Mother Rachel and Her Children: A rediscovered oratorio

Leeds University Union Music Society Chamber Choir
Conductor: Milette Tseelon-Riis

United Hebrew Congregation Choir, Leeds, with Chazan Albert Chait
Conductor: Phil Cammerman

Cast: Students of the University of York

Stage Director: Elizabeth Watling

‘Mother Rachel and Her Children’ (Muter Rokhl un ire kinder) is a long-lost oratorio from Finland written originally in Yiddish in 1948 by Helsinki-born Jac Weinstein (1883-1976). The piece takes the viewer on a journey with scenes from the two thousand years of suffering of the Jewish people that culminates in the death camps of the Third Reich. Yet, the journey ends in messianic panoramas for a glorious future and an exhortation by the narrator to ‘Go forward and don’t look back!’

The music of the oratorio ranges from classic Jewish cantorial repertoire to Yiddish folksongs. A central piece in the oratorio called Eyli, Eyli (My God, my God) and many of the choir arrangements are by Helsinki-born composer and conductor Simon Parmet (1897-1969), who is known for working with Berthold Brecht in 1940 on music for his wartime drama ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’.

Weinstein’s oratorio is a rare piece of early Holocaust remembrance from a country that was de facto allied with  Nazi Germany (1941-1944), but whose indigenous Jewish community remained intact and took part in the war efforts against the Soviet Union with other Finnish citizens. The piece surfaced in 2005 when Dr Simo Muir was doing an inventory of material found in a cellar in Helsinki.

‘Mother Rachel and Her Children’ is performed to a backdrop of paintings by Czech artist Ivan Bukovský.

Talk-back
After the performance there will be a talk-back with Dr. Helen Finch

Tickets
£10 (adults) £8 (over 60s) £5 (under 18s, students and unwaged)