"Love is in the Airs" - the Carmel Quartet and Cecila Ensemble perform works on the subject of love from madigals of William Byrd to Eric Whitacre's "Five Hebrew Love Songs"

 

Photo: Yoel Levy

The Carmel Quartet's recent concert was very different from past events of its "Strings and More" series. In "Love is in the Airs", a program on the subject of love, the Carmel Quartet (established 2000) hosted the Cecilia Ensemble (music director: Guy Pelc). Replacing Prof. Yoel Greenberg (Carmel Quartet director/violist) and 1st violinist Rachel Ringelstein, we heard Matan Dagan (1st violin) and Shuli Waterman (viola) alongside Carmel Quartet members Tali Goldberg (violin) and Tami Waterman ('cello). Established by Naomi Faran (Moran Choirs conductor/musical director) the Cecilia Ensemble, an octet of outstanding soloists, serves as the professional representative ensemble of the Moran Choirs. "Love is in the Airs" was the Cecilia Ensemble's first collaboration with the Carmel Quartet. This writer attended the concert at the Jerusalem Music Centre, Mishkenot Sha'ananim on March 4th, 2025.

 

Opening the program, the Cecilia Ensemble members performed four a-cappella songs, commencing with a dynamic, ebullient performance of one of William Byrd's few secular pieces - "This sweet and merry month of May" - the Italianate madrigal's text reflecting the accepted English practice of praising Elizabeth I. This was followed by Byrd's "Lullaby, my sweet little baby", the ensemble highlighting Byrd's smooth flow of lush harmonies. Indeed tender, but with the balance a little heavy on the part of the sopranos. Then to two madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi. The quintet performing "A un giro sol de begl'occhi" (At a single glance of those beautiful eyes) led the listener from the realm of idyllic love as mirrored in nature, to sadness and on to vehement expression of love's cruelty, the singers highlighting Monteverdi's wonderful word-painting (madrigalism) and dissonances. Following that, the rich, serene nature scene of "Ecco mormorar l'onde" (Now the waves murmur) offered consolation to "each burnt-out heart". 

 

In 1996, Eric Whitacre (b.1971, USA) composed his "Five Hebrew Love Songs" to poems by singer/actress Hila Plitmann (b.1974, Israel), who would later become his wife. Originally written for soprano solo, piano and violin, the small poems (referred to by Whitacre as "postcards") take shape as a musical suite, each song, each, at the same time, remaining a single performable unit. In 2001, Whitacre arranged the songs for SATB chorus and string quartet, which was the setting performed at the Jerusalem concert. Following "A Picture", performed by the women singers, delicately depicting the love inside a person's heart, we heard "Light Bride", alternating between sections sung by male voices and contrasting vivid, unrestrained and dancelike sections sung by the women, these sections embellished with a touch of percussion. The third song, "Mostly", is characterized by its soprano solo (Lotem Taub) and by ascending and descending scales suggesting the idea of roof and sky as the subtle distance between two lovers. In "What Snow!", players and singers give expression to Whitacre's marvellous winter canvas, the violins evoking the pristine snow scene with flageolets, the score's ravishing clusters describing snowflakes. The bells sounding at the beginning of the song represent the exact pitches of bells the couple heard each morning from a nearby cathedral in Germany. An exceptional tableau and beautifully performed! The fifth song "Tenderness", sensuous, clement and oriental in flavour, concludes the suite, a work highlighting Whitacre's fine, expressive writing for both voices and instruments. 

 

From the freehearted, plainspoken approach to fresh love in Whitacre's "Five Hebrew Love Songs" to the elusive, mystical quality of British composer Gustav Holst's "Seven Part Songs" Op.44, set to poems of  English poet laureate Robert Bridges and scored for three-part women's chorus, strings and solo soprano. With the solo sections shared among the singers, we were presented with a profound, detailed reading of the pieces, the artists contending well with Holst's later choral compositional style and his highly personal brand of complex modal harmony. Singers (and players!) engaged in the complexities and beauty of the verbal texts with a sense of personal involvement. From the first song, "Say who is this?", the viola drone endorsing its eerie, bleak content, the songs challenge the listener to ponder each text and contemplate the many aspects of love presented here. In "When first we met," its sophisticated canonic interplay of vocal and orchestral forces emerging both alluring and disturbing, we learn that love is "so hard a master". Inspirited by a zesty ostinato, "Sorrow and Joy", on the other hand, offers a few home truths and advice on managing love and presented with the wink of an eye; whereas the homophonic, delicate and warmly expressive miniature "Love on my heart from heaven fell" (solo: Tom Ben Ishai) presents love as an idyllic state. Setting the scene with a soprano solo (Lotem Taub), supported by a cold, ghostly pedal in the first violin, the final song, "Assemble all ye maidens," by far the longest of the set, takes a dramatic approach to the poem describing a lady who died for love. A masterpiece, it represents the culmination of Holst’s mature art as a choral composer. One of Holst’s most profound compositions, it reflects the composer’s interest in the supernatural. 

