"Ponary Toccata" is based on the song "Ponar" (Quiet, Quiet \ Shtiller, Shtiller) which became one of the symbols of the Holocaust of the Jewish nation. The poem describes the massacre of the people who were taken to the forest near Vilnius, named Ponar, in which almost one hundred thousand Jews were murdered. The melody was composed by Alexander Tamir-Wolkowyski (1931-2019) in the Vilnius ghetto when he was 11 years old. Prof. Tamir survived the Holocaust and became part of the Eden-Tamir piano duo. This composition is dedicated in his memory.
The work opens with a presentation of the original melody in the meditative heterophonic spirit. The use of a pedal leaves sound trails that continue to resonate with those that follow them, amplifying the dissonances, and together with the bent pitch become a kind of wandering wind chorus. The toccata that appears then intertwine encoded fragments from the original melody; upon reaching the climax the toccata fades and is sealed with the resonance of the initial meditative caricature.