“We simply played as one”: the music performed by Benjamin Britten and Yehudi Menuhin at Bergen-Belsen.

In July 1945 Britten and Menuhin gave a series of concerts in the liberated concentration camps. One of their recitals took place at Belsen: in the audience was the cellist Anita Lasker (later Lasker-Wallfisch) who had been transferred there from Auschwitz where she had been a cellist in the women’s orchestra. She later vividly recalled the performance, particularly Britten’s playing: “He was completely unobtrusive and yet I found myself transfixed by him sitting there as if he wouldn’t say boo to a goose – but playing to perfection”. Menuhin also paid tribute to his pianist:

“He didn’t accompany me, I didn’t accompany him, we simply played as one.”

The music performed during these recitals has been pieced together through camp survivor testimony, including that of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, and is performed in this recital as a tribute to those who lost their lives in the war in the camps, and to those who survived its unimaginable horrors. The versatile Polish violinist Maria Włoszczowska is joined by James Baillieu at the piano for this memorable tribute. 

Maria Włoszczowska violin
James Baillieu piano