 

Despite achieving great professional success, it seems Johannes Brahms remained unlucky in love. Involved in a number of romantic relationships throughout his lifetime, he is believed to have also developed feelings for Robert and Clara Schumann’s daughter Julie. Indeed, Brahms completed his Liebeslieder Walzer, Op. 52 in 1869, the year her engagement was announced. Light and unpretentious, the dances in Ländler style were designed for the enjoyment of talented amateurs rather than for concert artists, the eighteen songs representing two musical trends of the 1800s - dances to be played by piano duet and vocal pieces on the subject of love. To this end, Brahms selected verses from Georg Friedrich Daumer’s "Polydora", an 1855 German anthology of folk song texts from many countries. The poems Brahms chose comment on various aspects of love: some are set to longer, more serious texts, while others read like terse proverbs. Enter two distinctive Israeli musical figures - pianist, music theorist, and award-winning theatre composer Yuval Shapira and pianist/ accompanist, vocal coach, lecturer and translator Dr. Ido Ariel. Shapira's desire to re-score Brahms' piano role (so arresting in piano style and beauty that the composer arranged it for piano 4 hands without voices in 1875) had me worrying I might be hankering for that Brahmsian pianistic sumptuousness and poesy throughout the performance. But no! Shapira's arrangement offered much interest and individual expression to the string parts, both team-wise and individually, not losing sight of the composer's expressive use of melody, imaginative harmonies and counterpoint, or of the unique (experimental!) way in which Brahms controls the rhythmic and metric flow to suit each of these miniatures.  Ariel's sharp-witted translation of the songs is faithful to Daumer's original German - no less piquant, no less whimsical, no less delightsome - as the Hebrew words weave themselves naturally and effortlessly through and around Brahms' melodic course! Instrumentalists and singers were clearly savouring every verbal- and musical gesture of Brahms' multifarious lexicon of love…as was the audience.

 

A recently issued CD - "Last Dance". Michael Tsalka and Diana Weston perform works from J.C.F.Bach to contemporary music on square piano and harpsichord

 

Keyboard artists Diana Weston and Michael Tsalka have recently recorded a second disc of classical and contemporary works for square piano and harpsichord on the Wirripang Media label. And, as in "Full Moon" (Wirripang Media, February, 2024), their previous joint recording, the artists offer the listener several works for 4 hands, solo pieces, earlier and contemporary repertoire and works by Australian composers. 

 

The disc's opening work is Sonata in A major for 4 hands by Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732-1795), the lesser-known third of Johann Sebastian Bach’s four composing sons, the 16th of his twenty children. Like his brothers and father, J.C.F.Bach was known as a virtuoso keyboard player. Having spent time in London, where he was exposed to the music of Mozart and the burgeoning Classical style, he then brought back a fortepiano with him to Germany, meaning that one could assume that his chamber music from that time onwards might be intended for the fortepiano rather than the harpsichord. Performing Friedrich's Sonata in A major, Tsalka and Weston present hearty dialogue in the bold, sparkling Allegro movement and in the bonheur of the following Allegretto, the artists' playing testifying to Friedrich's reputed congenial nature, as heard throughout this charming sonata.

 

The music of Johann Baptist Vaňhal (1739-1813), whose prodigious gifts took him from rural Bohemia to the very top of the musical world in 18th-century Vienna, has fallen into relative obscurity. Indeed, Vanhal is a shadowy figure; only part of his vast output of music has been satisfactorily evaluated or even catalogued. (Michael Tsalka, however, brought renewed attention to the composer's fine keyboard writing in his recording of Vaňhal's Keyboard Capriccios (Grand Piano, 2015.) In the late 1770s, Vaňhal redirected his attention from composing symphonies and string quartets to writing much music for- and with keyboard, catering to the changing musical tastes of the Viennese public and enjoying the new opportunities offered by the fledgling Viennese music publishing industry. Of the two Op.32 Sonatas for piano 4 hands, we hear Tsalka and Weston's performance of Sonata No.1 in F major, a work highlighting the character of the square piano and the joy of house music. The sonata abounds in a sense of well-being and affection, also displaying the polish and élan of Vaňhal's music, its depth and whimsy, the latter apparent in the syncopated rhythmic play of the Allegro. 

