The project page for this work can be accessed here: Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears

"Hard Path to Freedom, Hard Path to Love” is the fifth and final part of the larger multi-movement composition “Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears” for string quartet. It can also be played very effectively as a stand-alone work. “Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears” and "Hard Path to Freedom, Hard Path to Love” are based on interviews with child survivors of the Holocaust/Shoah. For more information and an overview of the project, go to the “Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears” project page here.

"Hard Path to Freedom, Hard Path to Love” is a musical and spiritual exploration of a human journey between slavery and freedom. It also explores a potentially difficult journey to love in a seemingly normalized and peaceful post-war society in Canada, which is in conflict with a survivor’s own inner experience of life, which has been anything but normal. The progression of the music "Hard Path to Freedom, Hard Path to Love” represents this journey along the paths to freedom and love in both these physical or spiritual realms. 

As Viktor Frankl has observed, freedom can be experienced both externally and internally. Many of the Jews, Polish intellectuals and artists, Roma people, Russian prisoners, and others who were captured, enslaved, and murdered by the Nazis also attempted to gain their physical freedom. They did this even though such opportunities were often very limited, or alternatively, they sometimes heroically risked their lives to help and support others in similar straits. 

“Hard Path to Freedom, Hard Path to Love” musically explores Viktor Frankl’s ideas of human resilience in these circumstances. Amongst those who could not escape, some found strong inner reasons to survive and live on. They found spiritual forms of freedom lying within themselves. Evidence of the human capacity for resilience is found in his accounts of the diverse responses of those enslaved by the Nazi guards. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl documented the compassionate humanity of many who were trapped in these death camps. Elements of Viktor Frankl's insight into the meaning of survival during the Holocaust are captured in these quotes from this work:

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. … they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” 

“Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom.” (Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, pp. 65-66

As a musical work, "Hard Path to Freedom, Hard Path to Love” is constructed in a mirror form. A brief opening group of themes in the viola and cello are intended to suggest the stumbling walk of enslaved camp inmates, followed by what could be called a theme of “self-compassion.” Following these evolving melodies is a section comprised of a rhythmically intensified build-up that creates a musical surge of defiant energy. Here, the iconic sound of the virtuoso Klezmer violinist and its powerful improvisational music are presented as a symbol of inner strength. This theme is introduced initially by the second violin and cello, then elaborated in an improvisational and virtuoso manner by the first violin. This section of the music is followed by a release of tension and a long moment of stillness, where the melodic first violin part suggests the liminal realms explored in the second movement. The section that follows mirrors, yet transforms, the earlier fast ‘Klezmeresque’ violin solos. These earlier themes are now presented in a re-contextualized setting with new harmonies, counter-melodies, and accompaniments. The effect is such that the music moves from an expression of freedom to the expression of hopeful, evolved emotions connected to human expressions of love. There is an exchange of melodies and close duets between the two violins that are intended to musically suggest the connection between people. Together, these musical changes represent the possibility that beauty, healing, a sense of meaningfulness, and even peace can still be experienced by people who have been through experiences that are unimaginable for most people. However, the end of the work brings an inevitable realization that such individuals who survived can never forget their past. The burden of remembering the humanity of ‘steel skies’ will always be present for the survivor. 

My intention with this work was to construct a musical narrative of the difficult journey to spiritual and psychological freedom made possible by personal resilience. "Hard Path to Freedom, Hard Path to Love” is in particular inspired by the testimonies of Lillian Boraks-Nemetz and Robbie Waisman, while it also includes within its musical fibre the spiritual and psychological insights of Frankl’s inspiring work. Given the extraordinary circumstances of survivors who are still alive today, none of their roads to freedom and love could have been easy. For the rest of us who have never undergone such experiences, it takes internal acts of increased awareness, historical understanding, imagination, and compassion to fully appreciate what we are sometimes capable of as a species both at highly destructive and highly creative and compassionate levels. As human beings, we need to appreciate not only our delusions and violent darkness, but also our capacities for compassion, connection, wisdom, and heroism.