On Track: A venturebeyond the safe

By WILLIAM DART

Osvaldo Golijov is a voice to reckon with.

For many, the revelation came in 2000 when the Argentinian composer's St Mark Passion showed how powerful a testament of faith could be hewn out of everything from flamenco and wild Latin American rhythms to avant-garde sonics.

Then there were those offbeat arrangements for the Kronos Quartet, ranging from the high campery of Esquivel's Mini Skirt to the unexpected Slavic fatalism of Billie Holiday's Gloomy Sunday.

One hopes the new EMI album, Yiddishbbuk, will introduce new punters to both the composer and the superlative St Lawrence String Quartet who just happen to be playing at the Auckland Town Hall on March 26.

The CD comes with a Grammy pedigree (two nominations, for both composer and performers) and offers chamber music for those who would venture beyond the safe. This is music that leaps down from the concert stage and insists on becoming part of your life.

The heady mix is typical of Golijov - the major work being the epic The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind with Todd Palmer's various klezmerising clarinets to the fore.

The title piece, Yiddishbbuk, based on a collection of apocryphal psalms from the writings of Franz Kafka, is a triptych of affecting tributes to three child inmates of the Terezin concentration camp, writer Isaac Bashevis Singer and composer Leonard Bernstein. This is as demandingly contemporary as the collection gets, although, such is the drama engendered by both the music and the superlative recording, I suspect you won't fast-forward through these three tracks until they have left their imprint on your soul.

Alongside this searing emotionalism is the Piazzolla-styled Last Round, with its performance direction to savour - "macho, cool and dangerous" - and the delicate Jewish lyricism of Lullaby and Doina, taken from Golijov's score for Sally Potter's film The Man Who Cried.

The St Lawrence players may not be the first string quartet to open audience's ears to the thrilling world of contemporary music (Kronos and the British Brodskys have been setting up the groundwork for some time) but Yiddishbbuk is a winner.

* Osvaldo Golijov, Yiddishbbuk, played by the St Lawrence String Quartet (EMI 57356)