Zeks Yiddishe Lider un Tantz from The Golem

Der Golem: Zeks Yiddishe Lider un Tantz is the second movement of the adaptation from a score written to accompany Paul Wegener's 1920 silent expressionist film Der Golem: Wie er in die Welt kam. The work had its premiere in 1997, with clarinetist Giora Feidman and the Arditti Quartet, at a screening at the Silent Film Festival in Vienna. This abridged version of the original score is intended for concert performances, and preserves the main musical themes and motifs associated with the film's various characters and scenes from the Golem legend: the creation of the Golem by Rabbi Löw; the love scenes of the Rabbi's daughter and a young courtier; the destruction of the emperor's palace; the apocalyptic fire that consumes the town's squares; the crowd praying and shouting for forgiveness and deliverance in Synagogue. Ecstatic Freylekh klezmer musical sections accompany the village scenes, while the traditional melody Place Me Under Thy Wing appears as a motto tune at the film's two most dramatic moments: first, when the Rabbi Löw succeeds in breathing the spirit of life into the Golem; later, to accompany the expressions of warmth and longing in the Golem's face when a young girl approaches offering him a flower.