Klarinet Archive - Posting 000153.txt from 2008/06

From: "Daniel Leeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] A piece on Giora Feidman from a Hungarian newspaper
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:56:20 -0400

Here is an interesting piece about Giora Feidman that appeared in a
Hungarian newspaper. The text is by Thomas Schramm, who is a resident of
Budapest. There is nothing startling in the piece, but it does show Feidman
as something much more than merely a Klezmer clarinetist, though if I could
do what he does, I'd revel in doing nothing else for the rest of my life.

Dan Leeson

Monday, 30 June 2008

They have known each other for 20 years and now they are also working
together: Christa Bartesch, a Budapest-based artist and Giora Feidman, the
“king of klezmer”. Ahead of a concert in Budapest, the clarinettist provided
musical accompaniment to works of art at an exhibition held by Christa
Bartesch in her own studio.

The musician is best known for the Oscar-winning film music to Schindler’s
List and could imagine working with Steven Spielberg again: “Steven’s a nice
guy, and a clarinetist like me.” The 72 year-old was full of zest for life
during his visit, explaining: “I don’t feel tired. Society shouldn’t dictate
at what age we should retire. When my father died, he had played in the
morning the same day. God gave me these hands and I will make use of them
for as long as I can,” he
said.

Through his music he would like to convey to the audience the conviction
that he has reached in the course of his eventful life: “We are all a large
family and all have just one wish: to express ourselves through music
because it is the language of the soul. It makes no difference what kind of
music it is. If you were to say that
klezmer is only understandable to Jews, then you could also say that pizza
is only for Italians.” Everyone can understand Bartesch’s pictures, he says,
even if at first they may appear to one or other of us just as
bright-coloured blotches. According to Feidman, Bartesch brings us “another
dimension”.

Painting is to Bartesch what music is to Feidman. “For me my paintings are
mainly about colour, because that is what I experience when I paint. I see
my pictures as a kind of medium to express my experiences. And Giora does
the same with his music,” explained the artist from Germany, who came to
Budapest many years ago and regards it as her home. Feidman also feels at
home in Budapest, as he does everywhere in the world. “To me it doesn’t make
a difference where I am. It shouldn’t make a difference to anyone, because
all over the world mothers sing to their babies, giving them the same
spiritual nourishment that we all carry in us.”

Travelling does not bother him at all even at his ripe age: “I get on the
plane and I fall asleep even before it takes off,” he explains, raising a
laugh from the audience. He chuckles quietly to himself, and one
increasingly gets the impression that he is a kind of Dalai Lama of klezmer,
with red braces instead of a crimson robe. Feidman, too,
spreads a message of peace, which he makes understandable to everyone,
avoiding complicated sentences. It would not be surprising if some people
left Bartesch’s studio on this afternoon with a feeling of spiritual
lightness.

Dan Leeson
dnleeson@-----.net
SKYPE: dnleeson

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