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| Courtesy Terra Sancta Organ Festival |
Among the instruments on view in the music room of Yuval
Rabin's home in Jerusalem are an upright piano, a harpsichord, a clavichord, a
pipe organ and a didgeridoo! The event we were attending was a house concert on
November 5th 2024, performed by Dr. Rabin on the pipe organ, a German-built
instrument boasting eleven registers and four basic timbres.
Leipzig Germany was the location of the program's first
items, opening with J.S.Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, written some
time between 1706 and 1713 when the composer was in his early twenties. Often
heard played on large church organs that highlight the work's imposing majesty,
it is conceivable that Bach might have written this piece with the pedal
harpsichord in mind. Articulate, and sparingly embellished, Rabin's playing
gave expression to the contrasts and variety of the Passacaglia's 21
variations, the Fugue building up to a massive climax of suspended harmonies
and full instrumental sonority. Bach's Six Organ Trio Sonatas, representing a
new organ genre established by the composer c.1727-1730, were written for his
son Wilhelm Friedemann to study. These sonatas, attractive and immediately
appealing to the listener, pose ferocious interpretive and technical demands
for the player, requiring the right and left hand to play independent melodic
lines on separate keyboards while the feet play the basso continuo. From the
buoyant, good natured opening movement, through the gently undulating
Siciliano, to the witty dialogue in bell-like timbres of the final Allegro,
Yuval Rabin's performance of Sonata No.1 in E-flat major BWV 525 presented the
piece's supremely Italianate character, as he chose to give each voice
distinct tone colourings to allow Bach’s counterpoint to be heard
clearly.
J.S.Bach was a central figure in the music education of the
prodigious young Felix Mendelssohn, the latter's versatile music career
including organ recitals, in which he was known to be a fine improvisor. Both
the counterpoint and the chorale movements of his organ sonatas reflect his
lifelong immersion in the music of Bach. Mendelssohn reached new heights of
awareness in his composition in the 1830s, as heard in his last and most
significant works for the organ - Six
Sonatas Op.65. Especially fond of Mendelssohn's organ music, Rabin chose to
perform Sonata No. 4 in B-flat major of the Op. 65 collection. The flamboyant,
grand opening Allegro con brio, a toccata offering trumpet-like passages, was
followed by an Andante religioso, its expressive melody reminiscent of Bach’s
chorale movements. Another tranquil movement, a lyrical and charming
Allegretto, its melody accompanied by an obbligato of continuous semi-quavers,
gave no hint as to the tour de force to follow - the Allegro maestoso e
vivace, a majestic, ebullient fugue, its subject beginning with sixteenth notes
in the pedals, book-ended by majestic opening and closing sections. Rabin's
playing reflected the elegance and impetuous vitality which characterize
Mendelssohn's music in general.
Moving to Berlin, we heard a short work by Polish-German
composer Louis Lewandowski (1821–1894). Thanks to the support of Alexander
Mendelssohn, a cousin of Felix Mendelssohn, Lewandowski was able to attend the
Berlin Academy of Music, an institution which did not admit Jewish students.
Lewandowski was then to become one of the pioneers of the central European
cantorial style. Rabin performed one of
the Fünf Fest-Präludien, Op. 37, written during Lewandowski's tenure as musical
director at the Neue Synagoge in Berlin. Each of the Preludes relates to a
specific Jewish holiday, each highly melodic, each composed in the strict
four-part harmony of church music, with many of the pieces based on ancient
cantorial modal melodies. The artist played Prelude No.2, based on the Kol
Nidrei melody, sung on the eve of the Day of Atonement, the piece's opening
evoking the momentousness and aura of the occasion, its musical quotations
clearly emerging as they weave through the fabric of the piece.
The thread running through the program culminated in a
composition of Yuval Rabin himself - "Hommage à Mendelssohn".
Based on "Yedid Nefesh" (Lover of my soul), a Sabbath melody, Rabin
incorporates many musical turns of phrase from Mendelssohn's writing. Following
statement of the melody itself, we hear four vivid and challenging variations
inspired by Mendelssohn's stylish organ phraseology, the final variation an
elaborate fugue. An impressive work, well handled.
Dr. Yuval Rabin serves as president of the Israel Organ
Association.
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