Netherlands American Cemetery hosted the South Netherlands Philharmonic on Sunday, September 4, 2016 at 3 p.m. for the annual liberation concert.
This year’s concert explored a soldier’s longing for home and yearning for peace and quiet—themes that played an important role in the inner lives of the soldiers, but haven’t lost their meaning today.
Homesickness was one of the torments that soldiers faced. Dvorák puts this into music in his American Suite. He began writing this work when he lived in the United States as an immigrant, but his insatiable longings for home made him return to his homeland Bohemia, where he completed this suite. Listeners heard a beautiful mixture of American and Bohemian influences in this amazingly melancholic piece of music.
Copland’s suite from Appalachian Spring is a resounding example of the longing for the tranquility of home. The music tells about the fertility rituals of the first, young, American pioneers. Unmistakably, the music carries the dream of the soldiers who died in battle: to return to their families and loved ones in an ideal America, with wide prairies and limitless possibilities.
The British composer Vaughan Williams served as a volunteer during the First World War. The horrors he witnessed and the comrades he lost on the battlefield, left deep, emotional marks on him. With this misery in mind and with the threat of a new World War, he wrote the anti-war cantata Dona Nobis Pacem (Give us Peace) in 1936.
These musical selections were intended to keep the memory of the sacrifices of these soldiers alive and were also symbolic of the universal needs of mankind. This is music, created by composers from the Allied countries, about the rights that these soldiers fought for.
In September 1944, Allied forces began liberating the South Limburg region of the Netherlands, where the cemetery is located today. This concert serves as a tribute to the Americans that gave their lives in this effort.
Conductors: Per-Otto Johansson, Brabant Koor and Luis Buskens
Soprano Soloist: Kim Savelsbergh
Baritone Soloist: Hub Claessens