Story Behind The Song
The heart of these recordings is two violins. One being a 1920 strad copy, made in Berlin and sold in America by Sears just before WWII. My great grandfather Capt. Chas Rempferd was the original owner. Story has it, he sawed the hell out of the thing every night on Lake Michigan. When the crew noticed he'd gone missing, they assumed he'd been possessed by whiskey and the violin's song before throwing himself overboard. Though the instrument remains safe, they never found his body.
It gets a massive volume, I like to use it with steel strings for bright thrashing ringing scraping on open textural spaces.
The other was made in Chicago and found its way to Pickerel, Wisconsin during Prohibition, where my ancestors owned and operated a small distillery and speakeasy. The fiddle provided entertainment, maybe a bit too much. Someone fell asleep on the job and when the distillery blew up, the instrument was one of the only remaining artifacts.
It has a rich dark tone that I think you'll be able to identify on these recordings.
Other instrumentation is sparse. Viola, cello, horn, voice, tape manipulation, musical saw, and rhodes suitcase seventy three.
Song Length |
6:08 |
Genre |
Classical - Contemporary, Unique - Avant garde |
Tempo |
Slow (71 - 90) |
Lead Vocal |
Instrumental |
Mood |
Heartbreaking, Exultant |
Subject |
Dreams, Sorrow |
Language |
No Language |
Era |
2000 and later |