 

Still within the domain of domestic music for 4 hands, the artists play L van Beethoven's Variations on a Theme by Count Grafen von Waldstein, a piece from the composer's last days in Bonn (a work  generally overlooked by Beethoven scholars!) Indeed, the theme-and- variations form plays an important role throughout Beethoven’s writing. Performing the piece on square piano, Weston and Tsalka give the stage to its major-minor duality, its colourful offering of pianistic writing and its variety of moods and gestures. Interestingly, we hear Beethoven trying out new and quite daring feats. Tsalka and Weston address the inventiveness and richness of this decidedly extravagant piece with panache, entertaining the listener with the spontaneity of quick-change artists.

 

Moving into the 21st century, we hear Prof. Tsalka's performance of "Brushstrokes" by Nicholas Smith (b.1934 UK, now residing in China), premiered by Tsalka in Ningbo, China in April 2024. Played on piano forte, it invites the listener to luxuriate in just over two minutes of richly mellifluous Romantic-style piano music. Dedicated by Spanish pianist/composer Joan Josep Gutiérrez Yzquierdo to Michael Tsalka, "Prelude and Fugue" was premiered by Tsalka at the Geelvinck Fortepiano Festival (Holland) in 2019. Inspired by Mendelssohn's writing, the Prelude (played on square piano) revisits the sweeping melodic outpouring and rich harmonic textures of the Romantic piano. Tsalka moves to the harpsichord for the ensuing Fugue - a single-subject, three-voiced, Blues-tinted fugue, its ambience suggesting "the swing of jazz", in the composer's words. Tsalka's intelligent performance calls attention to Gutiérrez Yzquierdo's resourceful and masterful writing in these two atypically paired movements.

 

The disc features two works of Aspasia Nasopoulou (b.1972 Greece, now residing in Holland), many of her works being inspired by literature, mythology and philosophy from different cultures. "Io" refers to the Greek tale of Io, who was transformed by Zeus into a calf. The harpsichord piece, commissioned in 2018 for Diana Weston, is a programme work, vigorous in its uncompromising style. Weston engages rigorously in its profusion of harpsichord textures to create a convincing musical observation of the story's sequence of events (described in the liner notes), the myth's dramatic storyline only finding peace when Io is eventually restored to her original human state. The work falls into eight sections, these correlating with the eight phases of the moon. The 3*1 Suite, consisting of three pieces (Tsalka, piano forte) takes inspiration from three Rubaiyat poems of Persian mathematician/philosopher Omar Khayyám (1048-1131). The model upon which Nasopoulou bases the three miniatures here is that of the 4-line Rabaiyats, a form also alluding to the content course of the poem. Tsalka's articulate and riveting playing of the mostly atonal pieces, each somewhat descriptive via developing motifs, each highly contemplative, takes the listener into both the mystery and universality of these ancient poems.

 

Violeta Dinescu (b. 1953, Romania, now residing in Germany) composed "Variazioni alla Vanhal" for Diana Weston and Michael Tsalka. Performed on harpsichord (Weston) and square piano (Tsalka), the work takes its inspiration from Vaňhal's Sonata No.1 in F major Op.32! and is largely improvisational. In its many sections, some mere fragments, Dinescu invites the artists to take the lead from motifs from Sonata No.1. This they do with verve, bold freedom and fantasy, displaying fine teamwork, taking on board the process described by Dinescu as "like a dream…continuously transformed…a hierarchy of surprises…every time along a new narrative of musical thread". 

 

And to the three works by Australian composers. Two works of Ann Carr-Boyd (b.Australia, 1938) featured in "Full Moon" were inspired by Australian nature scenes, as are her two works in "Last Dance". "Moonacres Farm", offering an alluring timbral meeting of piano forte (Tsalka) and harpsichord (Weston), draws the listener into its marvellously serene mood, the artists' performance in collusion with the composer's concept of it as "suggestive of the moon hovering over paddocks and trees". The two movements of "Outback River", a reworking of the piece commissioned by Diana Weston in 2022 (originally for harpsichord and two 'cellos) were inspired by the  surging Darling River in New South Wales when pervaded by floodwaters. Again, played on square and harpsichord, the artists give a bracing, involved and evocative performance of Carr-Boyd's rich canvas, its multilayering descriptive of the power, the vibrancy (and dangers) of sweeping floodwaters, the composer's meandering melodies and richly-fashioned textures never far removed from the tonal/modal setup.

 

"First Dance" (2015) by prolific Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin (b.Tashkent, 1957), is played by Diana Weston on piano forte. Written in honour of the wedding of Kats-Chernin's son, Weston's touching rendition of the piece strikes a personal note, its flowing, sentimental melodiousness woven throughout the piece with a trace of melancholy.

