Fortunately for choral groups, a voice was an easily transportable
commodity. Rafael Schacter, an inspiring figure and famous
choral conductor, roused the men to sing familiar songs together
after the day’s work. Variety shows were also put together
surreptitiously, which might include small combinations of
instruments, solos, lectures and a magician. As more members
of the Council of Elders arrived—prominent personalities with
advanced freedoms in allowed possessions—they brought more
and improved instruments that performers could access. Because
these prominent prisoners were allowed better living quarters
in private apartments, their homes often set the stage for
informal performances and sight-readings of chamber music.
The SS eventually became aware of these furtive affairs, but
rather than forbid them, they lent support to what they deemed
“Evenings of Fellowship.”
"Concert in the Dormitory"
Painting by Helga Weissova
These “Evenings” are what led to the official institution
of the Freizeitgestaltung.
Once musical activity was openly permitted and regulated,
suitable instruments grew slightly easier to come by. After
first suffering with only a sole, legless piano, an accordion,
and a harmonium as forms of accompaniment to solos and vocal
works, the administration was able to arrange for the arrival
of better pianos from Prague. With the additional instruments,
more playing time was available to the wealth of professional
pianists, who previously had to scramble for rehearsal time
alongside other ensembles and groups that desired a piano
as accompaniment. A number of these pianists, including Gideon
Klein, Alice Herz-Sommer, and Edith Steiner-Kraus, gave frequent
recitals of music that stretched from Debussy to Brahms to
Beethoven to Suk. A grand piano acquired by the Free Time
Administration and placed in the City Hall served as a primary
location for such performances. Many singers also performed
solo recitals there with piano accompaniment, including prominent
vocalists such as Karel Berman, Hedda Grab-Kernmayer, and
Walter Windholz. Repertoire ranged from Mahler to Handel to
Verdi. Other instrumentalists were not left out of the solo
performance scene, and were grateful once a piano could properly
replace the accordion in concertos of Mozart and
the like.
 "Courtyard concert: audience"
Drawing by Norbert Troller
String ensembles were also popular, and a large number of
them existed, from string trios to sextets. They played with
varying degrees of formality, the most polished being the
Terezin Quartet headed by the aforementioned Karel Frohlich.
String orchestras were also assembled through the efforts
of men like Karel Ancerl. Boasting fine Czech, German, and
Danish musicians, and with the ever-busy Frohlich as concertmaster,
the group played standard works like Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings as well as pieces written especially for them,
including Pavel Haas’s Study
for Strings. The latter was presented in the summer of
1944 on the concert pavilion erected in the main square for
the infamous Red
Cross inspection, and also filmed for the propaganda movie
“Hitler Gives a City to the Jews,” created as a follow-up
to the Nazis’ successful deception.
The Freizeitgestaltung sponsored more than
just composition and performance of music— music education was also a focus. In
fact, all forms of education were of priority to the prisoners, for adults and
children alike. With the number of intellectuals between Terezin’s walls, there
was great opportunity for lectures and master classes of varying difficulty on
topics from mathematics to the sciences to literature to history. The same held
for discussions and lessons of music, from theory instruction to instrument
lessons. Music was also used in teaching the youth of Terezin society, an
undertaking which was officially forbidden by SS order. Between games and
sing-alongs, though, caretakers managed to subversively pass knowledge to the
younger generations. Children also had a prominent place in the Terezin musical
scene, particularly through Hans Krasa’s opera Brundibar. Read more about Brundibar
in Hans Krasa’s biography or in The Musical Legacy’s featured
compositions.
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