Louise Bessette | Grafeneck 10654

Grafeneck 108654
Trio Grafeneck

Grafeneck Castle, main entrance

Grafeneck 10654 Exhibition, Gedenkstätte Grafeneck Dokumentationszentrum, 2015
Credit: Jochen Meyder

« Grafeneck 10654 »

Between 18 January and 13 December 1940, 10,654 people were killed in Grafeneck; 10,654 individuals with mental health conditions and disabilities were transported by bus to Grafeneck Castle and murdered on the same day in a gas chamber set up on the grounds.
This was a state-ordered, systematically organised mass killing.

When I first learned of the Grafeneck atrocities in 1983, I was horrified and tried to take in the sheer number of victims. To make the extent of this crime more tangible and, at the same time, to restore the victims’ identities and give them a face, the idea for the “Grafeneck 10654” project emerged.

Over more than seven years, I created 10,654 terracotta figures—each individually shaped and given a unique face. These figures were laid out on a shelf-like structure in front of a glass wall at the Grafeneck Documentation Centre. It was important to me that visitors could hold the figures in their hands and, through it, feel a sense of closeness to the victims. Such an encounter would serve as an almost sensory reminder of the fate of those who perished in Grafeneck.

As the installation grew, the 10,654 figures—each representing a victim—gradually darkened the space, creating a deeply oppressive atmosphere. From that point on, visitors to the memorial site were invited to take a figure home, giving each victim a voice once again—against exclusion and in support of peaceful coexistence among people with different abilities. By 2023, all the figures had found new homes and now carry their message into the world. The light has returned, and we hope it will endure.

Through conversations with the Swiss composer Thomas Fortmann and his German-Canadian friend and colleague Helmut Lipsky, and thanks to their deep commitment to the project and their engagement with the castle’s history, a memorial concert was conceived for the opening of the “Grafeneck 10654” project in December 2015. Its premiere in Grafeneck on 15 December 2015 was a great success.

The commemoration continues through the work of the Trio Grafeneck 10654, now performing internationally in support of human rights. The performance is now accompanied by a video installation by Pia Loertscher, which incorporates images from my works on Grafeneck.

Jochen Meyder

Jochen Meyder
Credit: Annegret Schock

Jochen Meyder and Annegret Schock, Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur, Montreal, 2018
Credit: Mariko Sato

Adolf Friedrich Harper (1725-1806) : Grafeneck 1780

Thomas Fortmann : Introduzione Rinascimentale

(Renaissance Introduction)

With a prelude Introduzione Rinascimentale, Thomas Fortmann takes the listener on a journey through time, opening with an Allemande with Tripla that evokes Renaissance musical language and recalls the inauguration of Castle Grafeneck in 1560 in the region of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Nestled in an idyllic rural landscape, the castle served as a hunting lodge and summer residence for several generations of the Dukes of Württemberg. In the 18th century, Duke Carl Eugen renovated and transformed the castle into a vibrant cultural centre. Music, dance, and theatre came to shape courtly life; an opera house was even built on the grounds.

During this period of cultural flourishing, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach—one of the renowned sons of Johann Sebastian Bach—served as the Duke’s music teacher and dedicated to him the keyboard works known as the Six Württemberg Sonatas.

In reimagining excerpts from these works, Thomas Fortmann and Helmut Lipsky draw inspiration from C. P. E. Bach’s music—firmly rooted in the Rococo style—while infusing it with their own modern sensibilities. Rococo is characterised by refinement, vivid contrasts, expressive gestures enriched with delicate ornamentation, and a playful spirit marked by humour and lightness.

Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787): Portrait of Carl Eugene, Duke of Württemberg

Thomas Fortmann : Württembergische Bacchate, Inspired by C. P. E. Bach

In Württembergische Bacchate, drawing on C. P. E. Bach, Fortmann combines theatrical energy with lyrical sensuality. The work paints a somewhat ambivalent portrait of Duke Carl Eugen: artistically inclined and highly educated, yet also authoritarian, unpredictable, arrogant, and full of contradictions. Glamorous festivities, numerous passionate love affairs, and impulsive acts of jealousy or revenge—even toward artists he admired—form a musical character portrait oscillating between sensitivity and despotism.

