This recording became a definite legend as of September 2013: Pianist Edith Kraus passed away in Jerusalem at the age of 100. Her biography was typical of that of Jewish artists in the 20th century, with the notable exception that she was one of the few to survive the infamous concentration camp Terezín. The vast majority of composers, performers, authors and fine artists who were deported there never left the camp alive or were murdered with poison gas at Auschwitz. Edith Kraus, piano Wunderkind, the youngest student of Arthur Schabel in Berlin, was on her way to an international carrier when she was deported to Terezín – a fate shared by Viktor Ullmann, one of the leading Czech composers of the interwar era, a student of Schönberg (and others), admiring friend of Alban Berg, and one of the greatest intellectuals of his time. eda records had the honour of meeting Edith Kraus in Prague in the early ’90s on the occasion of a memorial concert. When our producers asked whether she would be interested in recording a CD of sonatas by Viktor Ullmann with a newly founded German label, the 80-year-old pianist responded with an enthusiastic “Yes!” However, she did not end up choosing to play the three late-period sonatas, one of which she had even debuted in Terezín, but the first four instead, which she had never even studied. The result is a recording of Ullmann’s music from a the perspective of a great pianist’s look back on her life as a performer – as well as a gesture of reverence to Ullmann as one of the classic purveyors of the form, who himself occasionally drew inspiration from his classical and Romantic predecessors and paid homage to them by making use of their themes and motifs. Edith Kraus’ performance evokes her lifelong love of Mozart and Schubert as well as the German school of pianists, with which she bathed the occasional severity of Ullmann’s composition in a clear light with the wisdom of her age. This recording was to remain the only one Edith Kraus ever made, and now survives her as her artistic legacy. It has received many international awards.
