The Music of Lori Laitman, now available as PDFs
Wertheim Park for soprano, clarinet, violin, double bass and piano (priced for five copies)
SM-000600059
- Composer
- Lori Laitman
-
Lyricist
-
Susan de Sola
- Publisher
- Enchanted Knickers Music
- Genre
-
Classical / Piece
- Instrumentation
- Piano, Clarinet, Violin, Double bass, Soprano
- Type of score
- Full score
- Duration
- 10'0"
- Language
- English
- Difficulty
- Difficult
- Year of composition
- 2022
Description
Wertheim Park
When Mina Miller asked me to compose a piece for MOR’s 25th anniversary season, I decided to explore the impact of the Holocaust on the next generation. Poet Susan de Sola (who died unexpectedly in October 2021) lost many of her relatives in the Shoah, and her poem Wertheim Park is a dramatic depiction of the annual Holocaust memorial march and its emotional impact on her. From March through May 2022, I composed the soprano and piano version, and from May through July 2022, I orchestrated the work for soprano, clarinet, violin, double bass and piano, subsequently reworking the piano/vocal version to include some of the new material introduced in the orchestration.
As with all my vocal works, the text was paramount in determining my approach to the composition, and my goal was to illuminate and magnify de Sola’s words. The work incorporates “motifs” associated with particular phrases (for example, “She gestured to her purse, and muttered work”), and once associated with these words, the music may later be separated from the words and repeated by the instruments to reinforce the association. Also woven vertically throughout are two musical themes from my Holocaust-themed oratorio Vedem, also commissioned by Music of Remembrance. The Vedem themes, associated with David Mason’s words, “Oh, hear my story now” and “I am nothing without memory”, further underline the importance that memory must play when we speak about the Holocaust.
The premiere is available to view on YouTube.