Search - The Klezmatics & Chava Albertstein :: The Well

Loneliness, loss, displacement, and death loom large among the topics covered in the 15 Yiddish poems set to melodies by popular Israeli folk singer Chava Alberstein, and arranged by New York's exploratory Klezmatics, on this deeply sad and beautiful album. Anyone familiar with the Klezmatics' more rambunctious side will be impressed by the inventive delicacy and subtlety they bring to these elegant vestiges of fading Yiddish culture, virtually reanimating it with tangos, Hasidic melodies, polkas, and festive freylekhs that recall its vibrant past. Alberstein's low voice meshes beautifully with Lorin Sklamberg's high tenor, adding extra emotional resonance to a series of poems in the middle of the album that evoke the genocide twilight that enveloped the writers' world half a century ago. Their tragedy is redeemed in The Well. --Richard Gehr