I dannati (Marche funèbre) (2020)

Carlotta Ferrari (b. 1975) — I dannati (Marche funèbre) (2020) for organ

“I dannati” (2020) is inspired by a painting of the same name (“The Damned”) by Felix Nussbaum (1904–1944), a German-Jewish painter, much of whose later work depicts the horrors of the Holocaust.The painting was made during 1943, the year before Nussbaum was murdered in Auschwitz (along with his wife). Nussbaum was born in Osnabrück and was educated in Hamburg, Berlin, and Rome. During Nussbaum’s time in Rome, Hitler’s propaganda minister visited to instruct the students in the proper subjects for making Nazi art to glorify the Aryan race. Nussbaum realized that he could not remain there, and he spent the next decade mostly in exile in Brussels. When Nazi Germany attacked Belgium in 1940, Nussbaum was arrested, eventually ending up in Auschwitz. He continued to paint until his death.

Carlotta Ferrari (b. 1975) is an Italian composer. Educated at the Conservatory in Milan, she has composed in many genres, developing a personal language that is concerned with the blend of past and present. Her compositions have been performed frequently around the world. Ferrari’s music appears on several CD recordings, including seven all-Ferrari organ CDs: four recorded by Carson Cooman (2014/16/18) and three by Peter Clark (2015/16/18). She served as chair of music composition at Hebei Normal University in Shijiazhuang, China and is currently professor of music composition at the European School of Economics in Florence, Italy.