Summerwinds Festival: Duo Duor & Malion Quartett: Bridges – Brücken
Duo Duor & Malion Quartett
Andre Tsirlin Saxophone
Hila Ofek Harp
Alex Jussow Violin
Miki Nagahara Violin
Lilya Tymchyshyn Viola
Bettina Kessler Cello
In Hebrew, "or" means light, but also knowledge, clarity, hope. In the light of hope, they build bridges: The Duo Duor, coming from classical and Klezmer backgrounds, previously acclaimed and celebrated under its old name "Jerusalem Duo," and the Malion Quartet, one of the internationally leading string quartets of its generation. Highly virtuosic and expressive, skillfully wild or incredibly delicate, the ensembles open hearts and ears in the innovative sextet and duo sound or as a string quartet. On the program: Eastern European colored classics and thrilling new pieces that continue to write the Klezmer tradition.
The Klezmer, this mixture of melancholy and dance, is originally the festive music of the Ashkenazi Jews, the Yiddish-speaking descendants of those Jewish communities that lived in the German-speaking area from the 10th century and later migrated to Eastern Europe. The folk music there has been absorbed by the Klezmer.
From Klezmer themes, the Russian Prokofiev made captivating art music in New York in 1919. His cosmopolitan-modern yet nostalgic overture opens "Bridges" with cheerful passages in vital motor skills, sharp accents, intricate harmonies, and melancholic cantilenas. The Hungarian Béla Bartók documented the authentic folk music of his homeland with the phonograph, researched and transformed it in his music. He eavesdropped on Transylvanian peasants for his Romanian folk dances: Six minutes of village tavern music, edgy, earthy, light-footed, stomping, lyrical-floating, then polka and ecstasy.
Imogen Holst's Fantasy is full of inner drama, elegiac and melancholic, but interspersed with energetic and lively passages. Meditation, dance, and highest ecstasy in the fantasy "In Chassidic Mood" by the Israeli composer Gil Aldema. It takes up the Niggun, the song of the Southern Russian Chassidim, melodies that spring from the rapture of prayer and are understandable as expressions of psychological tensions that reveal what cannot be grasped in words.
The Israeli Amit Weiner, whose works are performed worldwide, combines Klezmer in his music with new composition techniques and sounds. For the Duo Duor sextet, he wrote "Eschaton" – the completion of creation in 2024. He had this legend in mind: King David interpreted our seven-step scale as a symbol of the principles of creation. The unknown eighth tone becomes audible when the Messiah comes. He establishes the kingdom of God, the universal peace in which the end and beginning of the world coincide, paradise returns. "I live in a country," says Weiner, "that is permanently in a state of war, and my greatest dream has always been to make the world a better place through the power of music. This is no cliché; it is truly my life's mission."
Bridges – Brücken
Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953): Overture on Hebrew Themes, Op. 34
Béla Bartók (1881–1945): Romanian Folk Dances, Sz. 56, arranged for Saxophone and Harp
Imogen Holst (1907–1984): Phantasy Quartet for String Quartet
Amit Weiner (*1981): Eschaton – Song of Genesis
Gil Aldema (1928–2014): In Chassidic Mood
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
