Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
David Schiff
Synopsis
Today we celebrate the birthday of the American composer David Schiff, who was born in New York City on today’s date in 1945.
Schiff’s best-known work, a 1979 opera entitled “Gimpel the Fool,” is based on a story by the beloved Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer that tells the tale of a Jewish baker in Eastern Europe who takes everything at face value and so is lied to and cheated by everyone he meets. Rather than take revenge, Gimpel becomes a wandering holy man, convinced that God will not lie or cheat him.
Schiff’s opera premiered in New York City in 1979, and shortly thereafter he arranged its themes into an instrumental Divertimento, the first of many works written for clarinetist David Shifrin and Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon. Writing for those musicians, says Schiff, his given him what he calls, “a wonderful sense of how Haydn must have felt as court composer at Esterházy.”
The Divertimento from “Gimpel the Fool” draws on Jewish liturgical modes and Klezmer music, and its fourth movement references “Who Knows One?”—a traditional song in Passover. Like the story of Gimpel, the song is meant to be humorous, while still imparting an important lesson.
Music Played in Today's ProgramDavid Schiff (b. 1945) — Divertimento from "Gimpel the Fool" (David Shifrin, cl; Theodore Arm, vn; Warren Lash, vcl; David Oei, p.) Delos DE-3058