The recordings are bright, clear and well played by clearly committed musicians who have taken to this wonderfully harmonious and melodic music. ...

Herman Berlinski is one of those musical personalities whose Jewish heritage played as vitally important a role in the creation of his music as Messiaen’s Catholicism played in his. Berlinski said that he doubted that there was any music he wrote which did not embody his Jewish existence. This is certainly immediately obvious as soon as you listen to it. His music has the same sense of suffering and the ability to overcome it that is found in some black music. It makes for a powerfully emotional experience. One reviewer said of another of his works on Naxos (Avodat Shabbat) that “There are passages in Berlinski’s work of such aching beauty that if you are not moved to tears you are made of sterner stuff than I am.”

Each of the works on this disc is a good introduction to the breadth of expression that Berlinski brings to his music and makes the listener want to explore further. It is interesting to note that though he was born in Leipzig of Polish parents his musical roots draw on that eastern European Jewish legacy that begins east of Germany’s borders. Anyone who is familiar with klezmer will hear its influence in this music; try track 2 to hear what I mean. This was due to the insistence of his father that though he wanted his children to be “modern German Jews” he also wanted them to be acquainted with their eastern European heritage. He also engaged a tutor to teach them Yiddish. There is no indication in the liner notes, which are extremely comprehensive and well written, that Berlinski ever wrote any music for film. I this found surprising because he would have produced some superb music for that medium. He has that facility for producing powerful sweeping themes that would fit neatly into so many movies.

‘From the World of my Father’ is a suite that Berlinski reconstructed from his recollections of music he had written in Paris just before the war when he was forced to leave. His parents had emigrated from Lodz in Poland to Germany. He had been writing and arranging music in Paris for an émigré Yiddish art theatre known as PIAT. This music is a portrayal of the world of his parents and their parents before them. It aimed to encompass traditions, hopes, fears, joys, persecutions – in short to present in music as a microcosm of the Jewish world of eastern Europe. It achieves these aims wonderfully and is never banal but full of typical Jewish melodies woven into a brilliantly evocative piece.

‘Shofar Service’ is a liturgical work using a shofar, usually made of ram’s horn. This may be the oldest surviving wind instrument to have been in continuous use. It is the only musical instrument of any kind mentioned in the Bible that can be positively identified. It was used for summoning people, warning them of approaching danger, announcing the beginning of a period of celebration, of fasting and many other events. This piece was written to be performed during Rosh Hashana or the Jewish New Year - a time with which the shofar is most associated. It is a powerful work in which the shofar is set against the voice of a baritone who entreats the people to harken to the sound of the shofar and to worship the Lord at the holy mountain. Liturgical though it may be it would be extremely effective performed in the concert hall as part of a programme of Berlinski’s work.

‘The Burning Bush’ was commissioned from Berlinski by the distinguished organist of the Emanu-El temple in New York. Berlinski had been encouraged to learn the organ as late as 1951 by Josef Yasser, synagogue organist and musicologist, who offered to teach him. The organ has always fascinated Berlinski but it had not figured on his course in Leipzig where it was principally associated with the church. Taking the Hebrew words eh’ye asher eh’ye (I am that I am) that God spoke when asked by Moses who he should say had appointed him to carry out his mission, Berlinski constructed a reflective cell from those words. This rhythmic cell pervades the piece. It was first performed in 1956 by Robert Baker - who commissioned it - to great acclaim. It helped establish Berlinski’s reputation in Great Britain, Europe and America as one of the most gifted contemporary composers for the organ.

The final work on the disc is ‘Symphonic Visions for Orchestra’ a semi-programmatic tone-poem inspired by various biblical images, passages and sentiments. Once again it shows the power of expression that Berlinski has. It makes a fitting end to a disc of music that will hopefully gain a new wave of admirers - of whom I am certainly one - for a truly original musical voice. The disc is a great start for those wishing to explore this composer’s music. The recordings are bright, clear and well played by clearly committed musicians who have taken to this wonderfully harmonious and melodic music.

-- Steve Arloff, MusicWeb International

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.

This Milken Archive disc presents five works by Frederick Jacobi (1891-1952), one of the first 20th-century American composers to successfully unite authentic Jewish melodic and harmonic materials with the European classical-romantic tradition. Championed by such conductors as Koussevitzky, Stokowski, and Monteux, his compositions reflect two principal ethnic-historical musical sources: the motifs, rhythms and sonorities of American Indian culture and the biblical, liturgical and rabbinical wellsprings of his Judaic heritage, which would eventually dominate his creative life.

