"The Terezin Requiem," a surprisingly short novelization of a performance of Verdi's Requiem in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, provides a succinct but devastating image of the power of art even in the sordid horror of the Nazi world. Raphael Schaechter, the conductor, flies elegantly and engagingly by the seat of his pants to assemble and maintain his ensemble, and the many minor characters who move through it are brilliantly and all-too-briefly drawn. The irony of the Catholic Requiem's reinterpretation by doomed Jews is piquantly stated. As a semi-professional singer, I was inspired by the characters' embrace of a classical work as a bridge between real life and the slow dying of the camp. My only complaint was that the book ended too quickly.