Program Notes: Jewish Festival
Lera Auerbach (b. 1973) is a Russian-American composer who has engaged with her family’s Jewish heritage and history in many of her works.
The String Quartet No. 10, “Frozen Dreams,” was written in 2020 for the joint commission “Four Seasons” for string quartet. Four composers were asked to contribute one movement in which to “explore the perpetual flux of the natural world.” Auerbach wrote for the season of Winter. As an introduction to this quartet Auerbach wrote the following poem:
“The Seasons”
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Life is an ouroboros. Spring
Doesn’t keep count, but accurately binds
Everything and everyone, life and death.
For centuries, this world’s rebirth has turned
The earth. Only God, surely, knows
What lies behind this endless rotation.
When life lies ahead, we are more honest;
Stripping down the earth, we lay our deposit on love.
At times like this we can be happy in a cell
And the poorest shelter can become our palace.
At this age, the year seems long
And we battle windmills like the Don.
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The days pass, and in this time of life
Silent Spring feels Summer’s farewell breath behind.
We grow used to maturity, and it always
Reminds us of home, of our native land,
Of household chores, and of the family,
Of work and the titles we have taken on…
This time of hot middays, when the sun
Stares straight into its own reflection
Its single eye shattering the water
(Life allows us to submit to the flow) -
Stamping out grains of dust with yellow rays
It reaches the height of its paralyzed state.
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The days pass and the birds fly by, away
The leaves fall, fall, but still they cannot
Quite find a place to settle on the ground…
At times my thoughts cohereA sign offered up my senses
Like a question put to a departing God.
Life resembles a flowing garment. Sewn
Out of days like a toga’s folds, the last
Made from foreknowledge of coming winter.
The cradle is draped with sunset’s shroud.
And the fir tree’s fractured trunk
Crooked, like a hanging question mark.
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The days pass. Crow’s nestsOld rags on the bare branches.
The snow settling on your temple
No longer even melts, and iron nails
Start to come loose, and the frame of the house
Breaks up, springing leaks like a canoe
Or like an ancient ship. And the heart’s gasp
Oppresses. Something weighs down on your breast
Sounds are muffled…The deadly scaffold
Rises up suddenly, across your path;
So unexpected is it that you have
Time for just three words: “For everything - forgive.
Auerbach wrote the following about String Quartet No. 3, “Cetera Desunt. Sonnet for String Quartet”: “Any work of art – a poem, a painting, a symphony, at its best – is much larger then its creator; or at least its co-creator – the one with a pen in hand; the one, who, for better or worse, claims authenticity to its title.
Akhmatova wrote – “Who knows, from what dust the poem is born…” (To be more accurate, she used a stronger word – instead of “dust” she wrote, “trash”, or “waste”.) No one knows this, except the Poet. No one should know. Let shadows remain shadows; the dirty dishes should stay in the kitchen and not spoil the feast…
…Cetera desunt is written in a form similar to strambotto romagnuolo sonnet, which octave is formed as ab ab cc dd. Musically, the inner rhymes between the movements follow freely this structure. I am not going to comment on the titles for the movements. Nomina sunt odiosa.
Let music connect directly to the listener regardless of the composer’s own attempts to interpret its essence. Jorge Luis Borges wrote: ‘A man sets himself in the task of portraying the world. Over the years he fills a given surface with images of provinces and kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fish, rooms, instruments, heavenly bodies, horses, and people. Shortly before he dies he discovers that this patient labyrinth of lines is a drawing of his own face”’. Sapienti sat. Cetera desunt.” - Lera Auerbach, June 2006
Osvaldo Golijov's (b. 1960) "The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind" stands as a monumental work in the realm of contemporary chamber music. Conceived in 1994, this composition dives deep into the mystical currents of Jewish spirituality, drawing inspiration from the writings of Rabbi Isaac the Blind, a 13th-century kabbalist. Golijov fuses elements of klezmer, the traditional Jewish folk music, with classical chamber music.
Structured in four movements, each intricately linked to aspects of Jewish mysticism, the piece creates a sonic landscape that resonates with profound meaning. The clarinet serves as the guiding voice, channeling the spiritual essence of Rabbi Isaac's dreams and prayers. Golijov skillfully weaves intricate dialogues between the clarinet and the string quartet, creating moments of fervent celebration and contemplative meditation.
A note from the composer reads as follows:
I have this image of my great-grandfather, who shared my bedroom when I was seven. I’d wake up and see him by the window, praying with his phylacteries in the early light. I think of him always praying, or fixing things, his pockets full of screws. I remember thinking, three of his children are dead; how does he still pray? Why does he still fix things? But we were taught that God had assigned that task of repairing the world to the Jewish people – Tikkun Olam. Incomprehensible.
About eight hundred years ago, Isaac the Blind - who was the greatest Kabbalist rabbi of Provence – dictated a manuscript saying that everything in the universe, all things and events, are products of combinations of the Hebrew alphabet’s letters.
The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind is a kind of epic, a history of Judaism. It has Abraham, exile, and redemption. The movements sound like they are in three of the languages spoken in almost 6,000 years of Jewish history: the first in Aramaic; the second in Yiddish; and the third in Hebrew. I never wrote it with this idea in mind, and only understood it when the work was finished. But while I was composing the second movement, for example, my father would sit out on the deck with the newspaper, the sports pages, and every once in a while he would shout, "There you go! Another Yiddish chord!"
In the prelude, the music is like a celestial accordion, rising and falling like breathing, like praying…like air…then the air is transformed into a pulse and heart.
The whole first movement is a heartbeat that accelerates wildly…becoming frantic. It’s built on a single chord, rotating like a monolith. The Quartet obsesses in eighth notes, the clarinet starts a huge line in long notes, but zooms in and is caught up in the gravitational spin. The forces of God and man, they never unite, but they do commune; you can hear the dybbuk and the shofar, searching for a revelation that is always out of reach.
The Second movement opens with a hesitating, irregular pulse, a skipping heartbeat, the rhythm of death. The violin and the clarinet hold forth in monologue at the same time, like those Bashevis Singer stories told in a poorhouse on a winter night. The same four notes, the same theme, playing in endless combinations.
The String Quartet is an accordion in the prelude, a klezmer band in the second movement; now, in the third movement, it’s a shepherd’s magic flute. The last movement was written before all the others. It’s an instrumental version of K’vakarat, a work that I wrote a few years ago for the Kronos Quartet and Cantor Misha Alexandrovich. In this final movement, hope is present but out of reach. There is a question woven into the hardening, incense: why this task? Repairing a world forever breaking down, with pockets full of screws. The question remains unanswered in the postlude.
Thank you to the Skirball Museum for hosting this concert. Please take time to peruse the art before and after the concert, and during intermission.
Thank you to Abby Schwartz, Curatorial Consultant to the Skirball Museum, for selecting artworks in response to today’s music:
Frozen Dreams:
https://www.smadarbarnea.com/en/gallery/the-tree-of-life-3/
https://www.smadarbarnea.com/en/illuminating-art-in-kfar-saba/
Cetera Desunt:
https://csm.huc.edu/2021/08/10/morning-star/
Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind:
https://csm.huc.edu/2021/08/10/tea-drinkers/
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent, nor the presenting organizations.
