EMF Media Home Artists Where to buy About us
  Stories ...
space
EM108
space
Bob Gluck

Stories Heard & Retold

As Robert Gluck, composer and rabbi, writes: "I aim to bring together what I love about Jewish culture with the aesthetics of contemporary music." Don't be misled, however. This is not religious music. It is music (btw done with cutting-edge technology) that incorporates religious sounds. Critic Seth Rogovoy (Berkshire Eagle), describes 'Stories Heard and Retold' as "A thought-provoking combination of musique concrète techniques, found-sounds, ambient recordings and Gluck's own compositions and electronic manipulations, the album functions as a kind of soundscape of Jewish life ..."

Gluck observes: "I picture a meeting place between the great cantorial traditions, candid camera-like snapshots of subtle moments of daily, including ritual, life and what I have learned from the evolving new musical traditions ... "

This recording opens with "Scene/Seen in Shul" (1997), described by reviewer Berta Frank as "a masterful collection of (aural) memorabilia. Gluck captures the interesting combination of individual voices in group prayer and gatherings through a sound collage based upon ambient recordings (processed and edited) from a variety of synagogue and prayer settings. One section is entitled "Pages Turning/Torah Aliyot", which uses the sound of a page turning to take you on a dreamy sensory ride."

The second work, 'Yiddish Songs' (1996) is a mix of voices, melodic fragments, words, and electronic sounds, offering a memorial to the Yiddish culture that was destroyed during World War II. The CD concludes with 'Jonah Under The Sea' (1997), a collage of sounds from various sources suggesting the disorientation of the biblical prophet, in the composer's words, "the rushing tides, confusion, sounds of ram horns and passing whale ..."

In Gluck's words: "Music has a magical quality. It can communicate ideas, feelings and impulses beyond words. Music can help us remember moments in our lives for which there are no words. It can help us structure and express ideas that words can only begin to touch."

MP3 excerpts

Jonah Under The Sea
Maariv
Pages Turning
Unter Dem Kindes Vigele

Buy it! 		 
 
Home

Copyright © 2007 Electronic Music Foundation, Ltd.
EMF is a registered trademark of Electronic Music Foundation, Ltd.