Biography Compositions Discography Publications Press Photo gallery Prizes World Activity Video Links Homepage Hebrew

Tsippi Fleischer

Girl-Butterfly-Girl – A World Journey

  Listen to CD | View Booklet  
  Review  
 
A wonderful collection of vocal and instrumental versions, both oriental and western. This beautiful item has now been issued in a single disc together with a substantial booklet, identical on both the Hebrew and the English sides. This booklet is all-inclusive – it is a kind of doctoral research project on the cycle – its versions – the journey it has undergone with all relevant details. This is an outstanding example of how a disc needs to be compiled – with a graphic artist (Esther Madar) who related completely to the material and its essence in the way in which she designed the smallest detail. The disc was issued by the Israel Music Institute. It is dedicated to soundman Yuval Karin (Pedro) who was associated with the work throughout. The disc also provides an object lesson in expressing oneself correctly, in writing good Arabic and Hebrew, and according to Tsippi Fleischer’s example, in investing a great deal in the whole issue of language, transliteration and text. As regards the disc’s structure: there is an introduction presenting the cycle in its full version sung by Esti Keinan Ofri in a concert given by the 21st Century Ensemble, after which come the songs – each in its oriental and western guise, with a most bewildering variety of players and performers; from Jerusalem, New York, Rome, Montreal, Tel Aviv, London, Mexico City… There are tens of performers from throughout the world – a very varied journey – and, according to the composer, this variety includes only about 30 per cent of what is happening in the world. For example the cycle is very much alive today in performances in the United States…

Zmira Lutzki, The Voice of Music, Israel Radio, 24.2.2005. To listen to the interview press here

Congratulations to the composer on the issue of her new CD. When considering the extremely colorful and varied palette of musical life in Israel, of music making in Israel, I feel that Tsippi radiates her own special color, without which the entire palette would have been paler, perhaps even somewhat duller. Tsippi is characterized by an almost obsessive involvement in the here and now, and by what today distinguishes this region in which we live. She investigates artistic creativity beyond musical borders – in the meta-cultural fields of languages, idioms, moduses; and before she is convinced that what she is saying is indeed what she set out to say, she won’t say it. This is Tsippi’s strength. ...indeed this involvement with the local truth is what makes her creative work universal. This local statement reverberates in a variety of faraway places, as this CD testifies; by the way, I am not quite sure whether this is a book with an explanatory CD attached or a CD with a book attached… ...and having already mentioned time, the present time, one more sentence about time as an abstract entity in which music takes place. It seems to me that one of the distinctive qualities in Tsippi Fleischer’s music is the ability to time works correctly. A work of hers never ends too soon or too late, another of Tsippi’s strengths…

Avi Hanani, Director of the Voice of Music, Israel Broadcasting Authority
In the framework of events marking the launching of the CD Jerusalem, Confederation House, 3.3.2005


 
     
 

CD Track List - "Girl-Butterfly-Girl – A World Journey"
Eastern and Western versions


Download Full CD

The complete cycle – version for unaccompanied voice; sung in Arabic Play

Song No. 1: Piece of Earth

East

  • Oud solo (improvisation) Play
  • Version for mezzo-soprano, oud and vihuel; sung in Arabic Play
  • Version for mezzo-soprano, flute and guitar; sung in Arabic Play

  • West

  • Version for soprano, flute and piano; sung in Arabic Play
  • Version for mezzo-soprano, Renaissance recorders and harpsichord; sung in Hebrew Play
  • Version for soprano, flute and harpsichord; sung in French Play
  • Version for piano four-hands Play

Song No. 2: Eyelids

East

  • Oud solo (improvisation) Play
  • Version for soprano, oriental violin and oud; sung in Arabic Play
  • Version for mezzo-soprano, oud and vihuel; sung in Arabic Play

    West

  • Version for mezzo-soprano, flute and piano; sung in English Play

Song No. 3: The Coffin with its Lid Remote

East

Song No. 4: Girl-Butterfly-Girl

East