From Darkness to Light - the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir's annual gala concert in works of Harlap and Haydn

Photo: Luba Tenavskaya

“From Darkness to Light”, the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir’s annual gala performance, took place at the Jerusalem International YMCA on May 21st 2019. Conducting singers of the five Oratorio choirs, the Jerusalem Street Orchestra and vocal soloists Adaya Peled (soprano), Hillel Sherman (tenor) and Yair Polishook (baritone) was Dor Magen.

 

The first half of the program consisted of Aharon Harlap’s “Requiem” for soprano and baritone soloists, four-part mixed choir and orchestra. Premiered in Jerusalem in 2017, the work is the composer’s homage to family, friends and mentors who have passed on; Harlap has dedicated it to his friend and colleague Prof. Stanley Sperber. The texts chosen for the  seven movements of the work were taken from the traditional Latin Requiem but include only those sections bearing content common to both the Jewish- and Christian religions. As to its style, the music is mostly minor/modal, its broadly sweeping melodic lines, some strengthened by parallel octave doubling, enriched with lush autumnal harmonies. Choir and soloists weave the melodic thread in and out of the work’s seamless fabric; Harlap’s orchestral writing, robust, highly coloured, rich in his use of winds, was undertaken with flying colours by the Jerusalem Street Orchestra (director: Ido Shpitalnik). It is as sumptuous as his vocal writing, endorsing the work’s almost consistently dark, intense and soul-searching agenda. Under Magen’s direction, the Oratorio singers achieved a splendidly blended and coordinated choral sound, with luxuriance of timbre present at the work’s introspective and haunting junctures as well as in its most impassioned tutti. Soprano Adaya Peled gave an impressive and competent performance, her voice rich, stable and clean as she convincingly engaged in the work’s emotional content.  Appropriating his rich and varied palette of vocal colours to the profound meaning of the Requiem text, Yair Polishook’s performance was powerful and credible - at times dramatic and momentous, at others, brighter, compassionate and reassuring. Originally from Canada, composer, conductor and teacher Aharon Harlap (b.1941), in Israel since 1964, does not mix his messages. His writing is eloquent, direct and real, drawing musicians and listeners alike into its compelling and uncompromising subject matter.

 

In 1802, Joseph Haydn wrote:  ‘Often, when I was struggling with all kinds of obstacles... a secret voice whispered to me: “There are so few happy and contented people in this world; sorrow and grief follow them everywhere; perhaps your labour will become a source from which the careworn... will for a while derive peace and refreshment.”’ For Oratorio’s joint choir concert, only sections relating to the subject of light were performed from “The Creation”. Haydn’s sublime work, depicting a benign, rationally-ordered universe, with its essentially optimistic view of humanity and non-moralistic tone, was a musical masterpiece perfectly attuned to the spirit of Georgian England and Vienna of the 1790s, but, in all its radiant guilelessness, it is no less appealing to audiences of our times. From the first strains of the orchestral prelude - “Representation of Chaos” - as striking an evocation of the mysterious void of the universe as one might find in classical repertoire (followed by the unforgettable effect of chaos festively ceding to light shining through a C major chord)  the Jerusalem Street Orchestra  displayed Haydn’s bold use of orchestral colour and adventurous harmony, descriptively supporting the verbal text throughout.  In setting Baron Gottfried van Swieten’s libretto (here and there stamped with the Dutch-born diplomat’s shaky grasp of English)  sung by Oratorio in the English version (its text, to all intents and purposes, is bilingual), Haydn’s music abounds in word-painting; more potent use of consonants, especially at word endings, would have highlighted the oratorio’s  many onomatopoeic effects, as, for example, in the chorus:

“Despairing cursing rage attends their rapid fall  

A new-created world springs up at God's command.”

The three soloists, representing the archangels Gabriel (soprano-Adaya Peled), Uriel (tenor-Hillel Sherman) and Raphael (baritone-Yair Polishook), their duets and trios producing compelling moments, gave expression to Haydn’s intentionally florid, lofty style, with Sherman engaging his rich, burnished voice in the lion's share of the arias. The choir endorsed the work’s life-affirming message with timbral warmth and vivacity. Kudos to conductor Dor Magen, whose innate musicianship, attention to detail and dedication brought choir, orchestra and soloists together in an evening of satisfying performance.