 

Dr. Weston (Sydney, Australia) and Prof. Tsalka (Israel-China) have performed and recorded together for some years. Recorded in July 2024 in Naremburn, Sydney, Australia, "Last Dance" commands sound quality that is real and articulate. The instruments played are an original square piano (piano forte) labelled Robertson, made by James Smith (Liverpool, c.1835) and restored by Jennifer Roberts and Marcelo Costi (Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia); and a Flemish reproduction harpsichord by Marc du Cornet. In this fitting follow-up to "Full Moon", Tsalka and Weston once again call attention to the varied (and extending) repertoire written for historic keyboards, the artists' outstanding renditions reflecting scrutinous probing into each work and style. 

 Diana Weston (Thorough Bass)

Michael Tsalka (Geelvinck Muziek Musea)

Pianist Shir Semmel joins the Tel Aviv Wind Quintet in a varied program of European chamber music at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Jerusalem

Shir Semmel (www.jamd.ac.il)

 

Tel Aviv Wind Quintet Ⓒ Dan Erez

A flying musical visit to Europe via works spanning from the Baroque to the 20th century was the fare for a concert in The Best of Chamber Music series at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Jerusalem, on January 25th 2025. Joining the Tel Aviv Wind Quintet - Hagar Shahal (flute), Nir Gavrieli (oboe, guest artist), Danny Erdman (clarinet), Itamar Leshem (horn) and Nadav Cohen (bassoon) - was pianist Shir Semmel.

 

The program opened with Mordechai Rechtman's setting of J.S.Bach's Fugue in G minor, BWV 578 for wind quintet. One of Bach's most popular organ fugues, it was written early in the composer's career, probably when he was serving as organist in Arnstadt c.1707. Early editors of Bach's work referred to it as the "Little Fugue" to distinguish it from the later Great Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542. Principal bassoonist of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra from 1946 to 1991, Rechtman was also an acclaimed arranger. His more-than 200 arrangements for wind ensembles have been performed around the world, often under his own direction. Distributing the upbeat somewhat Italianate fugue's four voices among five instruments gives freedom to spread its polyphonic play among different timbral colour combinations, to provide "comments" and create pared-down- and denser textures. Rechtman has written several arrangements for the TLVWQ. 

 

A member of Les Six, Darius Milhaud was intensely involved in contemporary French stylistic musical development, as well as in music for theatre. "La cheminée du roi René" (its title alluding to a Provençal proverb playing on words for "fireplace", "chimney" and "promenade") is one of the cornerstones of wind quintet repertoire. Written for the film "Cavalcade d'amour", it tells of King René, a 15th century ruler of Milhaud's native city, Aix-en-Provence, who devoted himself to the well-being of his subjects, to chivalry, to legendary tournaments and to cultivation of the arts. Milhaud, a prolific composer, worked in a wide variety of styles, but this work stands apart, being pastoral in flavour and infinitely simpler in texture. In each of the small vignettes, the players created charming depictions of activities of the court-Cortege - a procession, a morning serenade, jugglers, jousting, hunting, etc. - in which some Renaissance ornamentation could be heard, with Classical elements present in the restful nocturnal madrigal, which brings the work to a somewhat melancholy close.

 

And, on the subject of music for entertainment, W.A.Mozart wrote much music that was not intended for the concert hall, theatre or church, but as an agreeable background to eating, drinking and conversation on festive- or other social occasions, these often being outdoor events.  Most of this music dates from the earlier part of his career, when the composer was based in his native city of Salzburg. From the Five Divertimentos, K. 439b, originally scored for three basset horns, we heard Divertimento No.4 in F major played by Gavrieli, Erdman and Cohen. Their diligent, vivid playing of this clever, miniature masterpiece by the 27-year-old Mozart called attention to its contrasts, wit and charm.

 

Works for or with wind instruments (then referred to as "Harmonie”) were a highly popular genre on the Viennese Classical concert scene. L.van Beethoven's Piano Quintet Op.16 in E flat major (1796) is one such work. Featuring clarinet, oboe, horn and bassoon alongside the piano, it was written when Beethoven was pushing the boundaries of his early Classical style to bolder and more expressive writing, yet still embracing the elegance and refinement of the time. The artists' reading of the work was tasteful, delicate and articulate, as they balanced its unique blend of piano and wind instruments meticulously, allowing for the diverse range of timbres and gestures to create a rich and dynamic soundscape. Introspective and lyrical, the 2nd movement (Andante) was especially beautiful, with its array of wind solos alongside the splendid integration of all the instruments. I enjoyed Shir Semmel's understated, Classical-styled performance throughout, her clean fingerwork and playing unburdened by excessive use of the sustaining pedal.

