Srul Irving Glick: Suite Hebraique #1/# 5/Divertimento

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THE MUSIC - The two reviews below present two of the three charming pieces by the (Great) Srul Irving Glick, who definitely should be better known. He is a charmer from the word Go. In this world such as it is, musically (and otherwise) you shouldn't see the name Srul Irving Glick and have to say "Who?"."Full of upbeat, dance-like music, this fifteen-minute work for an unusual chamber ensemble continues a line of works in which composer Srul Irving Glick (born in Toronto in 1934) gives expression to the importance of his Jewish faith and heritage to his life. The three-movement work is in a richly folk-inflected style. It is tonal and melody-based, with only lightly "modern" harmonies that are not much different from those found in, for instance, the music of Maurice Ravel or Sergei Prokofiev. "A grant from the Canada Council enabled the chamber group Camerata to commission Glick for this work. The composer chose to build it on melodies he had written for joyous events involving friends and relatives. "The first movement Circle Dance is built on jazzy, irregular rhythms reminiscent of the kind of ecstatic dance movements Leonard Bernstein was prone to write, although here the rhythmic sense is more relaxed, less angry and driven. Glick wrote the theme for some music he provided for the bar mitzvah of his nephew Eliot Glick. "A soulful cello movement with a strong Hebraic inflection opens the second movement, Prayer and Chassidic Dance. Glick composed the theme in honor of Cantor Harold Klein, and so it has a strong cantorial quality. At first the cello plays along, in a passage that sounds unmeasured, in the manner of a cantilation. The other instruments join in the Prayer, in tempo now, with the clarinet taking the lead. There is a gradual accelerando until a theme by violin and cello (in octaves) makes the dance element evident. This pauses for a clarinet statement of the prayer material, and the movement ends on a note of calm. "The finale, Wedding Dance, uses a theme Glick wrote and performed at the wedding of his friends Irving and Helena Grossman. This movement integrates the voices of all four instruments in a most effective manner in music that warmly combines joy and charm." (Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide) "This is an unusually attractive and moving recital piece for solo clarinet and piano and an early example of this composer's life-long attraction to the musical roots of his Jewish heritage. "Born in Toronto in 1934, Srul Irving Glick follows the example of Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch in his frequent expression of his Judaism in personal and moving music. This composition is one of at least five chamber music works to which he has given the title Suite Hébraïque. Most of these have some relationship to Glick's personal life. "This work apparently had its emotional origins in the difficult period of a young composer's career when he has just about finished his schooling (Glick says he was "between teachers" at the time he wrote it) and are trying to start and shape his career, seeking an audience and commissions and increasingly hoping to find a job in some (hopefully) music-related field that would provide a secure income base to support the time and effort needed to compose. "For Glick that base did appear the next year, in 1962, when he became a Producer of Serious Music for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. But in 1961, moved by his feelings of "nostalgia and homesickness," Glick composed this tuneful suite. "Suite Hébraïque no 1 is an eleven-minute work in six concise movements. If his "homesickness" turned Glick's thoughts towards his family, this is amply demonstrated in the first movement, Cantorial Dance, which is inspired by the singing of his father, a Cantor, and the playing of his brother, who is a clarinetist. It is an ecstatic outpouring of melody. "The second movement, Chassidic Dance, is in a measured, stately dance tempo that reflects the notion of dance as prayer. The music is more modally inflected "The brief third movem... read more

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