The Clocksmith
The Clocksmith, a musical play written and composed by Tomer Rozen, is a musical parody exploring various aspects within the scene of classical music making today. It tells the unrequited love story of the Artist and the Muse. They used to complete each other: knowledge and inspiration, intelligence and expressiveness, Yin and Yang, ever circling each other, sculpting time, creating great music. This old clock however, is now broken. Where is the Clocksmith who could fix it?
The play aired twice in the Tel Aviv Music Academy in the summer of 2022
PIANO COMPETITION
“I’ll give you one point for every right note,
I’ll take you one point for every wrong note,
and whoever plays the utmost fastest pace,
will win this piano contest - race”
Piano Competition, the main scene of The Clocksmith deals with the absurd of today's system of music competitions. A piano competition serves as a model. The absurd is that if one tries to judge fairly in such competitions, they lose musicality. If one tries to judge musically, it is a matter of taste, and one would prefer someone from their school of thought, a quick road down to corruption. All of this in a world where people play the same few pieces again and again, and usually in a rather similar way compared to variations in performance in other genres of music and with no audible mistakes. This creates a reality where a corrupted judgment could easily go unnoticed, and is systematically hard to avoid. Is it wise to base our self-esteem on this system?
Plot
This scene deals with corruption. A young and naive piano teacher, Doctor, explains his judging methods for the upcoming piano competition to Professor, the esteemed head of the jury. Doctor seeks ultimate perfection, counting all the right and wrong notes. It is through the aspiration to judge musically and to seek expression that Professor will later on manipulate Doctor to a corrupted judgment.
Music
The music represents the characters: simple and innocent musical numbers at a first glance, but bizarre, corrupted, and full of contradictions once you delve deeper.
All photos by Alon Rozen