Press Release: CityMusic Presents ‘The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind’

Klezmer and classical melodies swirl together in Golijov’s epic work The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind. CityMusic Cleveland brings their program, The Visionary Clarinet, to venues throughout Northeast Ohio for a series of concerts March 16-19.

This virtuoso piece will be performed by CityMusic Cleveland principal clarinetist Daniel Gilbert and conducted by Joel Smirnoff. 

The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind is a spirited piece by composer Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960). As highlighted in the program notes, Dr. Richard Rodda details that “The movements of this work sound to me as if written in three of the different languages spoken by the Jewish people throughout our history. This somehow reflects the composition’s epic nature. I hear the prelude and the first movement, the most ancient, in Aramaic; the second movement is in Yiddish, the rich and fragile language of a long exile; the third movement and the postlude are in sacred Hebrew.”

The composer writes about the work, “The prelude and the first movement simultaneously explore two prayers in different ways: the orchestra plays the first part of the central prayer of the High Holidays — ‘We will observe the mighty holiness of this day …’ — while the clarinet dreams the motifs from ‘Our Father, Our King.’ In the prelude, the music is like a celestial accordion, rising and falling like breathing, like praying…like air…then the air is transformed into a pulse and heart. The whole first movement is a heartbeat that accelerates wildly, becoming frantic…searching for a revelation that is always out of reach.”

Also on the program is Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata Op. 47, in a rare arrangement for string orchestra. 

Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 16, at The Temple Tifereth-Israel in Beachwood, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 17, at Lakewood Congregational Church in Lakewood (this performance will be livestreamed on YouTube), at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 18, at Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus in Slavic Village in Cleveland and at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 19, at St Noel Catholic Church in Willoughby Hills.