 

The Fantasiestücke Op 73 come from one of the happier periods in Robert Schumann’s career. Penned hastily in Dresden in February 1849, with the clarinet in mind, Schumann originally called the work “Soiréestücke” (Soirée Pieces) before settling on "Fantasiestücke". The pieces were first performed by his wife Clara and clarinettist Johann Gottlieb Kotte. Making allowances for the burgeoning domestic market, Schumann indicated that the Fantasiestücke might also be played by violin or 'cello, (nowadays heard in several more configurations.) Playing them in their originally-intended instrumental setting, Danny Erdman and Shir Semmel's performance of one of the most poetic examples of Schumann’s lyrical writing was spontaneous and communicative, indeed, rapt, showcasing the work's creative vigour, its idyllic character, its Romantic longing and emotional expressiveness. The artists connected with Schumann's capacity of capturing deep and intimate feelings through each gesture and changing moment.

 

A new work in the TLVWQ's repertoire, and probably new to most of the audience, was Dutch Jewish pianist/composer Leo Smit's Piano Sextet. Dedicated to the Concertgebouw, the score was (fortunately) retrieved from a rubbish heap after the Second World War. Written in 1932 and premiered in 1933, the sextet is Classical in form and comprises three movements. Shir Semmel and the wind players presented the audience with a fine concert piece whose canvas is lyrical, witty, biting and rhythmically compelling. Their playing of the outer movements revealed the influence of Stravinsky's melodic angularity, with Smit's writing - urbane, blithe, energetic, lush and threaded with extended harmonies - altogether reflecting the composer's interest in jazz and other popular styles. The work strongly recalls the eclecticism of the Paris musical world. (Smit lived and worked in Paris from 1927 to 1936, and was greatly influenced by French composers, including Les Six.) As to the 2nd movement (Lento), Nir Gavrieli gave voice to its sentimental and hauntingly beautiful oboe solo. Skilfully scored, the Piano Sextet's style is bold and complex, yet accessible to the listener. Leo Smit (1900-1943) perished in the Sobibor extermination camp.

 

This was Shir Semmel's first collaboration with the Tel Aviv Wind Quintet.

Hallelujah - Philippe Pierlot conducts the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra, the Israeli Vocal Ensemble and soloists in a program of works by two friends - Handel and Telemann

Maestro Philippe Pierlot © Yoel Levy

 

No new face to the Israeli concert scene, Belgian conductor Philippe Pierlot directed "Hallelujah", the third concert of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra's 36th season. In a program of music by two German Baroque composers, JBO instrumentalists were joined by members of the Israeli Vocal Ensemble (director: Yuval Benozer) and soloists Nitzan Alon (alto), Daniel Portnoy (tenor), Roi Witz (bass), Noam Schuss (violin), Idit Shemer (flute) and Aviad Gershoni (oboe). This writer attended the event at the Jerusalem International YMCA on January 19th, 2025.

 

The program included three anthems of George Frideric Handel, all to Psalm texts, all representative of the composer's embarking on- and grand entrance into the English church music tradition. Handel spent two years (1717–1718) as resident composer at Cannons, the opulent mansion of James Brydges (later known as the Duke of Chandos), during which time the composer wrote nearly a dozen anthems, all composed for strings and solo wind instruments. Though each is written for a small group of singers and instrumentalists, they are conceived on a grand scale. The Jerusalem concert opened with "As Pants the Hart" HWV 251e, its moving text extracted from Psalm 42. This anthem, featuring solo oboe, quickly became the most popular of the Chandos collection. Opening with a dramatic two-part Sinfonia, Pierlot and the artists' fresh, inspired reading of the work brought out the text's natural images, rendering them analogous to its religious meaning. In "Why so full of grief", a duet remarkable both for its beautiful characterization of sorrow and disquietude, and for the way in which the two voice parts weave through each other, alto (Nitzan Alon) and young tenor (Daniel Portnoy) were deftly juxtaposed with the dueting violin and oboe - Noam Schuss and Aviad Gershoni. Another Chandos anthem "I will magnify thee, O God", HWV 250a, emerged bright and celebratory, abundant in layering yet transparent to the listener. The performance gave prominence to promising young bass Roi Witz' resonant singing and fine English pronunciation and to the lustrous colours of Alon's upper alto range, with duets presenting independence of agenda and much interest. Again, there was much beautiful, expressive playing on the part of Gershoni.