Included on this CD are three instrumental works of Jewish inspiration: the Cello Concerto, an introspective work inspired by the Book of Psalms; Hagiographa: Three Biblical Narratives for Piano and String Quartet, a rhapsodic evocation of three major biblical personalities; and Two Pieces in Sabbath Mood, an orchestral tone poem that depicts the spiritual qualities of the Sabbath in Jewish life and tradition. Also heard are two liturgical pieces: excerpts from the Sabbath Evening Service, a restrained setting for baritone and a cappella chorus that was commissioned by New York’s Temple Emanu-El; and Ahavat Olam, an independent setting of the Sabbath evening prayer for cantor and choir that is infused with echoes of traditional cantorial chant.

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.

R E V I E W S:

Fanfare:
The opening of Frederick Jacobi’s Cello Concerto will take your breath away. It is one of those instantly memorable, drop-dead gorgeous beginnings—like Fauré’s Elégie for cello and orchestra—that will have you asking yourself, “Who is this composer and where has he been all my life?” Well, it turns out that for the last several years of my life, Jacobi has been hiding on a shelf in my own library. His 1932 Cello Concerto, aka “Three Psalms for Cello and Orchestra,” has been filed away in my personal collection on a CRI disc containing a program of other works by Jacobi, including the here-recorded Hagiographa. Which leads to the inevitable question, “How memorable can it be if I didn’t remember I had it?”

The answer to that question may seem a bit of a cop-out, but I think it has to do with the fact that beautiful as this music is—and it is—it is also highly derivative of a number of other higher profile composers. The three-movement Cello Concerto, for example, though mostly a quiet, contemplative work, inevitably calls to mind associations with Bloch’s Schelomo (though it is nowhere near as cinematic), and even Dvo?ák’s Cello Concerto. Or, as the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music press release has it, “Jacobi’s style is marked by broad, melodic lyricism, often infused or contrasted with a sophisticated sense of drama that is personal and restrained, rather than overtly theatrical.” Not surprisingly, Jacobi studied with Bloch and Rubin Goldmark.

Frederick Jacobi (1891–1952) was a native San Franciscan of German-Jewish descent. Though not of a religious upbringing or traditional Jewish background, his interest in his cultural heritage was likely kindled by a commission he received in 1930 from Lazare Saminsky of New York’s Temple Emanu-El to provide a setting of the Sabbath Eve Service. He was also equally interested, however, in the authentic music of America’s southwest native tribes, and in the 1920s (like Bartók before him), Jacobi spent time among Pueblo and Navajo populations in Arizona and New Mexico, recording their indigenous rhythms, melodies, and sonorities. Much of this research found its way into his concert works.

Jacobi was an unapologetic and unrepentant romantic, and all of the pieces on this disc are marked by the broad, melodic lyricism noted above. “Mi khamokha” (the first of the four excerpts from the Sabbath Evening Service), an exquisitely simple yet intensely moving piece for baritone (Patrick Mason) surrounded by chorus, could be a not-too-distant cousin of the Sanctus from Berlioz’s Requiem. Hagiographa is, to all extents and purposes, a piano quintet. It can be listened to and appreciated as such without knowing that each of its three quite substantial movements is titled, respectively, “Job,” “Ruth,” and “Joshua.”

Ahavat olam is another of Cantor David Putterman’s commissions for liturgical music at New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue. Jacobi composed it in 1945. It is written in the style of traditional cantorial pieces for solo cantor and chorus. Brief as it is (just over three minutes), it ends with a most beautiful benedictory Amen. Two Pieces in Sabbath Mood, like Hagiographa, can be listened to as purely abstract music. Its two movements, “Kaddish” and “Oneg Shabbat,” are purely orchestral, and could be described as a tone poem.

If you love wonderfully rich romantic musical tapestries, tinged with ethnic (Jewish and native American) melodies and harmonies, Jacobi is a composer well worth exploring. I can recommend this Naxos release over the aforementioned CRI, not only because the performances and sound are better, but because the CRI contains only instrumental works, whereas the current release presents a nice cross-section and balance among instrumental, choral, and orchestral pieces. Very nice indeed.

