The horrors of the First World War are brought to life through the interplay of music and literature. Thomas Quasthoff brings the voices of young soldiers to life, while the Amatis Trio provides a chamber music accompaniment.

The horrors of the First World War have been described many times in literature; books such as Erich Maria Remarque's "Nothing New in the West" tell of the brutality of trench warfare and the numbness in the face of the omnipresence of death. But there are also touching reports, for example about the Christmas truce between the trenches with communal singing. Thomas Quasthoff reads from letters and diaries from the First World War. The Amatis Trio alternates between romantic and modern chamber music, reflecting the mood of the individual texts.
Young soldiers of various nationalities have their say, as do relatives writing from home to the front. The texts not only bear witness to the cruelty of war, to youthful blue-eyed enthusiasm that turns into disillusionment and disgust in the face of bloody reality, but also reveal (co-)humanity and mutual respect - even among enemies. The stories tell of individual fates and give a face to the bare numbers of casualties.
They are accompanied by slow movements from piano trios by Schubert and Shostakovich, for example, whose Second Piano Trio was composed during the Second World War in deep mourning for a friend. The evening is livened up by pieces such as "Dogberry and Verges - March of the Watch" by Korngold, which caricatures the initial enthusiasm of young soldiers for the war.


Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.