instrumental music cds

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC CDS BY ROHAN KRIWACZEK





All CDs are £8. Postage for up to 5 CDs costs £1 p&p - please add an additional £3 for international delivery within the EU or £4 for delivery to the US or international delivery outside the EU

IMPORTANT:
Click here to add international shipping within the EU

Click here to add international shipping for the US and others outside the EU

Click on the underlined track titles to hear a sample (in mono at a regrettably low quality)
 

DR. ASPERGER'S KLEZMER TONIC - tunes from Rohan's Book of Fiddle Tunes

for more information on Dr. Asperger's, Klezmer Tonic, and many more samples, biogs etc. click here
    1. The Rooster Is crowing
    2. Dybbuk Shers
    3. Orientalische Motive II
    4. Rohan's Kitchen
    5. Oh I Know What Sins I Have
    6. Rabbi Jason's Niggun
    7. A GlezeleVayn
    8. Bretslava Niggun
    9. Soldiers Song
    10. Crannog Ayre
    11. Friday Night
    12. Last Waltz in Vienna
    13. Yishmekhu
    14. The Empty Bothy Dance
    15. The Blue Shawl
    16. Sapozhkele
    17.  

 

Salon Concert Music - KRIWACZEK - HUMAN SALON CONCERT DUO

 
from "Rohan’s Book of Quirky Dances": -

1. The Rooster Is Already Crowing
2. Dance of the Elders
3. Delirious Niggun
4. Transylvanian Tavern Dance
5. The Bee-Sting Dance

6. Dos Bettler’s Lied - R.Kriwaczek
7. Solinski Fantasy no.1 - R.Kriwaczek
8. Thakur Tum Surnaaye Aaya
- Pandit Vishwa Prakesh - arranged by Rohan Kriwaczek and John Human


bonus track:
9. Live Concert Improvisation on chalumeau
(folk clarinet) and piano using the Yiddish mode, freygish


 

Nostalgia's Own End - Concerto for Klezmer Band and Orchestra

The She’Koyakh Ensemble - confronted by The Wallace Ensemble - conducted by Ben Wolf


sample from the 1st movement

sample from the 2nd movement

sample from the conclusion:

 

 
Programme Notes: The current revival of Klezmer music is, at least in part, based on a nostalgia for a world long gone; a world dominated by poverty, repression and a fundamental insecurity. Our shtetl dwelling ancestors would probably be horrified by our current romanticisation of a life that they were often desperate to escape. My own Jewish ancestors had moved out of the Pale of Settlement by the middle of the nineteenth century, into Austria, becoming Viennese, and my father can recall the often ferocious anger that would ensue if he accidentally used a Yiddish word or phrase. I myself, when busking, playing Jewish violin music, have been accused of dragging all Jews back to the shtetl, by elderly Jewish women in Hove.

On the other hand, in this society, that is ever more concerned with the notion of roots, and ethnicity, it is no surprise that the Yiddish speaking culture, actively destroyed by Israel’s adoption of Hebrew as a national language, is now being revived by those born into the comforts of the new world. As a Jewish violinist I am as guilty as the next man, and in writing this piece I am, in a sense, further romanticising the past.

This conflict was one of the elements that I intended to explore in the piece – trying to marry my own love of traditional music, with a sense of the danger and naivety involved: danger – because romanticising a genuinely desperate lifestyle is always dangerous; naïve – because the music itself expresses a simple world of traditional dances and social order that is long passed.
The piece falls roughly into four linked movements. In the first, the general argument ensues; the Klezmer band repeatedly strike up simple tunes which the orchestra first colours in and then attempts to undermine, as if to say “things can’t be that simple any more”. Towards the end of this movement the argument between the two gets more intense and aggressive.

The second movement features the clarinet and violin as soloists, and is the only part of the piece that quotes from the Klezmer archive – based on a doina (a slow, ornamented introductory melody) taught to me by Deborah Strauss, and taught to her by Michael Alpert who learnt it from Leon Schwartz; the only Klezmer violinist to pass on his skills first hand to a member of the current generation of klezmorim. This movement draws to a close with a simple melody on the trombone, which is then taken up by the strings.

In the third movement the Klezmer band repeated attempts to strike up with an irritating little tune, but on each occasion the orchestra interrupts and tries to take it somewhere more serious. Sometimes the band joins in, sometimes they fight, and the movement concludes with the two forces screaming trills at each other.

The final movement is a short funeral march, started by the orchestra, which the band mistake for a march of triumph. They are led like lambs to embrace their tragic fate.

As a final word I must add that in my experience the creator of a work of art is rarely the best judge of what they have made, and is often completely deluded as to the result of their labours. What I have written here is what I intended. What you hear may be completely different. A word of advice – trust your own judgment more than mine.

 

 
Will all patrons please remain seated
Whilst I belittle myself to amuse you
For I've tried pretty metaphors and sensitive rhymes
But the effort just seemed to confuse you
Rev. Rohan K.
 

More potentially interesting things