Voices of Defiance

Music has often shone a light of hope into the 20th century’s darkest corners. Czech composer Viktor Ullmann wrote his poignant, angry String Quartet no. 3 in 1943 at the Theresienstadt concentration camp a year before his murder at Auschwitz. Yet it ends in a burst of radiant beauty. Shostakovich’s muscular Second String Quartet alternates between resignation and resistance. But the revelation here is String Quartet no. 3 by Auschwitz survivor Szymon Laks. From its ominous, opening train whistle to its heartbreaking slow movement and final images of a joyful homecoming, it’s a devastating musical chronicle.