"On Wings of Song" - the Israel Camerata Jerusalem hosts soprano Daniela Skorka and Maestro Alexandre Bloch (France). Works by Thierry Escaich, Luciano Berio, Joseph Canteloube and Beethoven

Daniela Skorka (Michael Pavia)

 

Maestro Alexandre Bloch (alexandrebloch.com)

When it comes to interesting programming, the Israel Camerata Jerusalem (music director: Avner Biron) is always at the forefront. "On Wings of Song", Concert No.3 of the Camerata's 41st season, was no exception. This writer attended the concert in the Henry Crown Auditorium of the Jerusalem Theatre on December 24th, 2024. Conducting the concert was Alexandre Bloch (France). Soprano Daniela Skorka (Israel) was soloist.

 

Composer/organist/improvisor Thierry Escaich (b.1965) is a distinctive figure on the contemporary music scene and one of the most important French composers of his generation. A virtuosic performer, he is known to combine works from musical repertoire with his own pieces and improvisations in the same recital. In 2024, he was appointed titular organist of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris. The Jerusalem concert opened with "Baroque Song" (2007), an instrumental work of three movements, with Bloch wasting no time in summoning the audience to join him and the orchestra for a high-energy, unpredictable musical journey, the work's Bach quotations always ending up derailed and engulfed by massive dissonant brass- or string utterances. Escaich's orchestration is thrilling and imaginative as he evokes moods from the bombastic to the otherworldly. Solo melodies are interlaced throughout - flute, cor anglais, etc. - the central 'cello solo, contemplative, insistent and brooding, handled splendidly by Zvi Orliansky. Maestro Bloch and the Camerata players gave it their all!

 

Luciano Berio's "Folk Songs", appearing in 1964 for female voice and small ensemble (in 1973 for voice and symphony orchestra), were created specifically for the composer's then-wife, mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian (1928-1983), a pioneer in the devising and employment of extended vocal techniques. The title of the collection is somewhat misleading: the first two songs, “Black Is the color” and “I wonder as I wander” were, in fact, written by singer/ folklorist John Jacob Niles (1892-1980), while songs Nos. 6 and 7 are settings by Berio himself of traditional Italian lyrics. Taking her cue from the melancholy motif played on viola (Netanel Lavsky) issuing in the work, Daniela Skorka launches into the songs, presenting the content and character of each - no small feat, with texts sung in English, Armenian, various French- and Italian dialects and in Azerbaijani. Following her articulate, pure rendition of the two American songs, we hear Skorka's tender, gently rubato singing of “Loosin yelav” (composed in honour of Berberian’s Armenian heritage), the words describing the rising of the moon over the top of a hill. Songs from France - the appealing, modal "Rossignol du bois" (Nightingale of the Woods), rendered in fine French enunciation, and two songs from Auvergne (taken by Berio from Joseph Canteloube’s collection "Songs of the Auvergne") - “Malurous qu’o uno fenno” -“Wretched is he who has a wife, wretched is he who has not" -  graced with  beautiful flute playing (Esti  Rofé) and Skorka's coquettish presentation of “La fiolaire,” now with the original viola motif sounding on the 'cello (Zvi Orliansky), the song telling of the girl at her spinning wheel who gives two kisses to the shepherd who has asked for only one. From Italy, “A la femminisca” (Sicily), sung in an earthy, folksy manner, is followed by Skorka's return to the operatic style of singing in “La donna ideale,” the text listing what a man should seek in a wife — a good family, good manners, good figure, good dowry.  “Ballo” (Sicily), unrestrained and vehement, portrays the lover as a fool, then “Motettu de tristura” (Sardinia), another nightingale song but, this time, with a sorrowing theme — “Sing this song when I am buried.” Vivacious and communicative, Skorka shifts from the wistful to the exuberant, from cantabile singing to rapid-fire patter, concluding with the dancelike Azerbaijan love song, which she performs with relish, her small, suspenseful pauses adding a playful touch. Performing hand in glove, Bloch and Skorka produce exciting music. The ensemble's attentive and committed playing highlighted Berio's scintillating instrumental writing.

