Future Memories: Lotoro's journey in search of music written in concentration camps has landed in France

Francesco Lotoro consulta documenti musicali presso la Municipalità di Thionville

Francesco Lotoro's journey in search of music composed in concentration camps and other places of civilian and military captivity around the world between 1933 and 1953 arrived in France this September. The project "Future Memories. Lotoro's Journey to Save the Lost Music," of which this journey is also part, is promoted by the Fondazione Istituto di Letteratura Musicale Concentrazionaria ETS and supported by the Claims Conference (New York), the Puglia Region, the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe (London), and the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah (Paris) . The journey was undertaken together with Donatella Altieri, head of management of the Foundation.

Upon arriving in Marseille, the journey continued to Saint-Tropez and, by taxi, towards Gassin , where Lotoro and Altieri had an appointment with Orlaine Paquin Letourneur, daughter of the German-Jewish composer Wally Karveno Paquin , arrested in Paris on charges of espionage and transferred to the Gurs internment camp in 1941. Wally Karveno wrote the Concertino, Op. 28 , for piano and chamber orchestra (after her release, she returned to Paris). Orlaine donated the manuscript of the Concertino, Op. 28 , and all the other works written by Karveno before and after her internment, as well as correspondence and photographs, to the ILMC Foundation.

From left Francesco Lotoro in Gassin with Orlain Paquin Letourneur, with Donatella Altieri, with the recovered documents.

By TGV from Marseille the journey continued to Paris where the meeting took place with Dominique Losay , son of the French composer André Losay who was interned at Stalag IIIB Fürstenberg/Oder; Losay promised to donate to the ILMC Foundation the Cahier des prisonniers , a handwritten notebook in which his father wrote numerous songs during his imprisonment in the Stalag.

On TGV to Paris

Francesco Lotoro with Dominique Losay, Paris

In the rail station of Paris

The research then continued in Thionville , where Paul Arma's collection of Resistance and concentration camp music is kept. Previously, the material was located in Thionville at a museum that closed years ago, but is now housed at the Thionville Municipality (see photo above). The archives' directors handed over all of Paul Arma 's songs; the research was facilitated by Danielle Morali, a collaborator of the ILMC Foundation, who joined Lotoro and Altieri in Thionville.

Upon returning to Italy, Lotoro took care of another French musical treasure by digitally transferring the Symphony Rêve de France , written by French composer Maurice Soret during his internment at Stalag IIIB Fürstenberg/Oder. Soret, director of the PTT-Nord Radio Orchestra before his internment, had conducted the Symphony Rêve de France at the Stalag in 1941. After the war, he became director of the Lille Radio Orchestra, but died in 1961, leaving no trace of the Symphony Rêve de France . Years ago, Lotoro had tracked down his daughter Frédérique Andrée Soret in Souillac; unfortunately, the manuscript of the Symphony had been lost, and Frédérique Soret had no idea where even a copy might be (there was no trace of it even at SACEM, the French Society for Authors' Rights). However, Frédérique Soret still had two Pyral master discs, each of whose four sides contains the recording of the Rêve de France that Maurice Soret recorded after the war at the studios of Radiodiffusion Française. The two very old Pyral discs have already been subjected to two trips (Souillac-Paris and Paris-Barletta) as well as the high temperatures of this summer. However, after painstaking mastering, cleaning the disc sides, degreasing and descaling the grooves, and sound engineering, it was possible to recover the audio of the Rêve de France symphony.

From left: a youthful image of Wally Karveno Paquin and composer Maurice Soret