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In 1980, excerpts from a nascent music-theater work based on Anne Frank's diary were performed at a memorial service for Anne's father, Otto Frank, at the 92nd Street Y in New York. One of the musicians in the orchestra that evening was a young flutist named Lisa Hansen. Fifteen years later, Ms. Hansen and her chamber group, Serenata, commissioned I Remember, which includes music and lyrics from that long ago performance for the Chamber Music Series of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The work has continued to garner recognition, enjoying three major recordings by different artists in the 21st Century.

The piece is a loosely constructed song cycle. Each vocal section is separated by a musical interlude consisting of material from the previous section, or anticipating the next one. The piece is connected by two recurring motifs--the first three notes of the piece which are the notes of "Dear Kitty," and the four-note figure of "I Remember." The Serenata ensemble consisted of flute, harp, and mezzo-soprano. While working on the piece I asked Ms. Hansen if it would be possible to add a clarinet or a cello to the score. I felt the need for a darker color. As always, budgetary restrictions were severe, but Steven Honigberg, the Director of the Chamber Music Series at the Holocaust Museum is an extraordinary cellist with the National Symphony. He was not only available, but enthusiastic. Thus, the instrumentation was determined by circumstance. Ms. Hansen suggested the possibilities of expanding the range of instrumental color by also using the alto flute and the piccolo. My response was immediate. The warmth of the alto flute was perfect for the instrumental statement of "I Remember," and the piccolo, with its sharp stinging quality, worked well in the nightmare section.

During the rehearsal period, a rather unusual event occurred. There was some discussion about the ending of the piece. This disturbed me somewhat, although I didn't know why, as I am always open to comments from performers. That night, I had a dream. In it, I saw the score and to my amazement, I saw that the first note was an "A," and the last, an "F," Anne Frank's initials. I was shocked. I had no conscious knowledge of my choice to begin in the key of "A" and end in the key of "F." It is the kind of thing that a musicologist would say was planned, but I had no idea. It did, however, quickly resolve the discussion about the ending, it remained as written.

The premiere of I Remember was scheduled for November 19th, 1995. On November 16th, the concert was canceled because of a federal government shutdown. Through the efforts of Steven Honigberg, the piece was rescheduled for February 4th. There was a blizzard in Washington that day and it was almost canceled again. But, thankfully, finally, I Remember received the first of many performances.

--Michael Cohen

Anne Frank transcended her crushing circumstances by keeping a luminous diary. The text of I Remember is based on her work. I've tried to recreate the spirit, not the letter, of Anne's language. My words are never exactly the same as hers. Sometimes they paraphrase the English translation of the original Dutch; sometimes they express what she may have only suggested or implied. They describe the arc of a singular journey--emotional, artistic, spiritual. As her life becomes almost unbearably narrow, her inner life expands and deepens. She longs for everything--friendship, love, nature, freedom. In the centerpiece of the text, she briefly recaptures the lightness she has left behind. Remembering leads to dreaming, but Anne's dream is a nightmare--her friend, Lies, naked, skeletal, frightened. She looks closer and sees herself. Instead of recoiling, she faces the darkness around her, and the darkness within her, while continuing to look for light.

As its title implies, I Remember was written from a distance of not quite sixty years, with the awareness that Anne Frank's light continues to burn in defiance of her murder in Bergen-Belsen, when she was not quite 16.
--Enid Futterman, librettist 
In a Chicago Tribune review of a performance we gave of I Remember at the Ravinia Festival in September 1998, Lawrence Johnson wrote: "The most impressive work on the program, I Remember … based freely on Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl … Cohen brings off this work with great success. The composer's writing for voice wraps seamlessly around the words with a Britten-like ease. Mostly lyrical and tonal, I Remember at times echoes Samuel Barber and Knoxville: Summer of 1915, but there is an edgy quality to the instrumental writing that is quite individual … it is a haunting, moving work with moments of real beauty, gratefully written for the voice…."
I commissioned I Remember for my chamber ensemble, Serenata, after having performed an early version of this work in 1980 at a memorial service for Otto Frank at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. I was so moved by the music that fifteen years later I asked Mr. Cohen and Ms. Futterman to compose a chamber music work for Serenata for a concert at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., where it received its world premiere in 1996. Since then I Remember has evoked similarly impassioned responses in audiences from New York to The Netherlands. It has been highlighted at numerous chamber music series including the Edgar Bronfman Chamber Music Series in Sun Valley, Idaho; Shadyside Concerts in Pennsylvania, with members of the Pittsburgh Symphony; at the Aga Zaal with members of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw; and in its New York premiere in 1997 at Weill Hall with Laura Tucker.

