Here’s something a little bit different for your Monday amusement.\u00a0 Erbarme Dich is probably the most famous contralto aria from Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion.\u00a0 It’s sung after Peter has denied Jesus three times, and, sung well, is an absolutely compelling portrayal of grief and guilt.\u00a0 It’s also very firmly part of\u00a0 theWestern musical canon.<\/p>\n
So here it is, translated into Arabic.\u00a0 And when I say translated, I’m not just talking about the lyrics – the style both of singing and playing has a decidedly middle-Eastern feel.\u00a0 And it’s rather amazing.\u00a0 The solo violin in this piece, as was pointed out to me recently, has a sound rather similar to [youtube http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SUj3LEiMEKE&hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0]In all honesty, I can’t quite decide whether I love this or not.\u00a0 I’m not quite sure that the central section feels anguished enough for my taste, and I both adore this radically different singing style and find it slightly off-putting.\u00a0 Either way, I can’t ignore it, which I think is the hallmark of very good music, no matter what one thinks of it.\u00a0 I’ll have to keep an ear out for what other things Fadia el-Hage and the Ensemble Sarband have been doing.<\/p>\n The lyrics in English, incidentally, translate to “Have mercy on me, O God, for my tears’ sake.\u00a0 See, heart and eye cry for thee, bitterly.\u00a0 Have mercy on me, O God, for my tears’ sake.”\u00a0 And yes, that’s not a lot of lyrics for seven minutes of music, but that’s sort of the point – all the arias in this oratorio have very simple, short texts, which are repeated so that the music almost becomes a meditation on these repeated phrases.\u00a0 I would love to sing a full version of this Oratorio sometime.\u00a0 I think it would be amazing.<\/p>\n Here’s a more conventional version, sung by Julia Hamari<\/a>, just for the sake of comparison.\u00a0 Very gorgeous, and I could listen to her for hours.<\/p>\nJewish liturgical<\/del> Eastern European Jewish violin music, and this Eastern influence is brought very much to the fore here.<\/p>\n