ARRANGEMENTS OF TRADITIONAL KLEZMER TUNES FOR
CLARINET & STRING ORCHESTRA
Der Gasn Nign, ca. 5 min
Composer: Traditional/arranged by David Krakauer
Performances:
David Krakauer with the Eugene Symphony Oct 27, 2022
David Krakauer with Santa Rosa Symphony: Nov 6,7,8 2021
David Krakauer with L'Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle-Aquitaine: Jan 7 2022
Der Heyser Bulgar, ca. 4 min
Composer: Traditional/arranged by David Krakauer
Performances:
David Krakauer with the Eugene Symphony Oct 27, 2022
David Krakauer with Santa Rosa Symphony: Nov 6,7,8 2021
David Krakauer with L'Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle-Aquitaine: Jan 7 2022
Wedding Dance, ca. 5 min
Composer: Traditional/arranged by David Krakauer
A PROGRAM NOTE FOR THESE KLEZMER ARRANGEMENTS BY DAVID KRAKAUER
The Wedding Dance, Der Gasn Nign (The Street Song), and Der Heyser Bulgar (The Hot Bulgar) are three standards of the Eastern European Jewish klezmer repertoire. In creating my arrangements of these traditional celebration tunes for strings plus myself, I have basically drawn from the old 1920s klezmer recordings as my main source material. However I have also thrown in influences from the work I have done with musician colleagues for the past 15+ years. For example, in The Wedding Dance, I give the string players the option to erase or leave out parts ad libitum during the first pass of the melody, creating a kind of improvisation. In this way each performance turns out to be totally unique. And in Der Gasn Nign I have worked to recreate in the strings the haunting atmosphere of the electric guitar that I was able to find in the arrangements I came up with for my band.Synagogue Wail is a structured improvisation for solo clarinet where I juxtaposed elements of a traditional rhapsodic klezmer improvisation with alternate fingerings, natural harmonics, and circular breathing to create my own very personal sonic landscape.