 

Auvergne is France’s most rural and least populated region. Composer Marie-Joseph Cantaloube de Malaret was born there in 1879. From his childhood, he was familiar with the dance couplets in the villages, the songs and pastoral melodies of the region. Canteloube took more than thirty years (1924-1955) to complete the compilation of "Chants d'Auvergne", his most famous work, its texts in Occitan, the local language and one of the Latin-based dialects spoken in medieval France. To Canteloube's lush, richly-varied orchestration, Daniela Skorka performed three of the songs, all flirty, teasing dialogues between rustic characters. In the third, "Lou Boussu", the instrumental score's humour underscores Skorka's performance of the cheeky Janette! For her encore, Daniela Skorka performed “Tonada de luna llena” (Full Moon Tune), bold and unaccompanied, by Venezuelan singer/actor/composer Simón Díaz.

 

The concert concluded with Ludwig Van Beethoven's Symphony No.1 in C major, Op.21. Maestro Bloch's fresh approach and attention to the smallest of details, all expressed in his intuitive, pizzazzy conducting language, invited the audience to revisit the symphony, to appreciate its forthright moments, its surprises, its suspense, its charm, Beethoven's idiosyncrasies and his good humour. Following the symphony's premiere on April 2, 1800 at the Burgtheater in Vienna, the critic of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung wrote that "the winds were overused, so that it was music for band rather than for the orchestra."  Indeed, Beethoven here creates a different orchestral balance from that of his predecessors, giving the wind instruments far greater parity with the strings. Here was an opportunity to enjoy the crisp, high-quality playing of the Camerata's wind sections.

 

 

 

 

 

"Out of the Depths" - a concert of Baroque music of the Nazareth Liturgical Festival at the Jerusalem International YMCA. Conductor:Saleem Aboud Ashkar, the Israel Vocal Ensemble, vocal and instrumental soloists

Yuval Nuri Shem-Tov, Maestro Saleem Aboud Ashkar,Nassif Francis,Michal Beck (Yoel Levy)

 

Nour Darwish,Doreen Sassine,Saleem Aboud Ashkar,Eitan Drori,Oded Reich (Yoel Levy)

Taking place on December 20th 2024, "Out of the Depths" was one of the events of the Nazareth Liturgical Festival. Due to security concerns, the sixth annual Nazareth Liturgical Festival (musical director/founder Nabeel Aboud Ashkar), was held December 20th-24th at the historic YMCA compound in Jerusalem, offering concerts of chamber- and liturgical music, art, and a Christmas market. The Galilee Chamber Orchestra, the Israel Vocal Ensemble and vocal- and instrumental soloists were conducted by Saleem Aboud Ashkar. They were joined by Aviad Stier (harpsichord/organ.) Opening the evening's event, Prof. Bassila Bawardi, a member of the board of directors of Polyphony Education, spoke of performing music together as a common language between Jews and Arabs. Nabeel Aboud Ashkar, the executive director of Polyphony Education, refers to the organization’s mission as bridging the divide between Arab and Jewish communities in Israel through music, serving as a worldwide model for cooperation based on cultural exchange, dialogue and partnership.

