Preview: Rivkele and The Forgotten Musicians - for clarinet and string quartet
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Rivkele and The Forgotten Musicians - for clarinet and string quartet
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SKU: A0.582030
Composed by John Gibson. Contemporary. 59 pages. JB Linear #4323183. Published by JB Linear (A0.582030).Rivkele and the Forgotten Musicians for Bb Clarinet and String Quartet by John Gibson. This piece, written for submission to the International Clarinet Association’s 2019 Composition Contest for Clarinet and String Quartet, is dedicated to those forgotten musicians who were made to use their craft to extend their lives while imprisoned in concentration camps during the Holocaust. The readings are from survivor’s memoirs and spoken by the violist.
Each instrument takes on a personality in the piece:
1st violin – the Jewish spirit
2nd violin – the helper
Viola – the truth teller
Cello – the reminder
Clarinet – the troubled historian
During my research before composing this piece, I discovered that most of the concentration camps had an orchestra of sorts. They were to play light music such as marches or popular songs including tangos. It seems the Germans felt that American jazz was decadent, but tangos were acceptable, and there was already a tradition of popular Yiddish tangos prior to the war. "Revkele" is a Polish name for "Rebecca" and the title of a Yiddish tango from which I drew inspiration.
The sometimes brutal subject matter dictates how the music must respond, although there are times of quiet beauty and a single note of hope at the very end. The piece takes about 13 minutes and is for very advanced performers.
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