Programme
Notes: The current revival of Klezmer music is, at least
in part, based on a nostalgia for a world long gone; a world dominated
by poverty, repression and a fundamental insecurity. Our shtetl
dwelling ancestors would probably be horrified by our current romanticisation
of a life that they were often desperate to escape. My own Jewish
ancestors had moved out of the Pale of Settlement by the middle
of the nineteenth century, into Austria, becoming Viennese, and
my father can recall the often ferocious anger that would ensue
if he accidentally used a Yiddish word or phrase. I myself, when
busking, playing Jewish violin music, have been accused of dragging
all Jews back to the shtetl, by elderly Jewish women in Hove.
On the other hand, in this society, that is ever more concerned
with the notion of roots, and ethnicity, it is no surprise that
the Yiddish speaking culture, actively destroyed by Israel’s
adoption of Hebrew as a national language, is now being revived
by those born into the comforts of the new world. As a Jewish violinist
I am as guilty as the next man, and in writing this piece I am,
in a sense, further romanticising the past.
This conflict was one of the elements that I intended to explore
in the piece – trying to marry my own love of traditional
music, with a sense of the danger and naivety involved: danger –
because romanticising a genuinely desperate lifestyle is always
dangerous; naïve – because the music itself expresses
a simple world of traditional dances and social order that is long
passed.
The piece falls roughly into four linked movements. In the first,
the general argument ensues; the Klezmer band repeatedly strike
up simple tunes which the orchestra first colours in and then attempts
to undermine, as if to say “things can’t be that simple
any more”. Towards the end of this movement the argument between
the two gets more intense and aggressive.
The second movement features the clarinet and violin as soloists,
and is the only part of the piece that quotes from the Klezmer archive
– based on a doina (a slow, ornamented introductory melody)
taught to me by Deborah Strauss, and taught to her by Michael Alpert
who learnt it from Leon Schwartz; the only Klezmer violinist to
pass on his skills first hand to a member of the current generation
of klezmorim. This movement draws to a close with a simple melody
on the trombone, which is then taken up by the strings.
In the third movement the Klezmer band repeated attempts to strike
up with an irritating little tune, but on each occasion the orchestra
interrupts and tries to take it somewhere more serious. Sometimes
the band joins in, sometimes they fight, and the movement concludes
with the two forces screaming trills at each other.
The final movement is a short funeral march, started by the orchestra,
which the band mistake for a march of triumph. They are led like
lambs to embrace their tragic fate.
As a final word I must add that in my experience the creator of
a work of art is rarely the best judge of what they have made, and
is often completely deluded as to the result of their labours. What
I have written here is what I intended. What you hear may be completely
different. A word of advice – trust your own judgment more
than mine. |
