Klarinet Archive - Posting 000217.txt from 2003/08

From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Re the Klocker recording of Hebraic melodies
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 15:21:37 -0400

I can't be certain because I have done no search, but I suspect that
Klocker has done it again; that is, he records something important and
makes statements about it (often mostly his opinion, never any research)
but NEVER says anything about where sheet music can be had. My general
suspicion is that he found printed copies of these work in various
libraries around Europe and made copies. I believe every one of the
works is the same arrangement, namely clarinet (in A or B-flat or maybe
even C) and traditional string quartet. It is an instrumental
combination that has always fascinated me and I once had about 40 or 50
works for that group.

But Bellison was very much a searcher for clarinet music with Hebraic
material, and he almost certainly commissioned these pieces to be played
in conjunction with his annual NY performance of K. 581 (one of which I
heard as a kid). I once owned a printed copy of Joseph Akron
"Kindersuite" for clarinet, string quartet, and piano, with all the
titles of the various sections given in German, English, and Yiddish.
Even his clarinet and piano pieces are printed in English and Yiddish
(and in the Hebrew alphabet, too). The printed parts of the Akron piece
were donated by me to the Clarinet Library in Maryland, so its
available!! The piano/clarinet pieces are very traditional and one of
them says in English, "Grandmother's Tales," and in Yiddish (which I am
transliterating) "Bubba Meise."

I reserve judgement on the works until I hear them (I ordered the
record) but they may be important pieces. I just don't know. I also
cannot even guess if any are in Klezmer style, though it might be
possible. Remember that it was Bellison who supposedly wrote the
melodies for the Prokoffiev Overture on Yiddish Themes (which is the
correct title, not the often incorrectly translated "Hebrew Themes").

The reason for the high price of my original order interest was due to
the fact that it was a German music house and the shipment from there to
here was more than the record, almost twice as much.

One rarely finds that possibility of an important discovery of
repertoire, but this may be one. One of the composers was Gretchaninoff
and he was a pupil of Rimsky Karsakov.

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