it not for the composer's personality. The latter, in the name of a grand thought, has created a work the force of which lies in its appeal to men who stand face to face with the humanity and idifference, bring man back to himself as he looks through the prism of his cruel past, compels him to give thought to his fate and to the fate of others, to think of his past and present, of his conscience.


\n (Peter Faltin, in: foreword to the score, Editio Supraphon 1967)
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First performance abroad

\n \n 1964,\n Czechoslovak Radio,\n Prague,\n CZ\n\n
Performers: Otomar Korbelář (spk), Choir of the Czechoslovak Radio in Prague, Milan Malý (zbm.), Symphony orchestra of the Czechoslovak Radio in Prague, Josef Hrnčíř (dir.)\n
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First performance in Slovakia

\n \n \n 29.04.1965,\n Concert Hall of the Slovak Philharmonic,\n Bratislava,\n SK\n\n
Performers: Július Pántik (spk), Peter Jezný (spk), Slovak Philharmonic Choir, Slovak Philharmonic, Ľudovít Rajter (dir.)\n
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