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"A broken song played on a shattered cymbalon." Thus, writes Kafka, begins Yiddishbbuk, a collection of apocryphal psalms, which he read while living in Prague's street of the alchemists. The only remnants of the collection are a few verses interspersed among the entries of his notebooks, and the last lines are also quoted in a letter to Milena: "No one sings as purely as those who are in the deepest hell. Theirs is the song which we confused with that of the angels." Written in Hebrew characters and surrounded with musical notation, marks similar to those of the genuine texts, the psalms' only other reference to their music is: "In the mode of the Babylonic Lamentations." Based on these vestiges, these inscriptions for string quartet are an attempt to reconstruct that music. [continued...] |
| CATEGORY | Chamber [without voice] |
| INSTRUMENTATION | String Quartet |
| DURATION | 14'00" |
| WORLD PREMIERE | Tanglewood Music Festival; July 27, 1992 |
| WORLD PREMIERE PERFORMERS | St. Lawrence String Quartet |
| COMMISSION | Commissioned by the Fromm Foundation and the Tanglewood Music Festival |
| RECORDING | Recorded by the St. Lawrence String Quartet.
Appears on album "Yiddishbbuk" [album details]
Recorded by the Borromeo String Quartet
Appears on Borromeo String Quartet "Living Archive" [album details] |
| SCORE AVAILABILITY | Score available for sale. Parts available for sale. [more info] |
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