Synopsis

On today’s date in 1992, during the bloody civil wars that shattered the former Yugoslavia, a hand grenade was thrown into the midst of a bread line in Sarajevo. Twenty-two people died. To most around the world, it appeared to be just one more senseless act of violence amidst the thousands of such acts took place in that unhappy part of the world.

One Sarajevo resident thought otherwise. At 4 p.m. every day after the incident, despite the danger, Vedran Smailovic, a cellist with the Sarajevo Opera, went to the site of the bombing in full evening dress and played his cello in memory of the dead. A New York Times reporter wrote of the cellist’s moving act of courage and faith in art and humanity — and the world took notice.

English-born composer David Wilde read about the cellist while riding a train in Germany. “As I sat in the train, deeply moved, I listened; and somewhere deep within me a cello began to play a circular melody like a lament without end,” he later recalled. That theme developed into The Cellist of Sarajevo, a piece dedicated to Vedran Smailovic, and which cellist Yo-Yo Ma was soon performing around the world.

Music Played in Today's Program

David Wilde (1935-2025): The Cellist of Sarajevo; Yo Yo Ma, cello; Sony 64114