Review: The Cello Still Sings by Janet Horvath

by Jana Neplechovitsj. Published September 26, 2023.

The Cello Still Sings is a book with many layers. It’s a story of unearthing a family history that, at the same time, is painful, revealing, inspiring, and insightful, as it is beautiful. This history, with its roots in Hungary during the Second World War, has a unique insight, being a lesser-known story than the stories of Jewish people on the western side of Europe. Hungary, having been an ally of Germany, had a much later entry for the Jewish people with regard to being sent to extermination camps. There was a sense of “they will leave us in peace.” Hungarian Jews, being no strangers to persecution, perhaps couldn’t possibly fathom the stories possible that were starting to reach them about those camps. Somehow, a few did escape…  

Horvath tells her father’s story while digging into family archives, put away in boxes, yet not thrown away. Her father, a complicated character who miraculously survived the camps, was an accomplished cellist and played in the Holocaust survivor orchestra of only sixteen members under Leonard Bernstein. They traveled from place to place to different displaced persons camps. This part of the story is often left out in the big movies. Most stories end with liberation tanks and happy surviving faces. But the hard work of life is just beginning. And this part of the story is now even more important because this is the part that jogs our conscience. How did normal civilians treat the camp survivors upon their return? Could they even return? We need to hear these stories… You start realizing that the pain of returning is perhaps even more unbearable because the good guys versus the bad guys are not in the open. Nobody is marked by stars and triangles or wearing official costumes any longer.

In the meantime, Horvath tells the story of what happened afterward to her family and how this has affected and still affects her life, how she grew up, and what traumas she has inherited. The emotional and physical pain she endured and how music has both helped her transform and heal and, at the same time, given her pain. Horvath has written another book, Playing (Less) Hurt – an injury prevention guide for musicians, on the musician’s body. She has been a pioneer in musicians’ health in the US.

Bio:

Jana Neplechovitsj is a fully trained Suzuki Piano Teacher and is in the last year of her Timani certification studies at the Musicians Health and Music Institute. She has a BA in Music from Brevard College, North Carolina, and is keenly interested in helping musicians thrive in their playing with ease and fewer limitations. She spends her days studying Timani materials, reads books on the body, articles on neuroscience that are relevant for musicians, plays the piano with an explorative nature, paints, spends her afternoons teaching young students to play the piano, and now and then explores her cello.