Help identify this piece of violin music.

August 8, 2005 11:57 PM

Please help identify this piece of music. I have been trying to find out for years and figured I'd give it a try here. The link goes to a flash slideshow of Holocaust artwork by Samuel Bak. The music is a slow, sad violin piece. I would like to know the name of the piece of music being played and the artist performing it. I have already contacted the website owners, who got me in touch with the webmaster, none of which had any clue about the music. You would think they would have had to get permission to use it and therefore would know who it's by, but basically they were no help at all despite my best efforts. Do any of you recognize this? Thanks in advance
posted by RoseovSharon to media & arts (10 answers total)

Maybe try contacting Bak through the Pucker Gallery, which represents him? He may have suggested the music, or at least been consulted by the museum about it.

Also, did the current JHOM webmaster create the Flash presentation? If not, getting in touch with the person who actually put it together would be my next step.
posted by mediareport at 12:17 AM on August 9, 2005

Unfortunately my trail of webmasters ended with the one they have now. No one there was very interested in helping me.

Had not thought to contact Bak directly. That might have to be the last resort if my attempt here fails!
posted by RoseovSharon at 12:26 AM on August 9, 2005

I should be able to find out the answer for you. Check back in later this morning.
posted by arco at 6:37 AM on August 9, 2005

Kaddish, by Maurice Ravel (pretty sure--I Googled "bak slideshow music"). Hope it helps!
posted by callerou at 6:38 AM on August 9, 2005

Different slideshow and different performance, but yep, it does sound like the same piece. Way to scroll down through those search results, callerou. :)
posted by mediareport at 7:50 AM on August 9, 2005

No, those are different pieces, neither of which sound like Ravel.
posted by free pie at 10:28 AM on August 9, 2005

Callerou, thanks so much for the search and tip on Ravel. I've tried searching now for "kaddish, ravel" and found some results, but not for the tune on the Bak site. For example on this page is a short mp3 clip of Ravels Kaddish, and it is primarily a vocal piece. Not sure if it's maybe the same tune but with vocals added on... I'm trying to find the just music version exactly as on the Bak site. Not so sure that Ravel is actually it (or that these are the same piece of music at all).
posted by RoseovSharon at 2:29 PM on August 9, 2005

If you use the freeware SWF Extractor to get an MP3 from the SWF file, you'll find that whoever put together the slideshow apparently had a major hand in what you're hearing, splicing and looping the music and making a canon using a time delay. It's rather artfully done, but it does kind of make it hard to track down the source material. I've posted the extracted MP3 on my webspace (at least for now). Hopefully this will help in tracking down the actual piece. It's lovely, but nothing I've heard before.

For what it's worth, while they share a general atmosphere, I don't think this is the Ravel piece.
posted by musicinmybrain at 3:25 PM on August 9, 2005

Musicinmybrain, thank you so much for extracting and making the mp3. At least now I can mail it around to some folks to try and track it down. I had not heard this music before stumbling onto that site before either and I absolutely love it. Found it a couple years ago and have been sending the link around ever since to try and identify the music... but as of yet no luck! I think I'll do what someone else here suggested and try and contact Samuel Bak directly, perhaps he knows... or at least, perhaps he might have more sway with getting into from that sites webmaster than I did.
posted by RoseovSharon at 5:49 PM on August 9, 2005

Glad to help! It will be interesting to see if you have any luck finding it; I'd like to get my hands on a recording too.

Incidentally, if you haven't run across this forum, it might be worth posting there.
posted by musicinmybrain at 7:30 PM on August 9, 2005