 

 

"Out of the Depths" opened with Concerto Grosso No.11, Op.3 of Antonio Vivaldi. Joining the small string ensemble with continuo (Stier on harpsichord), the concertino consisted of violinists Yuval Nuri Shem-Tov and Nassif Francis and 'cellist Michal Beck. Energy, boldness and attention to fine detail characterised the performance, as, following the introduction of short segments, the opening Allegro presented a canonic dialogue between the two solo violins, a vivacious episode for solo 'cello and continuo, a brief recitative and a fiery fugue. Following the gently lilting and subtly ornamented playing of the siciliano-styled Adagio e spiccato ("spiccato" here suggesting a manner of separated playing rather than the bouncing of the bow), the combative mood of the last movement, much like that of the first, was sustained with intensity. Indeed, the twelve concertos of Vivaldi's L'Estro Armonico, Op. 3, created a huge sensation when they were published in Amsterdam in 1711, the 11th of the set causing the biggest stir of all! The Galilee Orchestra and the young soloists' exhilarating, involved performance reflected the vitality and freshness of Vivaldi’s invention, the young members of the concertino’s playing brimming with brilliance and dramatic flair.

 

 

A few more players then filled out the ensemble on stage. They were joined by the Israeli Vocal Ensemble (music director Yuval Ben Ozer) and vocal soloists  Nour Darwish (soprano), Doreen Sassine (alto), Eitan Drori (tenor) and Oded Reich (baritone) for the performance of J.S.Bach's Cantata BWV 131 "Aus der Tiefen" (Out of the Depths). The earliest major work by Bach to survive in manuscript, a work from the very beginning of Bach’s career as organist in Mühlhausen (1707-8), this cantata draws its text from two different sources - Psalm 130 and the chorale “Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut” (Lord Jesus Christ, you highest good) by Bartholomäus Ringwaldt.  It has been assumed that Bach wrote the cantata as part of a penitential memorial for the 1707 fire that devastated Mühlhausen. Via the rich imagery of the music, the text's deep despair emerged with a sense of urgency, the interweaving of different texts beautifully implemented by young, richly timbred voices of Oded Reich and Nour Darwish in Movement 2. Following the IVE's finely delineated and well-shaped singing of "Ich harre des Herrn" (I await the Lord), the mood begins to change. In a shift to a more hopeful spirit, Eitan Drori gave meaning to the longing expressed in the tenor aria. In the duet of Movement 4, Drori's bright tenor voice and Doreen Sassine's true alto timbre created an interesting (somewhat acute) contrast. With elegance and subtle balance, Maestro Aboud Ashkar gave expression to the 22-year-old Bach's skilful use of text, the composer’s multi-faceted canvas and its contrasts, all endorsed by fine, tasteful instrumental performance, with some splendid oboe playing.

 

 

The concert concluded with J.S.Bach's Cantata BWV 140 "Wachet auf! ruft uns die Stimme (Awake! the voice calls to us), deservedly recognised as one of Bach's best-known and loved pieces. The opening chorus, a stately chorale fantasia of imposing writing, provided another opportunity to appreciate the Israel Vocal Ensemble's artistry, the sopranos' smooth, floating singing of the chorale melody uncluttered by vibrato. In the famous middle movement, setting the second verse of the chorale, with unison violins and viola playing an independent melodic line, three IVE tenors presenting the chorale melody might have benefitted from a fourth voice. Following Drori's articulate story-telling in the tenor recitative, "Er kommt" (He comes), the Movement 3 duet, with violin obbligato (concert master), displayed Darwish's fine vocal and emotional presence and Reich's marvellous vocal colours and the convincing way in which he shapes words into musical sounds and meaning. In Movement 6, their splendid dueting was joined by expressive oboe playing. The work concluded with the third and last verse of the chorale text, a majestic Gloria in a simple four-voice harmonization.

 

 

An evening of enjoyment and excellent performance!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Benjamin Britten's War Requiem staged at the Tel Aviv Opera. The Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion, the Israeli Opera Chorus, the Moran Children's Choir, vocal soloists. Conductor: Alexander Joel. Director: Ido Ricklin.

