Kaddisch

'Kaddish (Aramaic: ’holy’) is the Jewish mourning prayer recited for the dead. My Kaddisch für David Stahl was conceived to honour the memory of the long-serving chief musical director of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich and begins with a lyrically flowing lament on the clarinet which towards the end rears up in a despairing wail of grief. The piano and double bass punctuate the arching structure of the melody with an aggressive and urgent three-note phrase which should sound as if ’hammered in steel’, symbolising the three syllables ’Da-vid Stahl’. The work culminates with an original Jewish melody for Psalm 119 with the following text: ’Your word is a lamp to my feet, shadows and light reveal the width and depth of the path of my life.’ Wilfried Hiller