The cello, which has been loaned to Sam Lucas, was discovered to be that of composer and Holocaust victim Pál Hermann
A Holocaust survivor has been reunited with the cello of her father, who was murdered by the Nazis more than 80 years ago.
Cornelia Hermann was seven years old when her father, Jewish composer Pál Hermann, was taken to a concentration camp in 1944. His 1720 cello disappeared after his death, but was eventually traced to the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf.
The reunion took the form of a performance at Wigmore Hall, where student Sam Lucas played on the long-lost instrument, with Cornelia Hermann in attendance. Lucas has been loaned the instrument at the Robert Schumann Hochschule and performed an excerpt of Pál Hermann’s concerto to the composer’s daughter.
Upon hearing her father’s cello in concerto, Hermann said: ’It was a miraculous surprise. The Wigmore Hall is a venue where my father played concerts in 1930, almost 100 years ago. The same cello being played now makes the circle round.’
Lucas said: ’I’m honoured to be the cellist to bridge that gap between her childhood and what she grew up hearing from her father… it’s a real blessing and honour. It’s an emotional thing, and dedicating it to her and her son, the grandson of Hermann, I tried to drive my feelings about it as best I could.’
Dr Kate Kennedy, an author and musician based at the University of Oxford, is responsible for the reunion. Kennedy encountered Pál Hermann’s story while writing her book Cello: A Journey Through Silence to Sound.
She had been searching for Hermann’s instrument for four years when she came across pictures of the cello in her published book.
Kennedy learnt that the cello had writing round the ribs burnt in that read ’Ego anima musicae sunt’ or ’I am the soul of music.’
’It’s Pál Hermann’s soul, surviving, and that to me was too good a quest to give up, and now here it is,’ said Kennedy.
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