Jerry Dubins, FANFARE

Paul Schoenfield (b. 1947) writes music that is easily grasped but not easily forgotten. A quote from the booklet note states that his works “do for Hassidic music what Astor Piazzolla did for the Argentine tango.” If what is meant by this is that Schoenfield’s music is animated by a strong rhythmic component informed by certain Klezmer-like dance elements, I guess I would go along with the characterization. But there is nothing dance-like about the extraordinarily sorrowful and moving “Soliloquy” of the Viola Concerto. Here is a major new concerted work for viola and orchestra (and how many of them are there?) that is sure to be snapped up by every viola player of note. The piece was written in 1997–98 expressly for Robert Vernon, concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra, who gave its premiere performance in 1998, and who plays it here on this CD. Clearly, the work has it origins in Israeli and Eastern European folk song and dance, as well as Hassidic liturgical sources. This is especially evident in the last movement, titled “King David Dancing before the Ark,” a kind of Jewish saltarello, but the overall impression of this concerto is not of a lightweight, pops-concert piece. I believe it is an important new contribution to the viola literature. Vernon is in top form.

The Four Motets, each indicated only by a tempo marking, are settings of four of the seven verses from Psalm 86: “Incline Your ear, O Lord, answer me, for I am poor and needy.” These may be the most beautiful pieces William Byrd ever wrote. I jest of course, but the writing bears a strong resemblance to the Church style of Byrd and Tallis, with just enough 20th-century “irregularities” in voice leading and harmonic progression thrown in to assure you that you haven’t entered a time-warp. Benjamin Britten was quite masterful at writing this type of choral music too.

Schoenfield’s opera, The Merchant and the Pauper, is based on a tale by the great 18th-century Hassidic Rabbi, Reb Nahman. As usual, Neil Levin, author of the encyclopedic notes, and artistic director behind the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music project, goes on for pages of microscopic-print about who Reb Nahman was and the role he played in the evolving Jewish mythology and mysticism that are central to the Hassidic movement. Suffice it here to say that he was a highly controversial figure, as were many of his tales that—through allegory, riddles, and symbolism—drew many fervent believers. The plot of the Merchant and the Pauper presents an original twist on a familiar theme. The Pauper’s wife is kidnapped, but safely returned by the Merchant. The wives of both Pauper and Merchant give birth, the former to a daughter, the latter to a son. In gratitude to the Merchant for the rescue of his wife, the Pauper promises his newborn daughter’s hand in marriage to the Merchant’s son. Meanwhile, as the daughter blossoms into womanhood, her beauty increases, as do the Pauper’s wealth and fortunes. Soon, power and greed corrupt the Pauper, who now no longer wishes his daughter to marry the Merchant’s son. To prevent the marriage, he goes to great lengths to ruin the Merchant, and eventually to have the Merchant’s son abducted, put into a sack, and thrown into the sea (shades of Rigoletto). But this story has a happy ending for all except the Pauper. The son escapes, to be reunited with the Merchant’s daughter in “everlasting joy” (right!), and through the magic of fantasy the Pauper is once again returned to “pauperdom” and the Merchant to “merchanthood.” The story is no sillier than many an opera libretto. What matters is the music. On that score, I can say that even in these relatively short chunks excerpted from act II Schoenfield demonstrates a real flair for the stage and dramatic writing. There is some gorgeous music here, and all of the participants are excellent.

Another winner from this tremendously important project. I recommend it enthusiastically.
Jerry Dubins, FANFARE

AMRAM Symphony, “Songs of the Soul.”1 Shir L’erev Shabbat; Excerpts.2 The Final Ingredient: Scenes 5, 9, 103 -- Christopher Wilkins, cond;1 Berlin RSO;1 Richard Troxell (ten);2 Christopher Bowers-Broadbent (org);2 Kenneth Kiesler, cond;2 BBC Singers;2 Kenneth Kiesler, cond;3 Deborah Selig (sop);3 Pei Yi Wang (mez);3 Sarah Elizabeth Williams (mez);3 Thomas Glenn (ten);3 Brian Pfaltzgraf (ten);3 Nicholas Phan (ten);3 Jesse Blumberg (bar);3 Tyler Oliphant (bar);3 Mark Kent (bass);3 Univ of Michigan SO & Ch3 -- NAXOS 8.559420 (63:12 ?)