 

On October 11th 1727, George II was crowned at Westminster Abbey. Handel was commissioned to compose four anthems for the ceremony. The composer had long served the monarch's family since his time in Hanover, his music much loved by George II and Queen Caroline. Despite Handel receiving the title of Composer of Music for His Majesty’s Chapel Royal in 1723, as a foreign composer he would not have been eligible to write music for such an occasion. However, one of George I's final gestures was to grant Handel British citizenship. "Let thy hand be strengthened" HWV 259 was the first anthem to be performed at the coronation ceremony and the only one to have no vocal soloists, trumpets or drums. Based on Psalm 89, its initial message endorses recognition of the king as the rightful ruler. Throughout the piece's three movements, the Israeli Vocal Ensemble's singing was informed, precise and forthright, the singers underscoring the contrasts between movements, preserving the anthem's tension, its introspective moments and subtlety, highlighting such key words as "justice" and engaging in some sparing ornamentation. Not frequently heard on these shores, here was a fine opportunity to hear and appreciate these splendid Handel anthems.

 

Introducing the two instrumental works of Georg Philipp Telemann on the program, JBO founder/music director Prof. David Shemer spoke of the connection between Telemann and Handel. They were German teenagers when they first met, but life separated them thereafter, Handel becoming the legend of London’s concert scene while Telemann was Hamburg’s all-round musical luminary. But they retained a robust correspondence, discussing and exchanging works, each influencing the other. (It is known that they both shared a liking for exotic plants!) In 1718, Telemann wrote that the concerto genre did not appeal to him, a statement that might be interpreted as a distaste for the ostentatious display of virtuosity typical of some Italian concertos. Indeed, Telemann's interest lay in innovation of scoring, style and structure. The oboe occupies an important place in his oeuvre, which numbers ten concertos for the oboe and three for the oboe d'amore.  Aviad Gershoni was soloist in Telemann's Oboe Concerto in E minor, TWV 51:e1, a work in the composer's preferred (pre-Vivaldian) four-movement, sonata da chiesa form. Remembered as a virtuoso recorder player, we are reminded here that Telemann was also a skilled oboist. Placing its cantabile, poignant movements alongside the two more dazzling, zesty movements, Gershoni's playing was subtly shaped and personal, his performance offering the audience another opportunity to enjoy his signature agility and expressiveness on the Baroque oboe. 

 

Remaining in the same key, we heard Telemann's Concerto in E minor for flute and violin in E minor, TWV 250b, with two prominent JBO players as soloists - Idit Shemer (flute) and concertmaster Noam Schuss. One of the concertos featuring unconventional combinations of solo instruments (one of the less extreme cases) transverse flute and Baroque violin present different sound worlds and different personalities. The work is in five movements. In the second movement, a lyrical Adagio, there was much refined melodic interplay between Shemer and Schuss, as each soloist added her own ornamentation, here and there to meet on a meticulously synchronized embellishment. The most unusual movement is the third, which is entirely for violin, with Schuss engaging in some virtuosic playing (not typical of Telemann's writing or conviction!)

 

In this concert, supported by the fine-spun  playing of the JBO instrumentalists and featuring much home-grown talent, Maestro Pierlot brought together singers and instrumentalists in a sparkling evening of excellent performance and uplifting music.

At the Brigham Young University Center for Near Eastern Studies, baritone Oded Reich performs Schubert's "Winterreise" to Andrew Middleton's setting for wind quintet

Oded Reich (Courtesy Israeli Opera)

 

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was a prolific composer. He worked fast whenever and wherever inspiration struck. Sadly, he died young. During the first months of 1827, Schubert was 30 years old, with less than two years remaining of his life. It was then that he began to compose "Winterreise" (A Winter's Journey) for male voice and piano, 24 songs to poems of Wilhelm Müller, an equally short-lived contemporary. It seems the two never met. In fact, Müller died just as Schubert was beginning work on "Winterreise". The first 12 songs were published early in 1828. In November of the same year, Schubert, on his deathbed, corrected proofs of the second part. The song cycle sets to music a collection of 24 poems which, on the surface, create a narrative common to German literary Romanticism: a jilted lover undertakes a literal and/or psychological journey, which usually ends in madness or death. Composing "Winterreise" was possibly Schubert's reckoning with his own death.

