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| Photo: Rochelle Elbaz |
The Abu Gosh Vocal Music Festival takes place twice a year in and around
Abu Gosh, a town located 16 kilometers west of Jerusalem on the Tel
Aviv-Jerusalem highway. The 53rd Abu Gosh Festival (May 18th-20th, 2018) opened
with “Angels Singing” at the Church of Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant on
May 18th. Performed by the Chamber Choir of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and
Dance under its director Stanley Sperber, the concert commemorated 100 years of
the birth of Leonard Bernstein.
The program included some short works of Israeli composers. With the choir
members standing in the two side aisles, the program opened with Israeli
composer Paul Ben Haim’s choral setting of Psalm 121, its autumnal harmonies
splendidly woven into a sensitive reading of the piece. Matityahu Shalem’s
arrangement of “Simchu-Na” (Rejoice) for choir and piano (Irina Lunkevich) took
one back to the early Israeli kibbutz-oriented hora repertoire, largely
forgotten in today’s choral repertoire. In Yehezkel Braun’s playful a-cappella
setting for men’s voices of “Vayimalet Cain” (Then Cain Fled) (text: Yaakov
Shabtai), the singers presented the piece’s narrative in an engaging and vivid
manner. Especially appealing were the “comments” of tenor soloist Michael
Bachner.
The program also included four sections from Benjamin Britten’s “Ceremony
of Carols”. Scored for three-part boys’ (or women’s) choir, soloist and harp,
Britten wrote the Christmas work during World War II on a perilous journey
crossing the Atlantic in 1942 aboard a cargo ship. Some of the carols are in
Latin and some, in Middle English, are based on poems from the 15th and 16th
centuries. The ladies of the Academy Choir produced the appropriate bright,
pure vocal timbres Britten would have envisaged when writing for boys’ voices,
from the forthright strident gestures of “Wolcom Yole”, to their tranquil and
tender treatment of “There is no rose”, to Inbal Brill’s poignant singing in
the major-minor “Balulalow” lullaby, to the urgency and triumphant singing of
the canonic “This little babe”. Maria Golberg’s playing of the splendid harp
role was supportive, spirited and satisfying.
Then to works of Leonard Bernstein, the first of which being the
entertaining “Warm-Up” (1970), a jaunty round for mixed choir used in Bernstein's
Mass. The choir also performed some numbers from “West Side Story”: a delicate
reading of “Somewhere”, its lush harmonies sprinkled with the occasional
Bernstein dissonance, to “Tonight”, its hearty text coloured with just a hint
of melancholy, the buoyant, carefree and breezy singing of “I feel Pretty” and
an effervescent, upbeat performance of “America”, whose solos were suitably
imbued with a South American twang.
Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” (1964) strike a very different chord.
A commission for the 1965 Southern Cathedrals Festival (UK) from such an
eclectic composer as Bernstein, it is not surprising that its definite
modernist techniques mingle with the composer’s signature popular sounds in an
ode to diverse influences. The work incorporates Jewish biblical verses (Psalms
sung in the Hebrew language) into a work inspired by Christian choral tradition
and singing conventions, setting originally secular Broadway melodies to sacred
texts. Sperber and his singers presented the work’s complexity and intensity on
a confrontational, uncompromising and vigorous canvas. Making clear its
background of personal struggle, the work’s powerful but undeniably
optimistic message is ever present. 14-year-old Nimrod Werber, joined by harp
in the second movement, showed fine musicality, excellent intonation and also
poise on stage. The performance left the listener deep in his own thoughts as
the serene finale, closing the work with the concept of mankind living in
harmony - “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell
together in unity” concluded with an almost-whispered Amen, its final “n”
nevertheless rendered sonorous.
The Academy Chamber Choir’s polished rendition of two spirituals (soloists:
Maria Liubman, Michal Tamari) was yet another reminder of the ensemble’s
musicality, fine diction, precision and attention to detail, all contributing
to music-making of an outstanding quality, and with much joy, under the
guidance of Maestro Stanley Sperber.
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