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Sholem Aleichem's Clock

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Sholem Aleichem’s Clock is a single-movement orchestral work commissioned by the Longwood Symphony Orchestra and dedicated to their musical director Ronald Feldman.

 

It is conceived as a tone poem following in the spirit of those written by Franz Liszt and Richard Strauss. The plot is inspired by the short story Der Zyeger (The Clock) by the great Yiddish author and playwright Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916) I have had a strong desire to reconnect with my Jewish roots through music and this work along with my Klezmer Fantazye are two recent pieces where I use Jewish and Klezmer elements as building blocks of a musical work. 

 

In his story Sholem Aleichem reminds us in a humorous way that all things in life are temporal and cautioning us how putting too much pride in one thing can lead to demise and disappointment. Below is a condensed version of the story.

 

“Reb Simcheh's clock was famous throughout the town as the best clock going—"—and people used to come and set their watches by it, because it kept more accurate time than any other. On day the rabbi came to his house to set his watch and noticed that the clock was a minute and a half ahead. That evening after dinner the clock did the unimaginable and struck thirteen. Not just once but multiple times. Reb Simcheh did everything he could to repair the clock taking it apart cleaning carefully each piece and putting it back together.

 

Then it began made a noise like an old man preparing to cough: chil-chil-chil-chil-trrrr ... and only then: bom!—bom!—bom! Now there had crept into it a melancholy note, as into the voice of an old worn-out cantor at the close of the service for the Day of Atonement, and the hoarseness increased, and the strike became lower and duller.

The imp started playing all kinds of nasty tricks and idle pranks, shook itself sideways, and stumbled like an old man who drags his feet after him. It was a good thing Reb Simcheh understood in time that the clock was about to yield up its soul, and that the fault lay with the balance weights: the weight was too light, and he puts on a jostle, which has the weight of about four pounds. This seemed to help temporally but then suddenly the clock went completely berserk making all types of strange noises ticking and chiming in all different speeds followed by a loud boom! When the family rose from the table, they went in to the clock and saw it lying on its poor face, killed, broken, shattered, and smashed for evermore!
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