Akoka (2007) ca. 6 min
Composer: David Krakauer
Instrumentation: clarinet, violin, violoncello, and piano
This work is a structured improvisation composed by David Krakauer with a raw quality that anticipates some of the musical gestures that was written to preceed the Messiane Quartet for the End of Time. Cellist Matt Haimovitz, clarinetist David Krakauer, and beat writer Socalled came together to create a new project centered around Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.
Given that this piece was composed in a prisoner-of-war camp in the midst of tremendous world upheaval, and that the subject matter of the quartet describes cataclysmic events (the end of time itself), Haimovitz and Krakauer created a program of music surrounding and commenting on this aspect of the Messaien. The point of departure is the fact that the clarinetist, Henri Akoka, who gave the premiere in the prison camp was Jewish.
Metaphorically, to focus on Akoka’s story (not literally, but rather poetically through music) is to bring out the human aspect of this composition seen through the “eyes” of one individual caught up in terrifying events beyond his control.
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