 

The piano part, in collaboration with the vocal line, is integral to the work, adding depth to the sombre narrative. Singer and pianist collaborate closely and heedfully, creating the musical and emotional canvas. Indeed, there are times when the piano assumes the upper hand, becoming the protagonist (with the voice accompanying, so to speak), commenting and even answering questions asked or adding information unbeknown to the wanderer.  Additionally, the piano adds an impressive richness to the poems' depictions related to nature. For whoever probes this song cycle's depths, it is a life-changing work. There is no room here to mention all the outstanding singers and pianists who have taken upon themselves to perform Schubert's "Winter's Journey". In their profound reading into the work, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore were an unforgettable duo, but there have been many more.  There have, however, been several new arrangements made of the work; to mention just a few - moving the piano part to string quartet, one arrangement using the trombone as a vocal replacement, a setting for piano trio with oboe and bassoon (in which the oboe takes the melodic line), a setting for two guitars, arranger Andreas Höricht's selection of 12 of the songs with intermezzo pieces interspersed between them and an arrangement for soloist and choir, with a minimal instrumental accompaniment on two accordions. Then there is the imaginative performance of German tenor Julian Prégardien (and his father Christoph) setting Hans Zender’s controversial arrangement of Schubert’s piano part for a small orchestra of classical instruments, with the addition of accordion, saxophone, xylophone and wind machine!! In 2019, I attended a performance of "Winterreise" arranged for three female singers and piano at the Tel Aviv Opera. 

 

Enter Andrew Middleton - flautist, composer, arranger/orchestrator and educator based in the North East of England. Middleton is an artist with a passion for composing and arranging for wind ensembles. The Israeli premiere of his version of "Winterreise" for baritone and winds, took place in the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies' Sunday evening concert series on January 5th, 2025. It was performed by baritone Oded Reich and a chamber quintet consisting of Adi Menczel (flute), Hila Zabari Peleg (oboe), Keren Dvir-Steckler (clarinet), Ido Diga (bassoon) and Sharon Polyak (horn). All fine instrumentalists, their playing was dedicated - competent, tasteful, well integrated and timbrally very pleasing. The full, reedy ensemble sound right for the more intense songs, creating the winter squalls in several of them, for example, and the unsettling moments in "Frühlingstraum" (Dream of Spring), these nicely contrasted with the springtime freshness evoked by the flute. We certainly experienced the bold galloping of horses in "Die Post" (The Post) and the protagonist's cheerless realization of "Der greise Kopf" (The Grey Head), in which, seeing his head looking grey with its covering of snow, briefly imagines he may have rapidly aged and rejoices in the prospect of imminent death. I enjoyed Middleton's dainty solo instrumental comments and exchanges scattered throughout. The Crow in "Die Krähe", was wonderfully airborne, then, following the word "Grabe" (grave) sung (enigmatically) on the highest note of the piece, descending down grave-wards, to the singer's request. But I was missing the textures of the hammered instrument in certain of the songs, as in "Rückblick" (On Looking Back), evoking the protagonist's frantic steps as he runs in one direction and then another, stopping short each time.

 

Oded Reich, today one of Israel's foremost baritones, sings opera, oratorio and art song repertoire. This was his first venture into singing the whole of "Winterreise" in German. Meeting its mammoth challenges, his stable, substantial voice gave compelling expression to the work's emotional course, its smatterings of optimism and its heavy dose of despair. His personal connection to- and deep enquiry into it served to draw the listener into its content. Reich's German is articulate and well enunciated and his powerful voice stood up well to the sturdy wind quintet sound. I felt this instrumentation, however, deprived him of the opportunity to create the pared-down, gossamer sounds of the more intimate songs, indeed, of the song cycle's unique, disquieting, cheerless (sometimes naive) and otherworldly moments. And I missed hearing the piano accompaniment in "Der Lindenbaum" (The Linden Tree). The epitome of Romantic salon music, the piano role in this Lied would seem indispensable to its style, to its charmingly sentimental Austrian songfulness and to the rendition of its storm scene. The performance concluded with the artists' aptly spine-chilling enactment of "Der Leiermann" (The Hurdy-Gurdy Man), with horn and bassoon bearing the drone, a song whose bleak message defies words.

 

I look forward to hearing Oded Reich performing Schubert's "Winterreise" with piano or, even better, with an early 19th-century fortepiano.

"All-Night Vigil" - the Israeli Vocal Ensemble (music director: Yuval Benozer) performs works of Samuel Barber, John Tavener, Hugo Wolf and Sergei Rachmaninov at St. Andrew's Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem

Maestro Yuval Benozer (ivocal.co.il)

 

The all-night vigil is a service of the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches, consisting of the combination of Vespers and Matins within one service, the combination of these two services bringing those attending the vigil from night into the day. In ancient times, “vigil” referred to time spent on guard duty, or ‘keeping watch’. In the Church, it means time spent in attentive preparation and "waiting on God". Because of its great length, the all-night vigil is commonly celebrated in monasteries. “All-Night Vigil" was the title of an a-cappella concert of sacred music performed by the Israeli Vocal Ensemble, conducted by its founder/music director Yuval Benozer. This writer attended the event at St Andrew's Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem, on December 30th, 2024.

