"Brave Old World" brought a delightful combination of the old and new in Yiddish concert music to the Dartmouth stage last night.
Their vocal and instrumental concert at Spaulding Auditorium was a vibrant combination of both classical artistry and jazz improvisation with some daring innovation. The two-hour concert sounded sometimes like traditional Yiddish music and other times very jazz-like but always was quite a show.
"Brave Old World" is a revival group formed in 1989 by the four pioneering musicians: vocalist and fiddler Michael Alpert, accordionist and pianist Alan Bern, clarinetist and bass clarinetist Kurt Bjorling and percussionist and bassist Stuart Brotman.
Their sole concert last night was well attended by many older members of the community and their families but not as much by students.
The concert started slowly with some of the groups' more "experimental" pieces, which Bern later apologized for during introductions at the end of the concert. These pieces, while very imaginative, were quite dissonant and seemed more appropriate for the Barbary Coast than a East European Jewish music group.
Although their first piece had quite a vocal section -- rendered quite expertly by Alpert in his native Yiddish -- the music sounded more jazz-like.
But before long, the true roots of the group were showing though. From the experimental, the concert soon moved to the more classical. In fact, one of the later pieces before the intermission seemed a great deal more like a classical quartet piece than a Yiddish folk tune.
Bjorling deserves special praise for his range and ability playing both the clarinet and bass clarinet -- especially the bass clarinet. The bass clarinet is sometimes reduced to a background instrument but Bjorling constantly stole the show with some exquisite musical talent.
Incidentally, it was his performance before the intermission that seemed very classical to me. His solo, accompanied by the piano, was quite impressive as a concert-worthy piece.
After the intermission the group played some of their more meaningful vocal pieces.
A song about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reaction of the Jewish community in Europe to past atrocities and optimism for the future had an intriguing vocal section.
The instrumentation at the concert was quite standard with the exception of what Bern called their prototype electric cello which he said "could be an electric bass but we can't tell because the body is missing." It was definitely an interesting looking device.
