The Well
Loneliness, loss, displacement, and death loom large among the topics  covered in the 15 Yiddish poems set to melodies by popular Israeli folksingerChava Alberstein, and  arranged by New York's exploratoryKlezmatics, on this  deeply sad and beautiful album. Anyone familiar with the Klezmatics' more  rambunctious side will be impressed by the inventive delicacy and subtlety they  bring to these elegant vestiges of fading Yiddish culture, virtually reanimating  it with tangos, Hasidic melodies, polkas, and festivefreylekhsthat  recall its vibrant past. Alberstein's low voice meshes beautifully with Lorin  Sklamberg's high tenor, adding extra emotional resonance to a series of poems in  the middle of the album that evoke the genocide twilight that enveloped the  writers' world half a century ago. Their tragedy is redeemed inThe Well.--Richard Gehr