 

The program opened with Samuel Barber's "Agnus Dei", the composer's 1967 transcription for 8-part choir of his own "Adagio for Strings". Barber's "Adagio" has been associated in the public imagination with elegiac mourning, nostalgia, love and passion. In transcribing it for voices, using the “Lamb of God” text from the Mass, Barber adds to the piece a dimension of spirituality, the Latin text of the "Agnus Dei" splendidly meeting the melodic contours of the Adagio. In their flowing, dignified reading of the work, the IVE singers propel the rhapsodic section to a climax of scintillating choral timbres, this intensity then falling away, creating an arch form, with the work concluding on a hushed dominant chord.

 

English composer John Tavener's short carol "The Lamb" (1982), a setting of the first section of William Blake’s "Songs of Innocence and Experience" (1789), presents its own unique challenges to conductor, performer and listener. Homophonic and homorhythmic, it bears no time signature, adding extra bar lines at the end of stanzas to create poignant endings. The music is built of a simple melodic idea, however, using real inversion to create sharp dissonances between vocal parts, explaining why the motet shifts between dissonant sections (as in the opening duet of two sopranos) and those of lush, tender harmonies, then to add some unison singing towards the end. Benozer and the 17 singers engaged in precision, control and the subtle use of dynamics to create the piece's sense of mystery and wonder, capturing the Christian notion of a small child ruling the universe through love. 

 

In 1881, Hugo Wolf composed the "Sechs geistliche Lieder" (Sacred Songs) to texts of Joseph von Eichendorff, the poems dealing with death, farewell and resignation to God’s will. At about the time Wolf was composing the work, his fiancée expressed her wish to break off their engagement. Song No.2 "Einklang" (Agreement) may have been a reference to his resulting heartbreak. Indeed, Wolf’s attitude towards religion was ambiguous, leading one to surmise that the longing and loss present in Wolf’s settings of these texts may have been of a nature more personal than spiritual. Displaying fine German enunciation and well-shaped, sensitive performance, and drawing on their rich palette of dynamics, the IVE singers conveyed Wolf's luxuriant Romantic harmonic language, his originality and personal style of expression. One highlight was the ensemble's eloquent rendition of "Ergebung" (Resignation), performed at Wolf’s own funeral in 1903.

 

The program concluded with several movements from Sergei Rachmaninov's "Vespers" (All-Night Vigil), Op.37 (1915), (from which the concert takes its title). Rachmaninov dedicated the work to the memory of Stepan Vasilevich Smolensky, who had introduced him to sacred repertoire at the Moscow Conservatory. The “Vespers” are based on traditional Orthodox chants, including some of the ancient Znamenny chants as well as more recent Greek and Kievian chants. Indeed, Rachmaninov keeps to the strict demands of the liturgical tradition, those including a ban on musical instruments and the rhythmic supremacy of the text. A masterpiece from a composer at the peak of his creative powers, Rachmaninov's Op.37 is considered one of the most challenging pieces of the a-cappella repertoire. It makes huge demands on singers’ intonation and breath control, dictating a vivid spectrum of dynamic gradations and requiring wholehearted engagement with the texts. The score only offers sparse tempo directions, Rachmaninov having assumed that his performers would be familiar with the manner in which its various liturgical hymns were traditionally sung. To complicate matters more, the language sung is not conversational Russian but Church Slavonic, the liturgical language for all non-Greek churches in the Orthodox tradition. From the ardent, festive utterance of the opening chorus, Benozer and his singers give fine expression to the work's content - its praise, meditation, penitence and its final proclamation - the choir sounding warm and richly-toned in the (sometimes overly) generous resonance of the Scottish Church. Throughout, via Rachmaninov's wonderfully strange blending of melodic- and harmonic elements, the IVE's singing glows with a strong sense of cumulative drama and with an awestruck quality, as, for example, in the lush dynamic blooming and the exultant "Alleluias" of "Blessed is the Man" (No.3). The ensemble, relatively small but well balanced, has an excellent complement of low basses. Few as they are, the basses meet the requirement of singing at "subterranean" depths, so natural to their Russian counterparts, infusing the choral sound with the mellow, dark, well-grounded richness, an integral element of an Orthodox choir. In the palpable joy of "Blessed Art Thou, O Lord" (Nr. 8), a Znamenny chant carrying a number of drones, Daniel Portnoy gave an impressive performance of the tenor solo.