Click on any of these titles to open the page:
The Covenant
It Won't Happen To Me
The Partisans
The Ragman
Thou Shalt Survive
Child of the Land
The Ballad of Yad Mordechai
Song for Eli
Jerusalem
All The Men Are Gone
The collection entitled “Last Year In
Jerusalem” belongs to the novel “A Little Oil & Root”. The idea was that
Ari Ben Aaron had produced a series of libretti through which the history of
the founding of the State of Israel could be told, starting in pre-Nazi
Europe, through the Holocaust, and ending with the Yom Kippur War of 1973. In the novel
the next phase never happened, but it still could: the creation of a
“rock-opera” that sets the songs to music, has no actors but only singers and
musicians, and is performed publicly in front of a large screen which tells the
same story visually using the imagery of the songs, and other imagery from “The
Argaman Quintet”. This was the project. The only part in existence is the
libretto, and my digital recordings to show (very roughly) how the songs should
sound. In the following order, though as the notes indicate some of the songs
are broken up and spread throughout, where others are sung as whole songs. The
links between the songs need to be established musically, using themes from all
the songs as in an Overture, and dropping in themes from other key music along
the way as indicated (the “Moldau”, some Wagner, the Funeral March from Mahler
1 and the choral part of the scherzo from Mahler 2, hints of the Bruch Kol Nidre
and Violin Concerto, hints of the Mendelsohn Violin Concerto, parts of
Shostakovich’s “Babi Yar”, strains of Yerushalyim Shel Zahav etc).
1. THE COVENANT. The opera opens with film
footage of the stetls of Eastern Europe and a tapestry of images of Jewish
western Europe, all pre-Holocaust. The music playing over this is the opening
of Smetana’s ‘Moldau’, all the fragmentary bits before the main theme starts.
Credits can go over this as well. The first transition comes when the main
theme starts – it is the source for the Israeli National Anthem but the imagery
should now be Hitler, to make an oxymoron. The full orchestra rendition of the
“Moldau” should fade away and a solitary violin should now pick up the main
theme (yes, a deliberate hint at “Fiddler On The Roof” and lots of Chagall
imagery available, especially his Fiddler and the White Crucifixion). [In my
recording I have played the theme on the guitar.] Zoom in to find the Fiddler,
looking like Tevya, on the roof of the Reichstag (or something similar that
makes the same point) and down below the burning of the books etc. The song
should be sung by a woman, and the imagery on the film needs to pick up the
imagery in the lyric. Musically the song wants to be as kletzmer as possible at
the start, and as Israeli as possible by the end, but darkly, using
kletzmer/Israeli instruments and tones. Each verse should stand alone, so we
can feel the transitions from phase to phase (the coming of the Nazis, the
Holocaust, the defiance, the revival). The first verse wants to stay as close
to the reciting of a poem as possible, with limited music; the music kicks in
as the piece picks up speed in the second verse. Where the first phase was
focused on the “Moldau”, the second needs to find appropriate pieces of Wagner
that can echo around it, even just a familiar phrase dropped in here or there.
The song is not intended to be played all in one go, but in four places in the
opera. After the second verse, and again after the remainder, there is a strong
guitar break that wants to be retained, but with more music added to strengthen
it; it can go on as long as needed.
2. IT WON’T HAPPEN TO ME. This is listed in the Amethyst collection and not in
this collection, because it was written years later; but it needs to be added.
3. THE PARTISANS. We should still be hearing kletzmer
in this, but it is not a kletzmer song. My recording lacks the anger and fury
that it needs; slowing it down would enable this. The music likewise needs to
generate the power of hatred that drives the song. Drums are permissible but
don’t make them mechanical; they could take a strongly driving lead between
verses. Violin crucial, echoing the melody in the background, but not all the
time. The film imagery should come from “The Waters Of Shiloh” in “The Flaming
Sword” – this is the song of those who fought back in Europe. The ending should
be extended musically after the last words are sung. Something in the beat
should hint at explosions, gunfire, the mayhem of war.
4. THE RAGMAN. Pure gloom, and this is where the
serious Holocaust imagery should be used. Break the song up, so that Death with
his scythe can keep on reappearing like an Ingmar Bergman character at every
murderous stage of the journey. First appearance could be as hint of melody at
the end of the first part of “The Covenant”. Last appearance should be among
the dead of the 1982 war and images of Palestinian refugee camps (not
Sabra and Shatila, because that is beyond the date of Argaman’s death). I have
a strong feeling of Pink Floyd in the atmosphere of the music for this song,
as also for “Child Of The Land”.
5. THOU SHALT SURVIVE. The language of the verses
should indicate the film imagery, and where to break up the poem throughout the
opera. I like the simplicity of just guitar and voice, but there are ways of
adding other voices, other instruments, as minimally and as subtly as can be
done.
6. CHILD OF THE LAND. This song plays literary (but
not musical) echo-games with “The Covenant” and “The Ragman” – all three tell
individual stories that are first the negative impact of the Nazis and the
Holocaust, then the positives of going up to Israel. Where “The Covenant” is
sung by a woman, “The Ragman” must be a male voice and “Child of the Land” a
choir of young voices, male and female; primary school at the beginning,
secondary school by the middle, twenties by the end, all providing backing to
the single solo voice of the male narrator. Like the other two, we should hear
parts of the song at different stages of the opera, with clear musical
differences, so that we have the sense of multiple stories being told,
interwoven with each other.
7. THE BALLAD OF YAD MORDECHAI. Visual imagery in
several of the above includes Israel, but it needs to have been kept to the
minimum until now. Yad Mordechai takes us out of Europe and into Israel. In the
visual links before it starts we should see imagery of the refugee ships
arriving, the early kibbutzim, the pre-Independence leaders, the Arab revolt.
Musically the link should pick up the “Moldau” again. The song is a folk-ballad
and should be sung complete.
8. SONG FOR ELI. The rhythm and tempo is identical to
“Child Of The Land” but it is otherwise musically totally different. The chord
progression echoes Dylan’s “Knocking On Heavens Door” and Neil Young’s
“Helpless”, so beware of making that too obvious.
9. JERUSALEM. Again, the rhythm and tempo are as above
(though the opening C-Em has an echo of Bowie’s “Ground Control To Major Tom”
which needs to be avoided; again the music must be totally different. The
singer on this occasion is technically God!
10. ALL THE MEN ARE GONE. The theme of this may have
been heard already, but now it should take over, including a reshaping of the
National Anthem into the tempo of the song.
You can find David Prashker at:
If
you would like to include any of the songs on this blogsite in your repertoire,
either for paid public performance or to record for commercial
purposes, or if you would like to re-use the recordings attached to this
blogsite for commercial purposes, contact
argaman@theargamanpress.com.
Use of these songs, and/or these recordings, for
non-commercial purposes, is not simply permitted but invited.
Words and music by David Prashker
Copyright © 2014 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press
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