Various - Ronald Corp: Letters from Lony

� Leonie (�Lony�) Fraenkel was a German-Jewish exile from Nazi Berlin who set up the Caf� de Paris on Beethovenstraat in Amsterdam in 1939.� In late 1939 she sent a card to greet Peter, her first grandson, newly born in safety in England, and over the next three years she sent a series of letters to Peter and his mother, Lony�s daughter.� In 1943 she was deported first to the Westerbork transit camp, and then to Theresienstadt and, finally, in October 1944 to Auschzitz, and was gassed within two days of her arrival.� Many years later, that grandson, Peter, now a grandfather himself, discovered Lony�s letters, had them translated and brought them to the attention of the composer Ronald Corp.� Ronald Corp has set Lony�s letters in a series of lyrical arioso recitatives for mezzo-soprano, string quartet and piano, lasting just over an hour.� The cycle was first heard at the Proms in St Jude�s, in Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London, in 2017, and now Toccata Classics is releasing its first recording.