Toronto Summer Music/Schmaltz & Pepper Klezmer Concert, Walter Hall, July 23.
You know about Mickey and Judy and let’s put on a show in the barn? Well, what about Eric and Rebekah and let’s make a klezmer band?
And just like Rooney and Garland had a big hit on their hands at the end of the film, so did the klezmer group with the clever name of Schmaltz & Pepper. In a word, their debut concert at Toronto Summer Music was spectacular.
As astonishing as it may seem, the group was formed only this past November. S&P came about when Eric Abramovitz and Rebekah Wolkstein met each other at some chamber music do and found they had a common interest in klezmer. In fact, as they told the sold-out crowd at Walter Hall, it was a leap of faith that TSM programmed them because, at the time, they had no repertoire.
Klezmer is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe that borrowed musical forms from Hebraic cantorial music, as well as folk elements from the countries where they lived. Ornamentation, particularly for the clarinet and violin, is a stylistic feature, including mimicking the effect of sobbing and sighing, along with trills, glides and dazzling improvisation. Klezmer is solidly embedded in the minor key so even when the music is joyful, there is an inherent sense of melancholy.
Schmaltz & Pepper contains five outstanding virtuoso musicians.
Abramovitz is principal clarinetist for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Violinist/vocalist Wolkstein is the founder of the internationally acclaimed Payadora Tango Ensemble. Jeremy Ledbetter is a JUNO award-winning pianist, Michael Herring is an award-winning bassist, and Grammy-nominated Drew Jurecka, as he told the audience, plays everything that’s left over, namely, violin, accordion and mandolin.
What became very clear early on is that an S&P program is inventive, adventurous and experimental, which made for a very exciting concert.
Most of their music is original, and even the odd traditional Yiddish melody was given a new arrangement. This is a group that is taking klezmer music into new frontiers, and anyone who came expecting a traditional klezmer concert was in for a big surprise. The fact that the group pulled this repertoire together in barely eight months is an unbelievable feat of creativity.
Here are just some examples of S&B’s innovations.
An Irish klezmer dance that managed to sound both Irish and Jewish at the same time. An experimental mix of genres called Tango Shmango. Gefilte Bach which featured klezmer and counterpoint. A Mozart the Mensch number which “klezmerized” some of the composer’s most well-known melodies, including Eine kleine Nachtmusik. And how can we forget the Manischewitz Mazurka?
The group also created pieces inspired from life, the bible, and Jewish folklore.
Stirring the Pot replicated the chaos of a Jewish kitchen during the High Holidays. Another piece was inspired by the famous story from King Solomon about two women both claiming the same baby, with the violin and the clarinet representing the women each telling their own story. The iconic Yiddish comic character, Hershel the prankster, had him creeping into a synagogue that was cursed in order to get rid of the goblins. So evocative was this piece in conjuring up stealth that it could have been a score for a Walt Disney cartoon.
Wolkstein is clearly a very clever lyricist. One very funny song detailed a Jewish mother who was totally against her daughter marrying a musician, yet every man the daughter found, no matter what profession he had, gave up that job to become a musician. There was another number that was a real patter song in the spirit of Gilbert and Sullivan, where Wolkstein listed a litany of Jewish superstitions of what you should never do. The piece was called Evil Eye.
Not to be forgotten amidst this embarrassment of riches was Yiddish swing, epitomized by a rousing version of Bei Mir Bistu Shein and several other numbers.
The reason I’m giving a laundry list of the program is a very deliberate decision on my part. I want to convey just how sophisticated a musical evening it was. This was klezmer at its most witty, most intellectual, most erudite and most complex. S&P are simply a shining example of musical brilliance.
Which brings me to the best part — the breathtaking artistry of the ensemble.
What Abramovitz can make the clarinet do is nothing short of miraculous. Similarly, Wolkstein and Jurecka both displayed such formidable violin technique that they are indisputably grand masters of their craft. Ledbetter’s piano playing seemed effortless, with a lightness of touch that belies the complication of the music, while the strength of Herring’s playing made the bass an equal partner with the rest of the instruments. Their amazing symbiosis as an ensemble had them playing with one voice.
Is it any wonder that the enthusiastic audience jumped to their feet in an instantaneous and prolonged standing ovation? There is no question that we witnessed a superstar ensemble in the making.
On a side note, Schmaltz & Pepper do not, as yet, have albums to sell, but they were hawking baseball hats with their logo, and were doing a roaring business at concert’s end.
I even bought one.
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