 

Photo: Yossi Zwecker

The first performance of the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten took place at the dedication of the new St. Michael’s Cathedral, Coventry (UK) on May 30, 1962, the edifice built to replace the basilica destroyed in an air raid on the night of November 14-15, 1940. At the premiere, Britten himself conducted the chamber orchestra. The Israeli premiere of Britten’s War Requiem took place at the Tel Aviv Opera on December 6th 2024. Conducting the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion was British-born Alexander Joel. Directing the production was Ido Ricklin, Ula Shevtsov was stage/costume designer, lighting design was by Nadav Barnea, movement design - Nophar Levinger. Vocal soloists were sopranos Shaked Strul and Alla Vasilevitsky, tenors Aaron Blake (UK), Anthony Webb (USA) and Peter Wedd (UK) and baritones Eric Greene (USA), Yair Polishook and Oded Reich, as well as soloists from the Israel Opera Chorus (chorus master: Etay Berkovitch). The Moran Children's Choir was conducted by Carmel Antopolsky Amit. The English- and Hebrew surtitles were translated by Ido Ricklin and edited by Israel Ouval.

 

Marking the composer’s readiness to treat the topic of war explicitly, rather than as a parable or in symbolic form, Britten interspersed the traditional Latin Missa pro Defunctis with settings of the chillingly evocative and pessimistic anti-war poetry “from the trenches” of the British soldier-poet Wilfred Owen (a compositional strategy distressful to the strongholds of tradition of the time.) Owen's poetry is remarkable not only for its content, but also for its use of half rhyme and assonance instead of full rhyme, a style that he is credited with popularizing. His rejection of traditional poetic form and reaction to the horrors of World War I are textbook examples of modernism in poetry. Owen, regarded by many as the greatest poet of the First World War, died in battle in France at age 25 just one week before the end of World War I. Britten produced a powerful, uncompromising coupling of the two texts, their contrasts and ironies, the result being a score of striking originality, one combining the apocalyptic visions of destruction, suffering, and, ultimately, of the eternal (but, from Britten’s pen, unquiet) peace of the Mass for the Dead. Indeed, Britten renders the music of the two texts subtly and disquietingly interrelated through his use of the tritone (known from the late Middle Ages as "diabolus in musica") an element pervading almost every page of the work. He divides the musical forces into three groups - the soprano soloist (here two) and choir accompanied by the full orchestra, the baritone and tenor soloists accompanied by the chamber orchestra and the boys' choir (here, the Moran Children's Choir) accompanied on a small portative organ. (Following one appearance on stage in the opening scene, the children's choir then performed from one of the balconies.) If the War Requiem expresses Britten's passionate statement on the futility of war, Ido Ricklin's production takes it a step further, reinforcing this message through the power of the visual and the theatrical, the production's intensity clearly fueled by the current events of warfare. With the opera choir placed behind them, the soloists performed on the front of the stage. Ricklin also added a (non-singing) child actor (Daniel Cohen). Present on the stage throughout, the boy symbolizes the children who have perished in war. 

 

Ricklin divides the parts of the two male singers among six men. Taking on the roles of both soldiers and civilians, they add a broader dramatic sweep to the concert version. (Eric Greene, for example, takes on the role of a grave digger.) The male singers portrayed Owen's dark texts with involvement and articulate diction; to mention some items sung by them: "Be slowly lifted up" (Yair Polishook), "Bugles sang" (Eric Greene), "Move him" (Peter Wedd), "What passing bells" (Anthony Webb) and "After the blast" (Oded Reich). One of the work's most unheralded and moving moments occurs in the setting of a poem Owen titled "Strange Meeting", in which, in a dark, irreverent afterlife, a puzzled young soldier, either dying or dead, meets a soldier from the enemy “side”, to bring about a poignant, understated reconciliation: “I am the enemy you killed, my friend." (Aaron Blake, Oded Reich). As to Britten's single soprano role, Ricklin engages two singers, creating two very different roles: clad in white, the angel, representing compassion, was performed superbly by Alla Vasilevtsky, a singer of strong stage presence. Her singing of the Lacrimosa was as fragile as it was heart-rending. No less impressive, Shaked Strul, portraying the wretched status of the female war victim, gave an impassioned performance, spending much of the time grovelling on the floor before finally dying. Her treatment of the ominous Libera me solo was gripping and disturbing. 

