Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin
Nick Roth
– Quintet for Klezmer Clarinet and String Quartet.
Osvaldo Golijov– The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind.
How much you got out of this klezmer-infused programme may have depended on the depth of your previous acquaintance with klezmer.
We were read the Wikipedia definition – all that was really needed was a sound sample: think Jewish weddings, think clarinet, Fiddler on the Roof, or the third movement of Mahler's First Symphony (the oom-cha bit after the minor-key Frère Jacques).
If such references conjure up a light-hearted, even humorous side to klezmer, the two pieces in this concert focused on a deep and serious side.
Osvaldo Golijov – Jewish-Argentinian, dually immersed in tango as well as klezmer before studying with George Crumb – composed The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blindfor the Kronos Quartet with klezmer clarinet in 1994. Over 37 minutes, it responds to the utterances of the eponymous 13th-century Jewish mystic, alternating between slow-tender and fast-and-furious.
London-born Nick Roth was on hand to introduce his Quintet – commissioned by Music for Galway – describing it as a companion piece to the Golijov. Same forces, same interest in klezmer, very different piece: more graphic, with pitchless bowing evoking the seashore, more contrapuntal, less dense. Like Golijov, Roth doesn’t appropriate klezmer for mere colour effects, instead embedding it within his texture and structure, sometimes out of sight.
Paul Roe animated the music’s Jewish character on clarinet (and bass clarinet) – now discreet, now extrovert – as the Galway-based ConTempo Quartet tapped into their Romanian background to recall klezmer’s eastern- European origins and which they melded with traditional string-quartet style.
