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Uri Brener

  /  Works 2013-2019   /  JEWISH SUITE סיפורי מעשיות version FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO (2017)
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JEWISH SUITE סיפורי מעשיות version FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO (2017)

( I. “At the Chotzer” II. “Almost a Lullaby” III. “The Fiddler” 
IV. “A Legend” V. “BroigezTanz”)

“Jewish suite” is a series of musical pictures, presenting different aspects of live and spiritual environment in a traditional East-European Jewish community some 150 years ago, known as Shtetl. The music is very close in many aspects to a traditional folklore, such as klezmer, folk song or Chassidic niggun (chant); however, no actual quotations are used, all the music is entirely original. There are six parts to the Suite. Their names allude to following concepts:

  1. “At the Chotzer” (“At the Yard” or alternatively “At the Court”) – refers both to a physical yard of a house, but also, and more specifically, to the concept of the Chassidic so called “court”, semantically similar to that of a royal court. It includes all the people close to and lead by a single leader – a king in the case of a royal court, or a Tsaddik, Chassidic Rabbi, in the case of a “chotzer”.
  2. “Almost a Lullaby” is an attempt to express many complex feelings, fears and worries of a mother via a rather simple medium of a lullaby, whereby this basic simplicity gives a way to emotional outbursts, which are far beyond a mere effort to put a child to sleep. Hence “Almost” a Lullaby.
  3. “The Fiddler” is a folk-like melody, as if played on a street by Chagall-like fiddler, simple and cheerful.
  4. “The Legend” is perhaps a story told by a grandfather about times immemorial, about great kings or sages of the past, maybe about the Biblical times, or maybe about the so called “Golden Age” in Spain, where Jews were welcomed and cherished until the expulsion…
  5. “Broigez Tanz” (literally “The Dance of Fury”) is a traditional musical form in klezmer music; it was customary used as a wedding dance (`dance of anger and reconciliation`) traditionally performed by the groom, his father, and his father-in-law. The music combines elements of dissonant sonorities with non-symmetric rhythmic figures and some invocation-like repeating phrases.

Performances:
21 February 2018, The Embassy of the Czech Republic Tel-Aviv, w Thomas Tulacek, violin
6 September 2019 Beit HaYotzer Hall, Tel Aviv, w Thomas Tulacek, violin

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