 

The Tel Aviv Opera Hall was plunged into darkness. Lighting effects were apt, never excessive. As the performance proceeded, six graves opened up on stage - a chilling sight - as each, in turn, claimed its victim. At one point, via the aisle in the choir area, a corpse, covered with a white sheet, was wheeled through to the front of the stage. Was this shocking sight one gesture too many? Taking on the merging of the great liturgy and the personal anguish of one poet-soldier, Maestro Alexander Joel, in his Israeli Opera debut, brought all the forces together with conviction and impressive articulacy. Britten's marvellous orchestration resounded in all its timbral interest, symbolism, fantasy and impact. The Israeli Opera chorus gave precise and powerful expression to the work's stark soundscape. As to the young members of the Moran Children's Choir, they met the score's challenges admirably, singing with clarity and competence. Spatially and emotionally removed from the intensity of the work's other agendas, producing a very strange, distant sound, they presented their texts with the naivete of children untouched by earthly grief, guilt or fear. Yet, at its conclusion, we are left with the discomfort of the War Requiem's dual ending, as the children sing the tritone and the choir resolves it with an F- major chord.

 

At the head of his score Britten quotes the words with which Owen prefaced his poems:

"My subject is War, and the pity of War.
       The poetry is in the pity.
       All a poet can do is warn."

 

 

Ido Ricklin (israeli-opera.co.il)

 

 

 

 

 

 

A NEW SONG, HALLELUJAH - Assaf Bènraf directs the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, choirs and soloists in the festive opening of the 2024 Hallelujah Festival

Irena Svetova (Courtesy IS)

 

Maestro Assaf Bènraf (Uri Elkayam)

Eliyahu Svetov (Courtesy ES)

Drawing a large audience to the Henry Crown Auditorium of the Jerusalem Theatre on November 30th, "A NEW SONG, HALLELUJAH" was the opening event of the 2024 Hallelujah Festival. Under the baton of Assaf Bènraf, a string ensemble of players of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the A-Capella Vocal Ensemble Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir and Valery Oleshko (piano/organ) were joined by soloists Rinatya Nessim (soprano) and Eliyahu Svetov (piano/organ).. 

 

"Alleluia" - so many composers have set this word’s four syllables, playing with its vowel colours, its lightweight consonants and the endless possibilities of word stress, rhythm, and meaning. In "Alleluia" (1940), American composer Randall Thompson's best-known work, the composer steers away from the word's celebratory connotations. Deeply affected by events in Europe, particularly by the fall of France, Thompson takes inspiration for the piece from the Book of Job. Opening the event with this work, Bènraf led the two choirs and organ (Oleshko) through the work's journey of emotions - from reverence, introspection, uncertainty and anxiety to exuberant hope, before ending in a tranquil allusion to peace. In performance that was lush, velvety and beautifully blended, Thompson's choral meditation on a single word - "Alleluia" - followed by a simple "Amen", was moving, indeed mystical.

 

Francis Poulenc's "Gloria" FP 177, here accompanied on the piano (Oleshko), never fails to raise a few questions as a sacred work. Bènraf and his singers dealt admirably with its challenges - namely, the contrast of moods and gestures - as they effectively and articulately captured its buoyant, celebratory spirit, indeed, its eccentric nature. One could discern elements from jazz, dance, reference to earlier French composers such as Fauré, as well as elements of sardonic humour. Even the peaceful serenity of the work's radiant closing pages is disturbed by one last, loud interjection at the first "Amen". Renatya Nessim's performance of the solos was unforced, her mellifluous voice well projected, weaving melodies gracefully, negotiating the tricky, unconventional leaps of the “Domine Deus” with poise.

