Search - Zorn, Saft, Speed :: Film Works IX: Trembling Before God

Dark and beautiful Masada chamber piece

Peter Williamson | London | 08/15/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These obsessive and quietly intense pieces often seem to have more in common with Zorn's `Redbird' and `Duras', and Feldman and Courvoisier's Masada Recital approach than other Filmworks releases which draw upon the Masada Book. Chris Speed's clarinet and Jamie Saft's piano and organ intertwine perfectly to create beautiful, impassioned (and in some places - particularly `Notarikon', `Idalah-Abal' - almost ambient due to Saft's dark organ drone and Speed's abstract, spacious phrasing) music that captures with powerful resonance the desolate anxiety of forbidden gay Orthodox Jewish love.

Saft's readings of Mahshav and Kaporeh for piano are - along with his `Kiev' from `In The Mirror Of Maya Deren' - the most beautiful pieces in Zorn's vast catalog. `Sholom Aleichem' is a brief but stunning Jewish melody for clarinet and piano, again interweaving melancholic yearning and transcendent beauty. `Nigun' is almost hopeful in feel as the two instruments dance delicately around each other.

Although lacking the explosive interplay that characterises so much of Zorn's work - particularly where the two Masada Books are concerned - in these subtle, haunting pieces - often reminiscent of Satie and Morton Feldman in their understated precision of expression - Speed and Saft's intensity of focus draws meaning from each and every note and results in a quiet, powerful, yet sadly unsung Radical Jewish masterpiece."