FW: Dutch Strings, Hammers, and Bows

[Jeremy Bloom <jeremyb...>]

I have to agree...

All those in new york who didn't attend missed something special.
Being a student of Deborah Strauss myself, I recognized most of the tunes
that they played. They, however, added their own unique style that I have
never really heard anything like. It sounded great!

In particular, Pit Hermans on her little Romanian Tambal was great. She
added a nice Balkan spin to things that I always welcome and enjoy :)

Lets hope they will be back in the US soon in a larger venue

Jeremy 

On 2/20/04 11:08 AM, "r l reid" <ro (at) panix(dot)com> wrote:

> Although the subject line brings to my mind an old Doris Day song, it
> was decidely NOT Ms Day last night at the NY Workmens Circle, but
> Di Fidl Kapelye, who were in town from the Netherlands to work with
> Deborah Strauss (may she live long!)
> 
> It was a delightful evening!  They sound like nothing I've heard before, and
> while I can hear influences from thier teachers - Alpert, Strauss,
> Bjorling, etc - they are clearly hewing thier own sound from these
> sources.  And it works, oh does it work.
> 
> Problem is I can't quite figure out how to describe the difference that is
> them.  It is a deep lucious sound.  The instrumentation is 2 fidls,
> a tsimbl (actually a small Rumanian tambal), a bass AND a cello, with
> the bass occaisionally changing to oud.  It has a conservatory air, it
> has a friends making music at home air, it has a klezmer air, it has
> a European air.  
> 
> So we've got a lot of strings in a lot of registers.  Now usually with
> two fidls you'd expect a primo and a secund.  In this case, sometimes
> both were playing first violin.  Call and response - done with a keen
> sensitivity passing between Madelien Verheij and Jiska ter Bals - sometimes
> outright counterpoint, no, not all that traditional but for these cats
> it works right in and can I suggest -it *sounds* like it ought to be
> traditional.  Or sometimes they BOTH played secund.  Mostly, the lead
> moved around, sometimes phrase by phrase, over to the talented and learned
> cimbalom player Pit "Maestro Piti the Singing Cimbalom Queen" Hermans,
> to the cello, beautifully held and sung through by Djoeke Klijzing, and
> to bass (and oud) player Gregor Shaeffer, who gets that great sawing bass
> sound.  I thought he was doing the traditional 3 string bass but it turns
> out he had simply busted a string and was making do - quite well.
> 
> As a tsimbler I was interested to hear Pit Hermans and was enchanted.  She
> has her own sound and touch, moving effortlessly among the patterns
> and chords, fills, echos, and leads.  She also pulled off one of those
> intense Moskowitz solo tunes - again, not like Moskowitz, but in her
> own distict style.  I bought the demo CD in part to be able to listen
> more to her, as I would like to emulate her style to some extent.
> 
> Gregors oud playing is enjoyable but sometimes seems a bit "apart"
> from what the group is doing.  I wonder if they could integrate the oud
> more with the ensemble, perhaps in the manner that mandolin players
> can fit right in.
> 
> If you have a chance to catch these folks live (you lucky Europeans),
> you should.   They do have a demo recording, which is good, but the live
> performance came through with a real energy that's hard to capture on
> a recording (just like the Grateful Dead).
> 
> I hope there will be more extensive US tours in their future.
> 
> The web site is here:
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~gregors/difk/e_frameset.html
> 
> respectfully submitted,
> 
> ronan tsimbler / roger reid
> -------
> r l reid    ro (at) rreid(dot)net
> 
> 
> 

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