Composer: Ronald Corp
Performer: Sarah Pring, Chilingirian Quartet, Andrew Brownell
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0507
Release: 2018
Size: 1.05 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Letters from Lony
01. No. 1, 13 September 1939
02. No. 1a, Lullaby
03. No. 2, 28 September 1939
04. No. 3, 16 November 1939
05. No. 4, 3 December 1939
06. No. 5, 18 December 1939
07. No. 5a, Interlude
08. No. 6, 11 February 1940
09. No. 7, 5 May 1940 to Annemarie
10. No. 7a, Interlude. 10 May 1940
11. No. 8, 26 September 1940 to the Family
12. No. 9, Undated, 1940 to the Family
13. No. 10, Undated, Probably About 9 November 1940 to Annemarie
14. No. 11, Undated, Probably Later in November 1940 to the Family
15. No. 11a, Interlude
16. No. 12, 11 February 1941 to Peter
17. No. 13, Unknown Date, Believed to be 7 December 1940 to Annemarie
18. No. 14, 1 October 1941 to Bachmann
19. No. 15, 6 January 1942 Card Addressed to Hans from Bachmann in Lony’s Name
20. No. 15a, Interlude
21. No. 16, 30 December 1943, from Westerbork Camp to Josef Blum
22. No. 17, 23 February 1944, from Westerbork Camp to Josef Blum
Leonie (‘Lony’) Fraenkel was a German-Jewish exile from Nazi Berlin who set up the Café de Paris on Beethovenstraat in Amsterdam in 1939. In late 1939 she sent a card to greet Peter, her first grandson, newly born in safety in England, and over the next three years she sent a series of letters to Peter and his mother, Lony’s daughter. In 1943 she was deported first to the Westerbork transit camp, and then to Theresienstadt and, finally, in October 1944 to Auschwitz, and was gassed within two days of her arrival. Many years later, that grandson, Peter, now a grandfather himself, discovered Lony’s letters, had them translated and brought them to the attention of the composer Ronald Corp. Ronald Corp has set Lony’s letters in a series of lyrical arioso recitatives for mezzo-soprano, string quartet and piano, lasting just over an hour. The cycle was first heard at the Proms in St Jude’s, in Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London, in 2017, and now Toccata Classics is releasing its first recording.