Zayt Gezunterheyt: The Folk Soul of the Eastern Clarinet – Roeland Hendrikx Ensemble

This album features a collection of composers with diverse backgrounds, including Glazunov, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Kokai, and Jan van der Roost, showcasing a fusion of Eastern and Western musical elements. The composers share a common toolbox of themes and techniques, emphasizing the unity in diversity across different cultural influences, providing a cohesive and well-integrated musical journey.

The clarinet is presented as the central and ultimate interpreter of this musical lore, underlining its significance and role in conveying the essence of Eastern art music.

The disc promises to offer a holistic musical experience, bringing together various cultural threads through the common medium of the clarinet, providing a well-rounded and immersive listening experience.

If Eastern art music has a folk heart, its arteries are Roma and Klezmer sounds. From the orientalist imagination of Glazunov, the Jewish adoption of Prokofiev, the Uzbek inspiration of Khachaturian, to the Romani-Hungarian roots of Kokai and the Balkanism of Jan van der Roost: all composers on this disc build on the same toolbox of themes and techniques, and they all rely on the clarinet as the ultimate interpreter of this lore. Acknowledged and exquisitely performed by the Roeland Hendrikx Ensemble.