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Uri Brener

  /  Works 2013-2019   /  Jewish Suite סיפורי מעשיות for violin, clarinet and piano (2017)

Jewish Suite סיפורי מעשיות for violin, clarinet and piano (2017)

( I. “At the Chotzer” II. “Almost a Lullaby” III. “The Fiddler” 
IV. “A Legend” V. “Raava Deraava” VI. “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. “Raava de Raava” – this is the most mystical and inner part of the Suite, it`s spiritual “heart” as it were. The term comes from the Kabbalistic literature meaning in Aramaic literally “Desire of (all) desires”. It refers to a concept of the initial Divine intention (or “desire”) in creating the world, and revealing it to the people of Revelation, the Jewish people. According to the Kabbalistic knowledge, this most inner Divine Desire comes to its strongest manifestation at the time of Shabbat afternoon, close to the sunset, the time when it is customary in Chassidic circles to make a meal, embellished by beautiful and nostalgic chants (niggunim), sung by the whole congregation in a joint ecstatic rise.
    6. “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:
22 January 2018, w Mosheles Ensemble members Thomas Tulacek and Dalibor Ducky, at the Galeria Bazouskeho, Trenchin, Slovakia;
30 January 2018, w members of the Israel Philharmonic Eugeny and Polina Yehudin at the Bet Shemesh Eshkol Pais Hall  Chamber Series

Listen HERE to the world premiere in Slovakia of the violin\clarinet version

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