There is Viennese tradition in me too, though of a different nature. A branch of my family lived and prospered in Vienna for many generations, lovers and patrons of the arts, part of that city’s rich cultural fabric. Two years ago I visited Vienna for the first time, and stood outside a grand mansion–Kupelwiesergasse 12, in Hietzing, near Schloss Schönbrunn. The house had been “Aryanized”: that is, stolen by opportunistic Austrians while its elderly inhabitants—my aunts and uncles—were rounded up as Jews and murdered at Theriesenstadt. Now it’s divided into half a dozen flats, and has no doubt made its “owner” wealthy. The Austrian government began to compensate victims of Aryanization in the late 1990s, but in this case all direct descendants are dead, so no compensation can ever be made.

The texts are taken from Wilhelm Müller’s Winterreise (set by Franz Schubert, the only native Viennese from the Great German list above). In their descriptions of a young man, brokenhearted, on a futile, grieving, and suicidal winter journey, they resonate with the fate of Viennese Jews. I have also included some apt texts from Ecclesiastes.

Dust was commissioned by Barbara Hannigan with the assistance of The Ontario Arts Council.

Texts to Dust [with sources in brackets]

A stranger I came, a stranger I go [Winterreise, #1]

The dogs are barking, their chains are rattling, People are sleeping in their beds,

Dreaming of all the things they don’t have Finding escape in things good and bad

By early morning all will be gone.

Yet each have had their share of joy, And hope that what’s still missing They’ll soon find on their pillows.

Drive me away, you watchful dogs, Don’t let me rest in the hour of sleep. I’m now finished with all this dreaming;x