PHILIP LEE WILLIAMS RELEASES FREE WEB-ONLY VERSION OF LARGE-SCALE ORCHESTRAL WORK, HOLOCAUST SYMPHONY

ATHENS, Ga.—As a boy, Philip Lee Williams spent days reading about the last days of World War II, especially about the discovery of concentration camps in which millions of prisoners died. Now, as a memorial specifically to the Jewish dead—the six million—he has composed the largest orchestral work of his career, Holocaust Symphony.

This huge, nine-movement, two-and-a-half-hour work, is the culmination of a lifetime as a composer and is now offered free at philipleewilliams.com to anyone who wishes to listen or download. For complete descriptions and links to each movement, please go here.

“I spent years thinking about this symphony and composed it in an intense creative burst during the second half of 2007,” said Williams. “I have always felt an intense need to deal creatively with the Holocaust, and I hope in some small way this symphony adds to the artistic commentary on that deeply tragic period in the world’s history.”

While small samples of Williams’s music have been available on this web site for some time, little of it represents the majority of his work, which includes 18 numbered symphonies, numerous concerti, and chamber music. The lighter, tonal works archived here are unlike the majority of his compositions, which are darker-hued and mix tonal structures with dense, sometimes acidic textures.

The new symphony and all the other music on this web site was produced using sampled sounds and cutting-edge notation technology, but the end result for each composition is a traditional orchestral score. While Williams has approved live performances of very little of his music, most of his scores are now archived in the Hargrett Rare Books and Manuscript Library at the University of Georgia.

Each movement of the Holocaust Symphony is named for one of the nightmarish camps in which thousands died at the hands of the Nazis. While Williams realizes that millions of non-Jews also died at the hands of the Nazis, he wishes in this symphony to memorialize the sacrifice of Jewish victims. The movements of the symphony are, in order: Ravensbruck, Sobibór, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Chelmno, Treblinka, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. The final, ninth movement of the symphony is called Kaddish, a memorial to the dead.

“While the symphony is filled with music of great violence, it also has long stretches of deep tenderness and sorrow,” said Williams. “Frequently, both moods appear within the framework of a single movement.”

The symphony is scored for large orchestra, and some movements include additional instruments such as piano, pipe organ, or zither. One movement (Chelmno) is for a string quintet and solo oboe, while another (Buchenwald) is for string orchestra, piano, and oboe.

The longest movement is Auschwitz-Birkenau, at almost 28 minutes, while the shortest named movement is Treblinka at 12:40. The Kaddish movement is 10:40. In all, the Symphony lasts well more than two hours.

Williams began composing when he was only fourteen and had finished his first symphony by the time he was nineteen. He still owns the manuscripts of that early music. He was attracted early to experimental music as well and was composing “chance” music by late 1965 when he was only fifteen years old.

He came to the University of Georgia as a music major in the fall of 1968 but quickly left to focus on writing, as a journalism major. He is now the author of twelve published books and winner of numerous literary awards. He continued to compose for much of his writing years but only took it back up seriously in the 1980s with the advent of computer notation and playback programs. Now, with sampled instrumental sounds, he is able to create his own “virtual orchestra” and listen to his many scores.

Two of his chamber pieces have been performed live on the University of Georgia campus.

“I hope that the Holocaust Symphony is in some very small way another stone in the great monument we are building in memory of those who suffered and died,” said Williams. “Times of great madness can come again if we ever forget.”

Drop him a note. He always writes back.