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80 years after the end of WWII, we hear musical responses from then and now.

The tension and anxiety of 1938 is in Martinů’s concerto, written at a time when he had left his native Czechoslovakia for Switzerland. Richard Strauss writes from a different perspective - his 1945 elegy lamenting the destruction of Germany and its culture.

With sung and spoken texts by poet Jacqueline Saphra, scholar Marianne Hirsch and the composer himself, Jewish composer Michael Zev Gordon's new piece "A Kind of Haunting" explores why and how the trauma of the Holocaust holds such a grip on not only the children of victims and survivors, but the grandchildren too. He draws on his grandmother’s memoir, which details the final traces of his grandfather’s life before he was shot in a remote Polish forest. Why is there such an interest in re-visiting – or making present – what was lost so many years before?

Bohuslav Martinů - Concerto for double string orchestra, piano & timpani
Richard Strauss - Metamorphosen
Michael Zev Gordon - A Kind of Haunting

Louisa Clein and Allan Corduner (narrators)
James Newby (baritone)
Britten Sinfonia
Jonathan Berman (conductor)

Presented by Mark Forrest

Recorded at Elgar Concert Hall, Birmingham on 26th March