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Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears
String Quartet
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Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears is a concert music string quartet in five movements by Canadian composer Paul Alexander. The music is an homage to the heroic courage of child and concentration camp survivors who have lived their lives communicating to contemporary audiences the truth, pain, and spiritual meaning of their experiences in the Shoah. The Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears String Quartet was inspired by testimonies recorded in 2015 by composer Paul Alexander with Shoah survivors Lillian Boraks-Nemetz and Robbie Waisman. The spiritual impact and meaning of their testimonies are explored throughout the complete five-movement musical narrative written to honour their lives.
The Movements
and Their Themes
Each movement of the work forms a specific thematic reflection on important parts of the Shoah survivor’s recorded testimonies. The titles of each of these five movements making up the string quartet are as follows:
"Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears" can be presented either in single movements selected from the whole, in groups of two or three, or combined together in the traditional multi-movement classical music manner to form a large-scale work.
The scores, parts, and audio demos, plus full details on the origins, meaning, and musical features of each of these movements, can be accessed through the above links.
The Music: its style, and language
Each of the five movements of Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears were created as unique individual responses to the profound experiences of the Shoah survivors who were interviewed by composer Paul Alexander. The music was created from three Jewish cantorial scales each with their own expressive qualities. These scales are foundational musical constructions which are also found in klezmer music, Yiddish songs, and other Eastern European music. These scales are distinctively colourful because of their common use of the interval of the augmented second in various key locations. Their distinctive sounds are integrated with an Eastern European Jewish and Romani musical language of rhythm, ornamentation, and melodic motifs that are created within the Western classical music structures of the string quartet repertoire. These distinctive elements found in combination imbue the work with haunting emotional and spiritual resonances that speak across time and distance.
The musical language embedded in the composition can become a signifier of the memory, consciousness, life-force, and emotions that empower what is fundamentally a courageous, yet often tragic narrative relayed by these unique individuals. In addition, the composition in various parts mirrors certain truths expressed by psychologist and camp survivor Viktor Frankl in his extraordinary work "Man’s Search for Meaning."
The Historical Background
The historical period of the 20th century referred to in this project is today no longer broadly understood, nor is it appreciated in its full human implications. The essential truth is that during WWII, the Nazis, a racist, authoritarian political group in control of the government of Germany, committed physical and cultural genocide on an unprecedented scale using the contemporary industrial and chemical technologies of the time. Significantly, the full bureaucratic resources and networks of the German state were employed, and while some secrecy was implemented, large parts of the German population were indoctrinated and implicated in the event, a fact which German society has today courageously faced and dealt with. Ultimately, more than 11 million European citizens, including Poles, Russians, Roma, and political prisoners, as well as 6 million Jews (a number which includes 93% of the Jewish children then alive in Europe at that time) were systematically identified, deported, criminally abused and confined, used as slaves, and then murdered. This was far from just an act of ancient human cruelty. It had a new character and scope – a vast, highly organized, pre-meditated crime of enormous proportions; planned, formulated, and carried out via means of the technological capabilities of the industrialized world. Aspects of the modern world world itself are implicated in what took place.
The New Contemporary Context
As well as helping illuminate the historical, human, and spiritual meaning of this historical event, Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears was also created in response to disturbing developments in our contemporary world that can seem to mirror aspects of those past events. Authoritarian, xenophobic, and racist forces invoking both denialism and aspects of old antisemitic movements can be observed rising on both the Far-Right and Far-Left of the political spectrum. As well, wars that were till recently largely unprecedented are potentially threatening a breakdown of the global restraints that kept the post-World War II global world order together in various forms of quasi-stability. Protracted destructive wars that previously would have been seen as economically unviable are contemplated as a new, dangerous, and largely irrational adventurism seems to be on the rise. This puts all of us in danger at a time during which the reality of nuclear proliferation combines with massive environmental decline.
This nexus of rising antisemitism, increasing authoritarianism, environmental stress, and reckless military adventurism is starting to infect many aspects of global society while undermining its stability. The two words “never again”, applied meaningfully and in a more general sense, have never been so important as they are to all of us today.
Programming Alternatives for Public Concert Presentation
Played alongside the Standard Repertoire or programmed with similarly themed works
The emotionally, melodically, and rhythmically intense music of Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears is intended to be performed by one of today’s virtuosic string quartets; an ensemble of artistic, musical, and technical capability, yet one willing to explore diverse and innovative ways of approaching the art of string music playing. As a composition, Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears can be presented either in single movements selected from the whole, in groups of two or three, or combined together in the traditional multi-movement classical music manner to form a major large-scale work. The piece is essentially programmatic. In its full configuration of five movements, it forms a Fast-Slow-Fast-Slow-Fast structure similar to Bartók’s 5th string quartet. The various performance options available make Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears fully suitable for inclusion in performances in a variety of concert music settings.
The basic intention behind the creation of this work is to immerse audiences in a type of musical experience that enables spiritual and emotional reflection on our humanity – the contemporary creation of a space where music and art transform our understanding of ourselves and the world. This essentially spiritual music can be programmed alongside other works from the standard repertoire that have a similar artistic intent, or alternatively, with works that emphasize an Eastern European stylistic origin in both rhythm and melody. Examples might include works similar to late Beethoven or works similar to Bartók’s string quartets. As well, Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears can be very effectively programmed with creations by composers who are commonly associated with this important historical topic due to the fact that they either wrote on this theme (Shostakovich, Steve Reich, Gerald Cohen, Ruth Schönthal) or were themselves victims of the Holocaust (Pavel Haas, Erwin Schulhoff, Viktor Ullmann, Dawid Beigelman).
With Impactful Multimedia
A specially designed multimedia presentation can be implemented to accompany a performance of the work at the request of an interested ensemble. This type of presentation will draw on materials previously developed for the original performance of the work, which debuted to extraordinary success on March 1st, 2015, at the Chutzpah! Festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This presentation incorporated brief yet powerful audio excerpts from four survivor testimonials. It intertwined elements of an earlier string quintet version of Remembering Steel Skies Raining Tears with klezmer music and survivor anthems and similar historical music of the time. As well, powerful use was made of authentic historical photos and film media drawn from public archives such as are available at Yad Vashem and the Washington Holocaust Museum. A recently updated version of this presentation includes projections of the poetry of the Holocaust child survivor and international award-winning novelist Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, and images from the Gesher Project Shoah art project of Canadian artist Linda Frimer. The result is a 90-minute presentation of emotional power and impact that brings forward this topic in a way that is capable of touching the human heart and mind while providing access to greater historical insight, compassion, wisdom, and hope for our audiences of today.