 

Enter ten string players of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. They played W.A.Mozart's Divertimento in D major, K.136, a fine example of the 16-year-old composer's sophisticated craftsmanship in a genre traditionally defined and designated as "light" music. Performing with suave good taste, transparency, charm and a touch of Haydnesque humour, the instrumentalists invited the audience to join them at a musical soirée in the home or gardens of one of Salzburg's leading residents, for which events Mozart composed and frequently performed. 

 

Then, to the second movement (Larghetto) of Frederic Chopin's Piano Concerto No.2 in f minor, Op.21, with Eliyahu Svetov as soloist. A nocturne in the "stile brillante" tradition, Svetov gave the stage to Chopin's virtuosic writing for the piano, its style a reminder that Chopin himself was a brilliant improviser. The soloist brought out the composer's ravishing ornamenting of the filigree-fine melodies with elegance, shape and shimmering delicacy. Composed shortly before Chopin left Poland, the movement was inspired by Konstancja Gładkowska, a young soprano with whom he claimed to be in love, but was too shy to tell. This was followed by Mozart's "Ave verum corpus" in D major K.618 for mixed choir, strings and organ. Under the baton of Maestro Bènraf, the motet's serene, unhurried, homophonic fabric (46 measures in all!) emerged in a fine blend of subtlety, luminosity, balance, precision and restraint.

 

Concluding the concert of high-quality performance was the Israeli premiere of Irena Svetova's 2014 setting of Psalm 33 "Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous", performed by the joint choirs, string players and piano. The work, modal, intense and engaging, displays the composer's insight into musical setting of the Hebrew language, its shapes and intonation, as the words flowed naturally through the weave of the score. Indeed, the singers gave articulate and transparent expression to her explicit and skilful choral writing. Notable also was some impressive writing for the piano (Svetov.)  Born in Moscow, Irena Svetova immigrated to Israel in 1991.

Gideon (Gidi) Meir performs organ works of Buxtehude, J.S.Bach, Sweelinck and Byrd at the Brigham Young University, Jerusalem Center

 

Gideon Meir (Alexander Kotov)

The auditorium of the Brigham Young University, Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, boasts one of the city's finest pipe organs. It was built by Marcussen & Søn (a Danish family business of pipe organ builders established in 1806) and was inaugurated in 1987. The largest pipe organ in the Middle East, it has 3,165 pipes. Contemporary in design, the horizontal reed pipes on the front of the case add interest and beauty to the instrument. Performing a program on the BYU organ on November 24th 2024, Gideon (Gidi) Meir dedicated the recital to the memory of his father 'cellist Menachem Meir (1924-2024) and to that of his organ teacher David Boe (1936-2020).

 

Dieterich Buxtehude's reputation as a composer lies mostly in his compositional oeuvre for the organ. Indeed, he was the greatest precursor to J.S. Bach as a composer for organ, and had a far-reaching influence on the generation to come, especially on Bach himself. With Buxtehude's Praeludium in G minor, Bux WV149 issued in with a bright, flamboyant flourish in the manuals and bolstered from the seventh bar by the pedals’ obsessive seven-note phrase, Gidi Meir got the evening's music off to an exuberant start. Proceeding on from this combination of ostinato and stylus phantasticus (Buxtehude's predilection for the stylus phantasticus demands much interpretative freedom on the part of performers) the work presents two fugues with related subjects: the first, solemn, played mainly in the manuals, the second an affective fuga pathetica in slow triple meter. Played here in full registration, the Praeludium culminates in a free coda. Addressing one of Buxtehude’s most frequently performed works, Meir highlighted the prelude's sophistication and complexity.