Clockworks
Credit: Jochen Meyder/Pia Loertscher

Helmut Lipsky : Boîte Aux Clochettes Hantées, Inspired by C.P.E. Bach

(Box with Haunted Bells)

For his Boîte Aux Clochettes Hantées (BACH), Lipsky draws on the whimsical and magical elements of C. P. E. Bach’s music. The composer’s fascination with mechanical devices—music boxes, clocks, and bell mechanisms—becomes a source of inspiration. Yet, as we know, mechanical wonders sometimes falter, producing unexpected and uncanny results…

“Uberm Sternenzelt sicher wohnen”, Ode Lipsky-Beethoven
Credit: Jochen Meyder/Pia Loertscher

Helmut Lipsky : Überm Sternenzelt sicher wohnen (Above the stars they surely dwell— Ode to Memory and Hope)
Inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven

Before continuing through time, we return briefly to Duke Carl Eugen of Württemberg. Among those under his protection was the young Friedrich Schiller, later one of the most important writers of German classical literature. The Duke disapproved of Schiller’s liberal and independent spirit and forbade him to write; Schiller fled to Mannheim.

Years later, influenced by Franziska von Ertingen—formerly his mistress and later his second wife—the Duke softened, and the two men were reconciled before Carl Eugen’s death. By that time, Schiller had already written his celebrated poem Ode to Joy (1785).

The poem’s vision of universal brotherhood rising above conflict and despair deeply resonated with Beethoven, who immortalised it in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony (1824), at the dawn of the Romantic era.

Without altering the famous theme itself, Überm Sternenzelt sicher wohnen emerged from Lipsky’s improvisations at the piano as a funeral march imbued with melancholy and foreboding. He imagined Beethoven might have written it this way had he foreseen that his message of human unity would one day be misused to glorify the inflated egos of narcissistic tyrants, deployed to celebrate the horrors of war, or used to accompany the burials of genocide victims.

In this light, the piece becomes a requiem for the gradual decline of Castle Grafeneck, once a flourishing cultural centre. Over time, it lost its opera house and other defining structures until, in 1928, it was converted into a hospice for people living with illness and disabilities.

“Grafeneck 1940”
Credit: Jochen Meyder/Pia Loertscher

Thomas Fortmann: Grafeneck 1940

On 13 October 1939, the administration of the Münsingen district ordered the evacuation of Castle Grafeneck “for the needs of the Reich.” Within three months, the hospice was transformed into the first National Socialist extermination centre for people living with mental and physical disabilities.

In Grafeneck 1940, Thomas Fortmann sought to express the inner world of those caught up in these events. He explains that he tried to imagine how a person might experience the journey from departure in grey buses with shuttered windows to the entrance of the gas chamber; how they would cling to memories and familiar images from everyday life—trees, birds, clouds—only to see them gradually dissolve in the turmoil of the present.

At the same time, the work also tries to convey how each individual was subjected to an inhuman bureaucratic system—from the selection of individuals to their transport to the place of their annihilation.

In the final part of the work, each metronome beat marks the death of one person killed at Castle Grafeneck between 18 January and 13 December 1940. To hear all the clicks—10 654 in total—one would need to listen for an hour and a half.

Credit: Mariko Sato

Credit: Sasha Onyshchenko

LOUISE BESSETTE

A versatile musician and a piano wizard, Louise Bessette is much in demand as a concert artist in Europe, America, and Asia. Numerous organizations and international competitions have seen fit to reward her talent, and her reviews are constantly laudatory. Many composers write especially for her. She has recorded a wide variety of repertoire. Her album Port of Call: New England (ATMA Classique, 2024) has received a glowing review in the International Piano Gramophone Magazine.

Louise Bessette has performed with renowned conductors such as Leonardo García Alarcón (Les Violons du Roy), Charles Bruck (Orchestre symphonique de Québec), Edward Cumming (Belfast Ulster Orchestra), Charles Dutoit (Orchestre symphonique de Montréal), Pascal Rophé (Orchestre national de Montpellier, France), Michel Swierczewski (Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Denmark).

In 2019, she received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for Classical Music. The GGPAA are Canada’s highest honour in the performing arts.

Louise Bessette received her tenth Opus Prize from Conseil québécois de la musique in 2021. In 2015, she was listed as one of Canada’s top 25 pianists by CBC Music. Winner of First Prizes at Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition (1981), Concours International de Musique Contemporaine (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1986), International Gaudeamus Competition (Rotterdam, 1989), Prix Québec-Flandre (1991), and Member of the Order of Canada (2001), Officier de l’Ordre national du Québec (2005), Canadian Music Centre Ambassador (2009), Louise Bessette has been a professor of piano at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal since 1996. In 2024, she was named Knight of the Ordre de Montréal.

Credit: Leon Thomas Königsthal

HELMUT LIPSKY

Helmut Lipsky embodies the ideal of today’s complete musician—an accomplished violinist, trained by great masters including Itzhak Perlman and Ivan Galamian. He has also developed his skills as an improviser and composer across diverse musical languages such as jazz and world music, incorporating these influences into his artistic voice.

