The Bessarabian Sextet
On Wednesday night, despite the heavy rain, we went to a concert of the "Bessarabian Sextet" at the Shearim Hall in Netanya. It was great!
They played all kinds of Eastern European music. Bessarabia was the old name for part of what is now Moldova, that was originally a part of Romania. It was taken over by Russia in 1941 and became a part of the USSR until the fall of Communism in 1991 when it became independent. The Moldovans speak Romanian and Russian. The group played Klezmer and music from Romania, Hungary, Macedonia, Greece and Russia. The combination of an accordian and a clarinet with the violins and other strings and the fast complex rhythms of Hungary and Romania was wonderful.
The accordionist is named Emil Eibinder and his playing of the accordian was like nothing we had heard before, he played with virtuosity. He comes from Kishinev, famous for the pogrom of 1903 that resulted in mass emigration of Jews from the Russian Empire, where he studied music. He was tall and had a strong gaunt face, gold rimmed glasses and was dressed all in black with a grey homberg hat with a black band around it. When he played he was hypnotic, as if in a trance, with his long expressive fingers like spiders crawling over the keyboard. It was an amazing show. He came to Israel in 1990 and since then has been mainly in Jerusalem, where he organized musical groups and won the Ministry of Culture's award for music performers in 2002. His current group consists mainly of players from the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the clarinetist Michael Gorodetsky was also excellent. All six of them come from Bessarabia. We bought some CDs but they lack the vibrancy one gets from the actual performance. The accordionist stamped his foot, especially at the end and it was incredibly climactic.
I had a vision of him playing his accordion around a campfire with gypsies at night during WWII. I don't know why exactly I thought of this, but it must have been the Eastern European ambiance. We have such talented people here, I doubt that you could see such a special show of such a standard almost anywhere else. Wow, I hope they invite the group back again, I'd go in a hearbeat.
They played all kinds of Eastern European music. Bessarabia was the old name for part of what is now Moldova, that was originally a part of Romania. It was taken over by Russia in 1941 and became a part of the USSR until the fall of Communism in 1991 when it became independent. The Moldovans speak Romanian and Russian. The group played Klezmer and music from Romania, Hungary, Macedonia, Greece and Russia. The combination of an accordian and a clarinet with the violins and other strings and the fast complex rhythms of Hungary and Romania was wonderful.
The accordionist is named Emil Eibinder and his playing of the accordian was like nothing we had heard before, he played with virtuosity. He comes from Kishinev, famous for the pogrom of 1903 that resulted in mass emigration of Jews from the Russian Empire, where he studied music. He was tall and had a strong gaunt face, gold rimmed glasses and was dressed all in black with a grey homberg hat with a black band around it. When he played he was hypnotic, as if in a trance, with his long expressive fingers like spiders crawling over the keyboard. It was an amazing show. He came to Israel in 1990 and since then has been mainly in Jerusalem, where he organized musical groups and won the Ministry of Culture's award for music performers in 2002. His current group consists mainly of players from the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the clarinetist Michael Gorodetsky was also excellent. All six of them come from Bessarabia. We bought some CDs but they lack the vibrancy one gets from the actual performance. The accordionist stamped his foot, especially at the end and it was incredibly climactic.
I had a vision of him playing his accordion around a campfire with gypsies at night during WWII. I don't know why exactly I thought of this, but it must have been the Eastern European ambiance. We have such talented people here, I doubt that you could see such a special show of such a standard almost anywhere else. Wow, I hope they invite the group back again, I'd go in a hearbeat.
posted by Jack Cohen at 7:11 PM
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