Kaddish

SKU: PR.144407280

ISBN 9781491136607. UPC: 680160680047.

Faced with the same instrumentation as Messiaen’s iconic Quartet for the End of Time, composed in a POW camp during World War II, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich was moved to give voice to those less fortunate prisoners who would never return home. Zwilich’s chilling memorial quotes music created in concentration camps, drawing on two short excerpts to create an artistic view of a death march and song of grieving.
The German word “Abgang” has an innocent meaning of “exit,” but the Nazis used it as a signal that concentration camp prisoners were there to be sent off and murdered.My first movement, Abgang, is based on two musical fragments. It begins with a quote of a Hebraic melody that Viktor Ullmann used as a basis for variations in his Piano Sonata No. 7 that he was working on while in Theresienstadt. Next is a short quote of a fox trot that was arranged by a composer (only identified by his prisoner-number) for performance in Auschwitz. What follows is a purely musical, but deeply personal exploration.After finishing the movement, I felt it necessary to add a second movement, Kaddish, which is a prayer recited in mourning, without a single mention of death, but celebrating God, peace, and life. The Kaddish appears in the score and parts in an English translation (along with some Aramaic). It is not meant to be spoken or sung, but to guide the performers in giving meaning to the musical phrases.

SKU: PR.111401100

UPC: 680160002474.

'Coro nach' is a Scottish and Irish lament for the dead. 'Kaddish' is the most solemn and one of the oldest of all Jewish prayers. One is gently superimposes over the other in eery beauty. For colleges,conservatories, professionals, libraries. Difficult.

SKU: PR.164002120

UPC: 680160037582.

Works of chamber music including flute and strings are not nearly as numerous as those for clarinet, or even the oboe. Probably the reason for this is the less assertive, more pure tone the flute possesses - it can't compete for volume or range with the clarinet, except in its top octave, and the oboe's tone is more penetrating and easily discerned from within a string texture. Consequently, composers who have written for flute and strings have done so in lightweight divertimento works: compare, for instance, the delicate flute quartets of Mozart with his monumental quintet for clarinet and strings.   When Karl and Joan Karber approached me with the ideas of writing a work for flute and string trio, I originally thought it would be best to write a humorous, rather offhand piece - but a look at their repertoire (mostly comprised of smaller works of the Rococo period) convinced me that it was the last thing they needed. In spite of the challenge (or maybe because of it?), I determined to write a large work, and a serious work. Zephyrus (named for the God of the West Wind, in deference to the flute) is a three-movement work, with each movement cast in a very different form, but all three being built of the same twelve-note series. There is also a rhythmic motive and a pair of themes that appear in all three movements.   The first movement plays with the idea of contrast and persuasion. The flute, at the outset, is the hell-for-leather protagonist, charging and swooping around the strings - who seem oddly unconcerned by his passion. Indeed, they have a more somber song to sing - and as the movement unfolds, the flute becomes less and less active, while the strings become increasingly enlivened. By the midpoint, when all four instruments are finally in the same meter and the same tempo, the flute's energy has finally infected the other three players, and this energy does not let up until the movement's abrupt final cadence.   The second movement begins with a tag from the first - as if the energy left over was too great to simply stop. At length, though, a very poignant flute melody appears over an almost bluesy harmony in the strings. After this has been fully exposed, a slight increase in motion, marked gently rocking in triplets, features a theme-fragment from Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 2 (Kaddish). Bernstein died as I was writing this work, and it seemed quite natural to encourage what was already implicit in the music, and create an Elegy for L.B. The music rises and peaks, then in the recapitulation of the opening the Kaddish theme reappears, as the ensemble suggests a gentle song of sleep.   The final movement is a Rondo-Variations form, with the slight alteration of adding the main theme of the second movement in what would be the trio of the form. The ritornello theme is a kind of ethnic dance music, almost an allusion to the Klezmer ensembles of Eastern Europe. The successive episodes between the ritornelli are loosely organized variations on the basic theme, but always beginning with a metric modulation, a rhythmic changing of gears. The movement reaches and apex of speed and furious pulsing, then abruptly pirouttes, and finishes.   Zephyrus was written between April and November of 1990 in Austin, Aspen, and Honolulu, and is dedicated to Karl Kraber and The Chamber Soloists of Austin. --Dan Welcher.

SKU: PR.16400212S

UPC: 680160037605.