Born in Germany, he grew up and studied in Switzerland with Abraham Comfort, where he graduated with distinction from the Zurich Conservatory before moving to New York. There, he got a Master of Music in violin performance and received the Presidential Scholar Award from the City of New York for excellence in his academic work. He subsequently undertook concert tours as a soloist with numerous symphony orchestras and chamber music ensembles throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Since settling in Montreal in 1980, he has led his ensemble Mélosphère, which explores the intersection of musical genres and eras. Pursuing an international career, Lipsky has appeared at major festivals around the world, including the Montreux Jazz Festival and the Montreal International Jazz Festival, and has released several critically acclaimed albums. An eclectic artist, he has composed music for film, theatre, dance, multimedia installations, and special projects, notably his Concerto portuaire for violin and the ships of the Port of Montreal. He has collaborated with distinguished artists such as sopranos Suzie LeBlanc and Karen Young, cellist David Darling, and harpist Andreas Vollenweider.

A respected educator and mentor, Lipsky has taught at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and Concordia University, and co-founded the Clazz International Music Festival in Tuscany, Italy. Many of his former students now enjoy international careers.

Among his distinctions are an Opus Award from the Conseil québécois de la musique and first prize in the international Jazz à la carte competition organized by French-language public radio networks.

Credit: Jérôme Bertrand

OLIVIER MARANDA

Olivier Maranda earned prizes with great distinction, awarded unanimously by the examination jury, in both percussion and chamber music performance at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal in the class of Jean-Guy Plante. He then completed a doctoral degree focusing on the interpretation of solo percussion works by Xenakis at the Université de Montréal under the supervision of Julien Grégoire and Robert Leroux. Maranda attended courses on Stockhausen’s music in Kürten, Germany, where he studied with Michael Pattmann. He received the first prize for his interpretation of the work Zyklus für einen Schlagzeuger.

From 2018 to 2022, Maranda was principal percussionist at the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal (ECM+). He notably directed the team of percussionists for its production of Kathinkas Gesang by Karlheinz Stockhausen. In addition, he often performs with the Nouvel ensemble moderne and as principal percussionist with the Ensemble de la Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, where he performed Kontakte by Stockhausen.

As an orchestral musician, he regularly performs with the Orchestre Métropolitain as well as with many regional orchestras. He is also frequently engaged by the principal contemporary music ensembles of the Montréal region, as a chamber musician, a soloist, or a section percussionist.

Since 2021, he has been involved in an ongoing project exploring the sound and orchestration possibilities of authentic church bells that have been permanently lowered and installed in the nave of the Sacré-Cœur-de-Jésus Church in Montréal. Within this context, he has acted as an improviser and composer.

Credit: Irja Fortmann

THOMAS FORTMANN (also known as Tommy Fortmann)

Thomas Fortmann was born in Switzerland and became a successful songwriter in the 1970s, while also pursuing an international golfing career. He wrote his first hit at the age of 16, followed by more than one hundred songs released in 27 countries. Numerous German and international artists—including Udo Lindenberg, Alexis Korner, Love Generation, Demon Thor, Jürgen Drews, Daniela Davoli, and many others—have recorded his songs.

He composed the music for the musical Tell, which caused a scandal in Switzerland, while the album reached the charts across all German-speaking countries.

At the age of 26, Fortmann abandoned his career as a rock musician and dedicated himself to further studies in composition and instrumentation. This period laid the foundation for an extensive body of work that includes chamber music, operas and musical theatre, orchestral, choral, and organ works, as well as several song cycles.

His work has been supported by institutions such as the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, Zurich Opera House, Open Opera St. Gallen, Bühne Aarau, Espace Nuithonie, the City of Zurich, the European Union (Kaleidoscope programme), the University of Silesia, the University of Houston, Carnegie Hall, and several festivals, including Murten Classics, Gaia Festival, and Salerno Piano Festival.

Fortmann’s compositional approach is characterised by a continuous search for the appropriate form for each work. This has led to the development of a distinctly personal style, often uniting different—and sometimes opposing—impulses of modern music. Despite the frequent use of complex structures, it remains important to him to communicate directly with the listener and create an emotional impact.

In the mid-1980s, Fortmann and his family moved to Tuscany, where he founded the Accademia Amiata and the Festival Toscana delle Culture. In 2016, he initiated the CLAZZ International Music Festival.

GRAFENECK 10654
THOMAS FORTMANN
HELMUT LIPSKY

LOUISE BESSETTE
PIANO
HELMUT LIPSKY
VIOLON/VIOLIN
OLIVIER MARANDA
PERCUSSION

1 THOMAS FORTMANN (né en / b. 1951)
Introduzione Rinascimentale (2015)