ShemÃ
Simon Sargon offers the following remarks:
While reading about the apparent suicide of the Italian author and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi in April 1987, I discovered that he had written a small body of poems in addition to his more extensive prose works. I found the poems musical in their language and rhythm, in addition to being highly personal and deeply felt expressions of his experience. Most of the poems were written within a few months of the liberation of Auschwitz, when the poet returned home to the bleak post-war world.
Four of the five poems which I chose to set in Shemà, are Levi's reaction to the war and its immediate aftermath. The last, "Congedo," dates from 1974, and is more reflective in content. Shemà is the Hebrew word for affirmation of faith in God's unity; it is sung or spoken in every Jewish service. Levi's poem includes a quotation from the biblical prayer associated with shemà. The traditional melody associated with it is used almost universally throughout the Jewish world. I quote this melody in the dramatic first song, suggesting bitonality with imitative entrances of the shemà motive for each instrument. The second song is marked "Andante, with the heavy tread of a funeral march." The col legno of the cello is used to suggest the sound of a death drum, but distorted. Weighted chords in the piano echo this somber conceit throughout, except at the climax, on the words, liberi, sotto il sole ("free, under the sun"), at which point the music lifts beyond death into another realm, perhaps one of hope.
Color and contrast in the music are provided by the two wind instruments. In the third song, for example, both the flute and clarinet evoke the crow's raucous cry. Later they depict its vile and menacing dance over the frozen snow. Another bird section in the final song is also illustrated by the winds. In "Cantare," the lyrical vocal line contrasts with a banal and foolish ditty that the instruments recall from the past. Even though this commonplace tune has a circus-like feel to it, it becomes the vehicle to free the prisoners, psychologically, from their appalling situation in the death camp. Temporarily, at least, they can forget. Throughout the cycle, the musical style is extremely vocal, fully exploiting the coloristic and technical range of the soprano in the lyricism of its lines. Of the five songs, the last is the most operatic in its conception. The poetry recalls an earlier Italy -- before civilization was irrevocably altered by the horrors of the war -- and the music faintly echoes Puccinian strains. My belief is that the text may be construed as a premonition of suicide: Levi's leave-taking of his friends, his means of letting them know that and how he would leave them -- sooner or later.
Paradoxically, the Holocaust was central to Levi's actualization as a person. The choice of "Congedo" as the last song in the cycle underscores the vulnerable, sensitive humanity of Primo Levi the individual, not just Primo Levi the symbol: Survivor of Auschwitz. This dream-like finale, and indeed the entire cycle, are a fitting and eloquent elegy to an unusual man whose poetic message adds a poignant dimension to the ghastliness of the Holocaust.