Works of chamber music including flute and strings are not nearly as numerous as those for clarinet, or even the oboe. Probably the reason for this is the less assertive, more pure tone the flute possesses - it can't compete for volume or range with the clarinet, except in its top octave, and the oboe's tone is more penetrating and easily discerned from within a string texture. Consequently, composers who have written for flute and strings have done so in lightweight divertimento works: compare, for instance, the delicate flute quartets of Mozart with his monumental quintet for clarinet and strings.   When Karl and Joan Karber approached me with the ideas of writing a work for flute and string trio, I originally thought it would be best to write a humorous, rather offhand piece - but a look at their repertoire (mostly comprised of smaller works of the Rococo period) convinced me that it was the last thing they needed. In spite of the challenge (or maybe because of it?), I determined to write a large work, and a serious work. Zephyrus (named for the God of the West Wind, in deference to the flute) is a three-movement work, with each movement cast in a very different form, but all three being built of the same twelve-note series. There is also a rhythmic motive and a pair of themes that appear in all three movements.   The first movement plays with the idea of contrast and persuasion. The flute, at the outset, is the hell-for-leather protagonist, charging and swooping around the strings - who seem oddly unconcerned by his passion. Indeed, they have a more somber song to sing - and as the movement unfolds, the flute becomes less and less active, while the strings become increasingly enlivened. By the midpoint, when all four instruments are finally in the same meter and the same tempo, the flute's energy has finally infected the other three players, and this energy does not let up until the movement's abrupt final cadence.   The second movement begins with a tag from the first - as if the energy left over was too great to simply stop. At length, though, a very poignant flute melody appears over an almost bluesy harmony in the strings. After this has been fully exposed, a slight increase in motion, marked gently rocking in triplets, features a theme-fragment from Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 2 (Kaddish). Bernstein died as I was writing this work, and it seemed quite natural to encourage what was already implicit in the music, and create an Elegy for L.B. The music rises and peaks, then in the recapitulation of the opening the Kaddish theme reappears, as the ensemble suggests a gentle song of sleep.   The final movement is a Rondo-Variations form, with the slight alteration of adding the main theme of the second movement in what would be the trio of the form. The ritornello theme is a kind of ethnic dance music, almost an allusion to the Klezmer ensembles of Eastern Europe. The successive episodes between the ritornelli are loosely organized variations on the basic theme, but always beginning with a metric modulation, a rhythmic changing of gears. The movement reaches and apex of speed and furious pulsing, then abruptly pirouttes, and finishes.   Zephyrus was written between April and November of 1990 in Austin, Aspen, and Honolulu, and is dedicated to Karl Kraber and The Chamber Soloists of Austin. --Dan Welcher.

SKU: SU.36100330

Soprano, Piano Duration: 8' Text: Mark L. Belletini Composed: 1995 T.J. Anderson Music Publishing.

SKU: PR.114402020

UPC: 680160005109.

Compo sed for cellist Barbara Haffner, CADENZAS AND VARIATIONS III is based on the opening of the composer’s Kaddish Requiem composed in the fall of 1971. When Wernick decided to revise portions of the requiem’s first movement, he became intrigued with where the opening cadenza might lead in a totally different context, leading him to use it as the “theme” for the 1973 work. Much of the work was written in the exotic city of Dar es Salaam in a studio overlooking a luxuriant tropical garden of bouganvillia, hibiscus, wild orchids, and flamboyants. None of this is evident in the music, not even the “waltzing” dove which was wonderfully entertaining except during working hours, when he nearly drove the composer mad.

SKU: SU.50500830

Solo Alto; 2222; 4221; timp; stgs Duration: 4' Composed: 2009 Published by: Seesaw Music Performance materials available on rental only:.

SKU: BT.PMC3326

SKU: BT.AL-0327

English.

SKU: HL.49044715

ISBN 9790001191968.

'Kad dish (Aramaic: 'holy') is the Jewish mourning prayer recited for the dead. My Kaddisch fur David Stahl was conceived to honour the memory of the long-serving chief musical director of the Staatstheater am Gartnerplatz in Munich and begins with a lyrically flowing lament on the clarinet which towards the end rears up in a despairing wail of grief. The piano and double bass punctuate the arching structure of the melody with an aggressive and urgent three-note phrase which should sound as if 'hammered in steel', symbolising the three syllables 'Da-vid Stahl'. The work culminates with an original Jewish melody for Psalm 119 with the following text: 'Your word is a lamp to my feet, shadows and light reveal the width and depth of the path of my life.' Wilfried Hiller.

SKU: SU.50500831

Alto Voice & Piano Duration: 4' Composed: 2009 Published by: Seesaw Music.

SKU: OT.22090

ISBN 9789655050738. 8.27 x 11.69 inches.

Daniel Akiva's Partita for violin solo consists of six movements based loosely on music of the Sephardic Jews. It was written for students as performance material, and dedicated to them.
Contents:
Liturgical Song
Prayer
Supplication
Dance
Kaddish
Supplication
Daniel Akiva is a composer, performer, and educator whose performances on guitar and lute have won great acclaim. Mr. Akiva graduated from the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem in 1981, where he studied classical guitar with Haim Asulin and composition with Haim Alexander. In 1987 he completed his studies at the Geneva Conservatorium in Switzerland where he studied lute with Jonathon Rubin and composition with Jean Ballisa. For many years, he headed the Music Department at the WIZO High School for the Arts in Haifa, which he founded in 1986, and served as the Artistic Director of the Guitar Gems Festival from 2006-2019. As part of his work at WIZO High School, he has developed a method for teaching free improvisation that has been incorporated into the music program at the school.
Mr. Akiva has appeared in concert as a guitarist and lutist and given master classes in Israel, Europe, Russia, the United States, and Latin America. Daniel Akiva’s compositional output includes works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, choir, voice and guitar, piano, and chamber orchestra. His works have been recorded on twelve CDs, the latest of which, Malchut, was issued by OR-TAV in 2014.
A native of Haifa whose family has lived in Israel for over five hundred years, he was steeped in the Sephardic (Jewish-Spanish) tradition from his youth. Much of his compositional output has been devoted to a dialogue with the music of the Sephardic Jews. Daniel Akiva has also maintained a creative dialogue over many years with the poets and writers Amnon Shamash, Rivka Miriam, and Avner Peretz.

SKU: RM.RAVE05748

ISBN 9790231057485.