“There you go! Another Yiddish chord!” Thus spoke Osvaldo Golijov’s father from behind the sports pages of a newspaper. He was referring to vivid musical references that share this riveting piece with parallel reflections on Aramaic and Hebrew. Isaac the Blind was a great rabbi from Provence and Golijov’s ‘dream and prayers’ celebrate his Cabbalistic interpretation of the universe in music that alternates intense meditation with wild bouts of klezmer.
Golijov compares the first movement to “a celestial accordion” (Kronos manage a near-perfect imitation); the second starts violently, switches to an animated canter, then an ethereal sequence of repetitions (at around 2'20''), before a sinuous dance takes over (2'59'') and the heat really sets in while David Krakauer – a tremendous player – rushes madly from the highest to the lowest register of his instrument. The klezmer angle predominates again in the third movement, the fourth opens to meditation and then slowly intensifies, and the fifth ushers us out in a mood of relative tranquillity.
In a sense, The dreams and prayers of Isaac the Blind commemorates Golijov’s great-grandfather, his prayers, his tragic life, his rapt communing with God. It is a raw, unpredictable, ecstatically involving piece, extraordinarily well played (Kronos and Krakauer simmer or ignite as the musical mood takes them) and very well recorded. Anyone excited by the fierier, folkier aspects of, say, Bartok or Enescu will love it, and the CD single format provides the perfect release context – unhampered by irrelevant couplings and marketed at a sensible price. Well worth hearing.'