Listen & tracks

4 of 10 tracks have a preview · 10 works · 42:03

1 For Sonja Tony Gould 5:42
2 At the fireplace Traditional 3:14
3 Let us all together Traditional 2:32
4 Peace unto you Traditional 2:23
5 Raisins and almonds Traditional 3:21
6 Tum Balalaikav Traditional 5:44
7 Rayzele Traditional 4:53
8 Jewish mother Traditional 3:27
9 Schindler’s List John Williams 6:25
10 Encore Sonja Tony Gould 4:22

Gould’s piano anchors the set, joined on selected tracks by Imogen Manins on cello and Adam Simmons on clarinet. The bookends For Sonja and Encore Sonja frame familiar Yiddish and Jewish melodies in a quiet chamber voice.

The music favours lyric warmth over display, letting each tune speak across cultural lines while remaining a personal memorial.

In the artist’s words

Sonja Krawatt was a remarkable woman in many ways: generous, spirited, a lover of music and the other arts, passionate about life and her fellow human beings.

The pieces on this recording are all well known especially in Jewish circles, but they are such lovely songs melodically their appeal crosses cultural boundaries quite easily, as all good music does. The majority of them are traditional and emotionally rich. The inclusion of the more recent theme by John Williams from the wonderful movie Schindler’s List is a lovely example of how our great art transcends time, and is capable of underpinning the most profound human feelings.

The woman to whom this recording is named and dedicated was a great lover of music and the other arts and a generous spirit in the broadest sense of the term.

— Tony Gould

Mum loved all forms of music. So, I am very touched that our friend and one of her favourite musicians, Tony Gould, has recorded these wonderful tunes in memory of my dear mother, Sonja.

— Ruth

Reviews

Gould begins his title track with a gentle meditative walk showing hints of Jewish tropes, including the repetitious shape of certain sequential phrases, the gentlest of intermediary seventh chords, and suggestions of minor-inflected modes. Cellist Imogen Manins joins in for two interludes. At the fireplace brings Manins back to play the lyric itself, followed by Adam Simmons working through a variant of the tune on clarinet. The trio participates as an entity towards the end of Tum balalaika, during which Gould enjoys an extended solo, Manins outlines the tune both straight and elaborated, and Simmons offers the most subtle of interference plays in an episode following his own yawp-inflected solo handling of the theme, which appears clearly on both guest instruments in a final round-up.

— Clive O'Connell, O'Connell the Music

The piano, clarinet and cello sounds are to me amongst the most beautiful in all music. And given that Jewish melodies are rich in ambiguity – hovering between joy and sadness back and forth – the programme reflects these tendencies. The program is bookended by two originals by Gould, For Sonja and Encore Sonja which for me are the most affecting in the programme. The first is a simple, elegant duo conversation of cello and piano with a strong melody and sweet harmony at adagio tempo. The second piano solo perhaps at largo tempo, with much sustain, is a felt conclusion and elegiac musical farewell. The program may be personal but the music is universal, consummately played by all three participants.

— Ian Muldoon, Music Trust e-zine Loud Mouth

Artists

Tony Gould

piano

Pianist and composer Tony Gould is one of Australia’s most respected musicians. His career has spanned jazz and other improvisatory forms as well as traditional and contemporary classical, and for decades he has stood at the forefront of music education in Australia.

John Williams

composer

John Williams's theme from Schindler's List carries a long, aching melody that sits as naturally with cello and piano as it does on the original soundtrack. In these recordings it becomes a quiet hinge between film music, Jewish song and reflective chamber jazz.