Josephine (the Singer) takes its title from Franz Kafka´s last published story, Josephine the Singer or the Mouse People. This valedictory tale was Kafka´s prescient meditation both on musical divas and on what he considered might be the future of the Jews as a persecuted minority in Europe in the twentieth century. Bresnick´s composition is an extended passacaglia on a subject derived from Bresnick´s earlier work, Songs of the Mouse People. This subject itself is found to be consistent with the...