A WORLD UNFINISHED is modeled after the orchestral tone poems of Richard Strauss. The single-movement, continuously evolving composition is divided into two equal parts, each of which is comprised of two main sections, in total referencing truncated, highly compressed symphonic movements.
PART 1: Introduction Scherzo
PART 2: Adagio Klezmer Rondo
While there is no specific “story” behind the music, there is an extra-musical philosophical theme: the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World). To Jews, humanity was given an incomplete, broken world; it is our obligation to do what we can to reduce suffering, hatred and despair.

A WORLD UNFINISHED

Astounding performance by Hub New Music (4/1/2022), and special thanks to my masters thesis advisor, Dr. Yu-Hui Chang, my Yiddish professor, Dr. Ellen Kellman, Dr. James Praznik (recording), and New Music Brandeis.

-
Somewhere far, somewhere far, lies a meadow in the mountains.

In this meadow, memories gather to embrace one another and come away as something new.
-

"the meadow with the butter-flowers" is the fifth and final movement of Butter-lider, a setting of poems by H. Leivick, Yankev Glatshteyn, Kadia Molodovsky, and Rokhl H. Korn, four of my favorite Yiddish writers of the 20th century. However, instead of setting these texts for voice, my music accompanies recordings (graciously archived and provided by the Yiddish book Center) of the poets themselves reciting their writing. This final movement features my own text assembled from translated fragments of each of the four poems.

Through this piece, I hope to facilitate a dialogue, across artistic media, across time and space, between these writers’ unique perspectives, and my own, on what it means to make Yiddish art. I refuse to fall into the elitist and insulting narrative of “elevating” a folk tradition by bringing it into classical music spaces. Rather, I hope to participate in this living culture so that it may reach new audiences and new generations, and to offer another medium, another language, through which to tell Yiddish narratives.

the meadow with the butter-flowers

דײַן מזל זאָל לײַכטן װי די לבֿנה סוף חודש
dayn mazl zol laykhtn vi di levone sof khoydesh
may your luck shine as bright as the new moon

recording session by Evil Manners Brass Quintet
Stanley Friedman and Max Friedman, trumpets
Leander Star, horn
Ken Spain, trombone
Mark Vail, bass trombone
Mark Woodring, audio

A WORLD UNFINISHED

Stanley Friedman

Related tracks