^^|

I vaguely, but only vaguely remember (and am too lazy busy to do some research) but I thought that most if not all of the texts came from the old documents as found around 1800 or so. The texts being from 11 till 13th century.

As such Carl Orff only put two dozen poems/songs/whatever to music. Some of the music seems 'triumphant' and 'kriegerisch' (still remember the nice soundtrack at certain scenes in Arnie Conan the Barbarian).

When the Hungarian government began introducing ‘Jewish laws’ in 1938 which mirrored the Nazis’ Nuremberg Laws, Bartók joined a group of non-Jewish intellectuals who protested. Dénes Koromzay, violist in the world-renowned Hungarian String Quartet, who specialised in performing works by Bartók, spent the war in the Netherlands. He described Bartók as ‘one of the most direct and outspoken men in the world,’ and commented that Bartók ‘made such strong anti-Nazi statements that he would have been the first to be picked up by the Gestapo when they came, or even by the Hungarian Nazis when they eventually came into power.’ Bartók began to send his manuscripts via Switzerland to Boosey & Hawkes in London, but he did not feel able to leave Budapest while his mother was still alive.

In 1939 he travelled to Italy to perform with his wife, Ditta, and began composing his String Quartet No. 6; 1939 was actually his most productive year. This quartet would be his last work finished in Hungary, and is a very personal, emotional work. All four of the movements begin with the same lamenting theme, and are all marked mesto (sadly). His manuscripts reveal that he intended for the final movement to be a lively dance, but when his mother died in December 1939 he re-wrote the final movement as an elegy.

`No one owns life, but anyone who can pick up a Fryingpan owns death.'
William Burroughs

To whom it may concern:
As my imminent death is hourly expected these days/ carbrakes screaming on East Lancs tarmac/trapped in the blazing cinema/mutely screaming I TOLD YOU SO from melting eyeballs as the whitehot fireball dissolves the Cathedral/being the first human being to die of a hangover/ dying of over­emotion after seeing 20 schoolgirls waiting at a zebracrossing.

I appoint Messrs Bakunin and Kropotkin my executors and make the following provisions:

1. I leave my priceless collections of Victorian Oil Lamps, photographs of Hayley Mills, brass fenders and Charlie Mingus records to all Liverpool poets under 2 3 who are also blues singers and failed sociology students.

2. I leave the entire East Lancs Road with all its landscapes to the British people.

3. I hereby appoint Wm. Burroughs my literary executor, instructing him to cut up my collected works and distribute them through the public lavatories of the world.

4. Proceeds from the sale of relics: locks of hair, pieces of floorboards I have stood on, fragments of bone flesh teeth bits of old underwear etc. to be given to my widow.

5. I leave my paintings to the Nation with the stipulation that they must be exhibited in Public Houses, Chip Shops, Coffee Bars and the Cellar Clubs throughout the country.

6. Proceeds from the sale of my other effects to be divided equally amongst the 20 most beautiful schoolgirls in England (these to be chosen after due deliberation and exhaustive tests by an informal committee of my friends).

Adrian Henri
Jan. ‘64
Witnessed this day by:
James Ensor
Charlie `Bird' Parker.
Adrian Henri

Yes Adrian had a fetish for schoollgirls and knickers.
Not i.

Well, we've got this far now

But, perhaps Shostakovich got the message.
Many years banned in the Soviet Union.



BABI YAR

By Yevgeni Yevtushenko

Translated by Benjamin Okopnik, 10/96



No monument stands over Babi Yar.

A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.

I am afraid.

Today, I am as old

As the entire Jewish race itself.



I see myself an ancient Israelite.

I wander o’er the roads of ancient Egypt

And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured

And even now, I bear the marks of nails.



It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself. *1*

The Philistines betrayed me – and now judge.

I’m in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,

I’m persecuted, spat on, slandered, and

The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills

Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.



I see myself a boy in Belostok *2*

Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,

The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded

And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.



I’m thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,

In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,

To jeers of “Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!”

My mother’s being beaten by a clerk.



O, Russia of my heart, I know that you

Are international, by inner nature.

But often those whose hands are steeped in filth

Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.



I know the kindness of my native land.

How vile, that without the slightest quiver

The antisemites have proclaimed themselves

The “Union of the Russian People!”



It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,

Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,

And I’m in love, and have no need of phrases,

But only that we gaze into each other’s eyes.

How little one can see, or even sense!

Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,

But much is still allowed – very gently

In darkened rooms each other to embrace.



-“They come!”



-“No, fear not – those are sounds

Of spring itself. She’s coming soon.

Quickly, your lips!”



-“They break the door!”



-“No, river ice is breaking…”



Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,

The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement.

Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,

I feel my hair changing shade to gray.



And I myself, like one long soundless scream

Above the thousands of thousands interred,

I’m every old man executed here,

As I am every child murdered here.



No fiber of my body will forget this.

May “Internationale” thunder and ring *3*

When, for all time, is buried and forgotten

The last of antisemites on this earth.



There is no Jewish blood that’s blood of mine,

But, hated with a passion that’s corrosive

Am I by antisemites like a Jew.

And that is why I call myself a Russian!