Your trusted source

When the father of German conductor Klaus Albert Bauer heard composer Tigran Mansuryan’s  ‘Requiem’ for the first time, he was deeply moved by the work, which made a lasting impression on him. He told his son about it and after becoming familiar with the notes, Klaus Albert Bauer decided to perform ‘Requiem”.  This year ‘Requiem’ by Armenian composer Mansuryan has been performed twice in Frankfurt to commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide. 

The conductor is on a visit to Armenia with the sole purpose of attending a concert featuring ‘Requiem’ in Yerevan’s Chamber Music House after Komitas.

During a meeting with reporters, the German conductor told them how he learned about that piece of music and why he came to Armenia.

According to Mr. Bauer, he is German and genocide happened in his country as well. “When my plane landed at the airport, I saw a poster with a mustached man wearing a read fez and the date ‘1915’ on one side of the poster and a caricature of Hitler and ‘1939’ on the other side. The poster also had words on it saying that if we had remembered well, we would possibly have prevented future genocides. It is important to remember what took place. I think that unlike you, people in my county do not remember it well enough,” the German conductor said.

He described the atrocities committed as horrible and difficult to express through music, adding that however, music can help one to be closer to all that has happened.

Music can awaken inexpressible emotions inside you, and in this sense it is essential that Requiem is dedicated to the victims and it makes us listen to it in a different way, Klaus Albert Bauer said.