A Twentieth Century Passion

In December, 1941, Peter Gary was ripped from his home in Budapest, Hungary and forced to experience the horrors of the Nazi regime. He was seventeen years old. Peter's mother was murdered that Christmas Eve. For the next four years, he endured the systematic pain and unfathomable fear perpetuated by a vicious, inhumane system of hate. On his twenty-first birthday, he was liberated by the British Army. He weighed seventy-six pounds. After the war, Peter renewed his studies in ethnomusicology. In 1950, he arrived in the U.S. It was here in the 1970s that his most complex musical piece to date was created: A Twentieth Century Passion is an oratorio that depicts the Holocaust from the end of World War I through the Nuremburg trial. The piece features thirty-five musicians, two choirs, and four soloists.