 

We then heard two (of the countless) settings of John Dowland's most famous "ayre" (originally a solo song with lute accompanied) "Flow My Tears", composed in 1596 under the name "Lachrimae pavane". In his setting of it, Dutch composer/organist Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (referred to as the “Orpheus of Amsterdam") does little more than transcribe for a different instrument material borrowed from his British contemporary, here and there embellishing and elaborating the original. Ornamenting the repeats, Meir chooses bright, even clamorous timbres. Of all the keyboard arrangements of this work, Dowland's "greatest hit", William Byrd’s is one of the finest and certainly among the most imaginative. The ample pavan framework invites Byrd (and the performer) to indulge in inventive figuration, extensive elaboration of the melody and to revel in its contrapuntal layering. A change of meter creates a whole different atmosphere. As to Byrd's departure from the model, Meir's solid, hearty reading brings to light elements of the original harmonic agenda. For the Dowland settings, Meir engaged the swell to create a lush, velvety, Renaissance-type sound.

 

The thread running through Gidi Meir's recital (indeed, running through a large portion of organ repertoire) was the use of melodies and hymns, some ancient, on which to build works, in particular, for chorale preludes and variations. In addition to some twenty preludes, Buxtehude's many surviving organ compositions include a large number of chorale preludes and variations on Lutheran chorale melodies. Of the latter genre, "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam" ("Christ our Lord came to the Jordan") based on a hymn by Martin Luther (1541), its text telling of Christ's baptism, has been set into many musical compositions. Here, in one of Buxtehude's most uplifting chorale settings, Meir uses a strongly projected and majestic approach, the registrations fitting the piece splendidly. J.S.Bach's chorale arrangement of "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam" brims with effervescence. As the chorale melody emerges in long notes in the pedal, the ripples of the Jordan River are evoked in fast notes over two keyboards. The latter scoring would have been unconventionally different to  Bach's audience! 

 

With Advent in western churches beginning on the Sunday nearest to November 30th, Meir chose two settings of the Martin Luther chorale "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland" (Now come, Saviour of the heathens). In Buxtehude's setting of the Bux WV211 chorale, the stately, full-bodied accompaniment supporting an ornamented setting of the melody evokes the solemnity of the season of Advent; it concludes with a flourish, as typical of chorale preludes of the period. Meir's performance of it reflects the radiance and depth evident in Buxtehude's organ works. J.S.Bach's working of the same chorale (BWV 659) is one of the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, BWV 651–668, all characterized by the composer's long, freely written episodes between cantus firmus lines. Above the slow-stepping walking bass in the pedal, we hear an alluring, highly ornamented soprano line carrying the chorale melody, the piece evoking the mystical expectation of the incarnation.

 

The program concluded on an ebullient note with the chorale prelude "Gott der Vater wohn’ uns bei" (God, the Father, stay with us). Formerly attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach as BWV 748, researchers now claim it was composed by Johann Gottfried Walther, a scholar, accomplished performer and composer. Born one year before Bach, Walther struck up a friendship with Bach – his second cousin – in 1708, a friendship that inspired him to set over 130 chorale preludes and variations on Lutheran chorale melodies. Creating a rich, bright, reedy soundscape, Meir saw the work as a counter-piece to the opening Buxtehude Praeludium.

 

For his encore, Meir chose to play Sweelinck's Variations on "Unter der Linden Grüne" (Under the Linden Green), an example of the composer’s mastery in the art of variation and in his writing for the organ. Displaying Sweelinck's characteristic sense of humour, the melody used was one popular in Holland in Sweelinck’s time. The jolly variations offered Meir multiple opportunities to display the Marcussen organ's variety and the beauty of its many flute- and reed stops. Adding a touch of magic to the final variation, he activated the organ's Zimbelstern stop, (a “toy” stop consisting of a metal or wooden star or wheel on which several small bells are mounted. When the stop is engaged, the star rotates, producing a continuous tinkling sound.) Meir felt this sparkling timbre reflected the night scenery as seen by the audience through the auditorium's large, scenic front window. Interestingly, the performer seated at the Marcussen organ was also reflected in the window!

 

Gideon Meir has spent much time familiarizing himself with this particular organ and choosing a program that would be suited to it, to the hall and to the time of year. The recital was inspired and uplifting.

 

Organ of the BYU auditorium.Spanish trumpets on view