Here we have three works by Philadelphia-born composer and “Renaissance man of American music” (according to the Boston Globe), David Amram (b. 1930). His biography is long and colorful, and, as always, fully documented by Neil Levin’s encyclopedic notes. In a nutshell, Amram has had a mixed musical and cultural background, studying at the Manhattan School of Music under Vitttorio Giannini, Gunther Schuller, and Dimitri Mitropoulos, while simultaneously becoming involved with a number of prominent jazz musicians and ensembles. He has written a considerable amount of music, from incidental scores to Shakespeare plays, Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Camus’s Caligula, and plays by Eugene O’Neill and T. S. Eliot; to the sound track for an experimental documentary film by Jack Kerouac; to a number of well-known film scores, including Splendor in the Grass, the Manchurian Candidate, and The Young Savages; to over 100 orchestral and chamber works. Amram’s 1987 Symphony, subtitled “Songs of the Soul,” is in some respects similar to Weisgall’s T’kiatot discussed above. Programmatic movement titles notwithstanding, it is a three-movement orchestral score that may be heard as purely abstract music. The work reflects Amram’s interest in authentic Jewish/Oriental ethnic musical modalities. Put that together with the composer’s film-score background, and you have a richly Romantic, exotically perfumed work that could play well as the sound track for a Biblical docudrama. Don’t get me wrong. This is gorgeous sounding music. I’m just trying to describe it and put it into context so you’ll know what to expect. It is performed here by Christopher Wilkin conducting the Berlin Rundfunk Orchestra, in co-production with German Radio and the ROC Berlin.

In 1960, Amram became yet another recipient of one of Cantor Putterman’s commissions to write a liturgical work for his long-running Sabbath Eve Service program. For more information on Putterman and his program, please see the entry under Diamond noted above in Fanfare 27:7. From Amram’s Shir L’erev Shabbat we hear five numbers. According to Neil Levin’s notes, the work was premiered in 1961, but the CD back-flap dates it 1965, perhaps referring to a subsequent performance at the Hebrew Congregation in Washington, DC. Make no mistake about it, Amram is at heart a Romantic composer. The melodic and harmonic language is liberally spiced with 20th-century seasonings, but the idiom remains essentially tonal.

Much the same can be said of the three excerpts heard here from The Final Ingredient (1966), Amram’s second opera. In fact, passages from scene 5, the first of the three excerpts, kept reminding me of the section near the end of Verdi’s Requiem where the solo soprano is set against a cappella choir. The literary reference at least may be an appropriate one in that Amram’s opera is a Holocaust story that tells of the indomitable spirit of a group of Belsen concentration camp inmates determined to observe the ritual of the Passover Seder. The “final ingredient” refers to the egg, one of the items required for the traditional Passover plate, and the one that symbolizes the renewal and continuity of life. As the headnote indicates, a large cast is involved in the production. I hesitate to single out any individual vocal soloist, for all are outstanding, but I will give special mention to Kenneth Kiesler and the University of Michigan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, who do a superb job of cementing together what might otherwise turn unwieldy.

Jerry Dubins, FANFARE

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.

"I don't think I can write a piece of music, no matter what I do and what I will try, that does not have the stamp of my Jewish existence," said Herman Berlinski during the recording session for his masterpiece Avodat Shabbat, one of only three complete Sabbath services ever written for soloists, chorus, and large orchestra. The eighty-nine-year-old Berlinski returned to his native Germany to attend the world-premiere recording of this major 20th-century sacred work, which he created during the course of many years in America.

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.

Jazz icon, pianist and composer Dave Brubeck wrote this cantata in an attempt to heal the rift between the Jewish people and American blacks that emerged after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. Based on biblical and Hebrew liturgical texts, together with quotations from Dr. King’s speeches, Negro spirituals and the Jewish sage Hillel, with lyrics by Brubeck’s wife Iola, it was intended to underscore and resurrect the spiritual parallels between Jews and blacks. The work draws on their shared history of enslavement and dispersion, their ongoing quest for social justice, and similarities in their forms of musical expression.

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.