Composer Michael Cohen and librettist Enid Futterman's commitment to Anne Frank has spanned a quarter of a century; Ms. Futterman traveled to Europe and met with Otto Frank before his death to ask his permission to use Anne's words in a musical context. I Remember rewards readers of her diary by capturing the spirit of her words while creating an entirely new and fresh work of art.

--Lisa Hansen, flutist

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"One of the outstanding events during ArtsWalk week was the performance at the Hudson Opera House on September 30 of a song cycle titled 'I Remember.'"

"The song cycle, composed by Michael Cohen, is written for mezzo soprano, flute, harp and cello. The libretto by Enid Futterman, fashioned after the 268-page diary, is outstanding. Futterman captures perfectly the essence, the persona, the searching, and the hope of Anne Frank."

"Michael Cohen's music is so beautiful and wraps the text with the haunting poetry of the three accompanying instruments. The cello brings the sad emotions forward, the harp in upward arpeggios seems to point out the way for Frank's escape to eternity and the flute anchors suffering humanity."

-John Paul Keeler, Hudson-Catskill Newspapers.

"A beautiful chamber music concert featuring harp Sunday night at First Unitarian Church in Shadyside was transfigured by its final piece, an inspired setting of words by Anne Frank.

'I Remember' by Michael Cohen was written only four years ago, and the least of its accomplishments is a reminder that music of our time can be deeply rewarding. More significantly, it was a reminder that each human life has the potential to be cherished and nurtured.

Cohen set lines by Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager who poured out her soul in her writing while hidden from the Nazis in the attic of a Dutch Christian family. Frank remembered her grandmother, her world that was taken away from her. In the moving climax of this piece, she wrote, "I still believe that people are good at heart. I still believe that someday this war will end. We will see peace again, go home again. I still believe what I can."

Of course, she didn't go home or see peace. But although she was killed, her voice was not stilled.”

- Mark Kanny, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

"Of the horrors of Nazi wartime atrocities against Europe's Jews, there have been innumerable artistic statements, literary, theatrical, and cinematic. Tuesday evening's "Concert of Remembrance" at Ravinia's Bennett-Gordon Hall gave us the opportunity to hear a variety of musical responses to the Holocaust. Cellist Steven Honigberg, who is director of chamber music at Washington!s Holocaust Memorial Museum, led the musicians in a finely judged blend of modem music dedicated to the victims, as well as works composed by those who perished.

The most impressive work on the program, "I Remember," by American composer Michael Cohen, was also the most recently written. Premiered in 1996, Cohen's work is an extended vocal scene for mezzo-soprano on a text by Enid Futterman, freely based on "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl."

An adult mezzo vocalizing the words of Anne Frank seems like an inherently unworkable concept, yet, amazingly, Cohen brings off this work with great success. The composer's writing for voice wraps seamlessly around the words with a Britten-like ease. Mostly lyrical and tonal, "I Remember" at times echoes Samuel Barber and "Knoxville: Summer of 1915," but there is an edgy quality to the instrumental writing that is quite individual. Perhaps Cohen's composition is slightly overlong, but it is a haunting, moving work with moments of real beauty, gratefully written for the voice."

-Lawrence Johnson, special to the Tribune. September 3, 1998.

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