"Dionysian imbalanced exaltation… from restless, mysterious meditation of strongly religious character to dizzying Dervish-like ecstasy" was how one newspaper critic described the 1927 premiere of Achron’s Violin Concerto no. 1. In fact, Achron filled his concerto with biblical cantillation melodies that have roots in Jewish antiquity. Mysterious legends of the past and biblical stories also inspired him to create exotic orchestral tone poems based on the Golem of Prague and Belshazzar’s Feast. All of these works are recorded here for the first time.

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.

Robert Starer's K'li zemer concerto will be a surprise to anyone who associates the term with weddings and bar mitzvahs. Actually the Yiddish klezmer (instrumental musician) is a contraction of k'li zemer, which, translated literally from the Hebrew, means "instrument of song". That is precisely what Starer makes of the clarinet in this beautifully melodic work (quite a surprise given the composer's usual acerbic style). The tunes, all of Starer's invention, are based on Eastern European Jewish music, and each provides a rich harmonic framework for the clarinet's wonderfully virtuosic explorations.


Paul Schoenfield's long-standing desire "to create entertaining music that could be played at Hassidic gatherings as well as the concert hall" finds fulfillment in his Klezmer Rondos--a concerto for flute, tenor, and orchestra. The opening's raucous band music comes to an abrupt stop as the flute's sustained high note introduces the plaintive main theme. After a series of contentious exchanges between flute (skillfully rendered by Scott Goff) and orchestra, the band music returns, this time halted by the tenor's sustained high note, which in turn becomes Schoenfield's setting of the Yiddish poem Mirele (sung with wit and tenderness by Alberto Mizrahi). It's a marvelously effective piece that, although steeped in elements of Jewish ritual, can be enjoyed by all listeners.


Next come two brief pieces by Jacob Weinberg, The Maypole and Canzonetta, which are colorful explorations of Yiddish and Hassidic folk melodies, while Abraham Ellstein's tuneful Hassidic Dance for clarinet and orchestra presents a rhapsodic evocation of traditional Jewish ceremonies.


The final piece, Osvaldo Golijov's Rocketekya, scored for clarinet, violin, electric viola, and contrabass, is closest to what most listeners will know as Klezmer--a high-spirited, rhythmically and melodically exotic celebration. David Krakauer's highly imaginative and technically assured playing greatly enlivens the clarinet works, while Gerard Schwarz leads energetic and sensitive accompaniments with both the Seattle and Barcelona orchestras. The recordings all have fine presence, clarity, and impact.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.

The Milken Archive of American Jewish Music is a vast recorded panorama of the rich body of Jewish music, both sacred and secular, that has developed over the course of American history. This abundant repertoire, in its remarkable breadth and diversity, not only reflects the history, evolution, and variety of the Jewish experience in America, but, by extension, attests to Jewish continuity and renewal through more than five millennia, revealing universal qualities that can speak to people of all faiths and cultures.

“To listen to its 19 selections...is to experience a sampling of the huge breadth of American Jewish music.” — Cantor Steven Blane, New Jersey Jewish Standard

“...provides a table of hors d’oeuvres for what is to come...Haskivenu...is particularly lovely. All of the performances here are top-notch.” — Jerry Dubins, Fanfare

“This will give you a taste - I underscore taste - of the works of 37 composers that are included in this marvelous collection of American Jewish music, a collection that is sure to become an important part of the recorded literature of all American music.” — Copley News Service

“It gives a good indication of the project’s production values: up-to-date engineering, full and scholarly notes by Neil W. Levin (the Archive’s Artistic Director), and translations...of sung material. The sampler also sketches out the aesthetic reach of the venture.” — Peter Rabinowitz, International Record Review

“The propulsive and dynamic Brubeck is powered along at full tilt crossed with a typically swaying Jewish accent. The down and dirty Hudl mint shtrudl is the equivalent of a racy song by George Formby—saucy and with a clarinet played scatty Chassidic for all it is worth as slippery as oil...[Milhaud’s Sacred Service] ...joyous...[Achron]...is music of the utmost inventive resource—full of colourful Technicolor rivalry among the instruments of the orchestra...[Weill’s The Etneral Road]...whispered serenity from the choir and a piannisimo solo violin rise to the disturbing suggestion of disillusion. Serenity reflects the God of the Israelites while the wilder beat reflects the followers of the golden calf. Eventually the joyous ‘calf tune’ is taken over by the Israelites to reflect an excited joy.” — Rob Barnett, MusicWeb-International.com

Click here to view all available releases in the Milken Archive Series at ArkivMusic.