 

The Jerusalem Oratorio Choir is the largest choral enterprise in Israel, consisting of 150 amateur and professional singers. It has appeared with Israel’s leading orchestras and at major Israeli festivals. In July 2017, Oratorio’s Chamber Choir took part in the 5^th European Festival of Jewish Choral Music in St. Petersburg. Starting out as a violinist and trombonist, Dor Magen studied conducting with Evgeny Tzirlin, Avner Biron and Stanley Sperber. He has sung in major vocal ensembles. His musical arrangements have been performed by orchestras and singers.

 

Established in 2013 by Ido Shpitalnik, the Jerusalem Street Orchestra is a classic chamber orchestra comprised of graduates of Jerusalem’s Music Academy. What makes it different from other orchestras is that it performs in open-air public spaces, presenting concerts that combine classical music with orchestral arrangements of popular music, with the objective of .making classical- and orchestral  music accessible to new audiences. 

 

The Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra and soloists perform A.Scarlatti's "Hagar and Ishmael"

In celebration of the very recent issue of its recording of A.Scarlatti’s oratorio “Hagar and Ishmael”, the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra performed the work at its recent concerts in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. This writer attended the concert on December 29th 2014, at the Jerusalem International YMCA. Joining the string players of the JBO were soloists Avital Dery as Hagar, Tal Ganor – Ishmael, Keren Motseri – Sara, Yoav Weiss – Abraham and Adaya Peled as the Angel. Conducting the performance was the JBO’s founder and musical director David Shemer.

In his program notes, Shemer reminds us of Pope Innocent XI’s disapproval of opera in late 17th-century Rome, with opera-lovers shifting their attention to oratorio. Oratorios were usually performed as concerts, but, apart from that difference, artists really had enough freedom to satisfy the Roman aristocracy’s thirst for theatrical works. The subject of “Hagar and Ishmael” (1683) is the biblical story (Genesis, chapter 21) of Abraham, his wife Sara, her Egyptian slave Hagar and Ishmael, son of Abraham and Hagar. Because Sara had not managed to become pregnant, Sara suggested that her husband have a child by Hagar. But when Sara unexpectedly fell pregnant, giving birth to Isaac, she became jealous of Abraham’s older son, persuading Abraham to exile Hagar and Ishmael. Giuseppe de Totis weaves a libretto presenting spousal manipulation, paternal guilt and filial despair. Scarlatti’s sensitive and expressive treatment of the libretto, adding moral implications to the story, cannot but lure the listener into the fraught situation, also due to the timeless human forces playing out in this set of relationships. Add to these elements graceful recitatives, arias fuelled by fury and fire and, then, tender, dark arias probing and describing sentiments arising from the deepest parts of the human soul. The somewhat otherworldly character of the angel, appearing to save young Ishmael, who is about to die of thirst in the desert and promising him a prestigious future, breaks the tension of what is to be a tragic outcome, bringing the oratorio to a positive, elated conclusion.

Constructed in two parts, this (opera pretending to be an) oratorio has no chorus, nor are there significant orchestral sections; arias are accompanied by continuo or by orchestra, there are smooth-flowing recitatives and occasional duets. The soloists in this JBO performance retained the work’s tension with convincing immediacy. Soprano Keren Motseri depicted Sara as both tender and loving and as an obstinate, domineering, strong-willed woman. A captivating singer utilizing her beauty of sound, intelligence, temperament and fine vocal skills, she is as comfortable on stage as she is managing melismatic, dramatic passages. As Abraham, bass Yoav Weiss gave the convincing and heartfelt performance of a man whose soul is tragically conflicted. With timbral warmth and sympathy, he conveyed the great sadness of the situation:
‘Who does not know what pain is
Knows still that pain which exceeds
All others, that in the middle of the heart
Hides always in silence…’
Accompanied by ‘cello (Orit Messer-Jacobi) and theorbo (Bari Moskovitz), this was a soul-searching moment where the audience might now start to ask itself where its allegiance lay. Avital Dery made for a superb Hagar: expressive, maternal, articulate, communicative and subtly dramatic, her well-rounded vocal sound reached out to the listener as she portrayed both the strength and the hopelessness of a mother in such a situation. These moments were all the more effective and moving with the dark timbre of lower strings:
‘The desire of a covetous heart
Has no limits or end.
Like a languishing soul in burning pain,
No abundance of fluid
Can extinguish the ceaseless craving
Of its impious thirst…’
Well suited to singing Baroque repertoire, soprano Tal Ganor displayed a deep understanding of the role of Ishmael. Never excessively dramatic or operatic, her depiction of the boy dying of thirst was understated yet profound, appealing and well within the boundaries of good taste. Unmannered and natural, her singing was expressive and superbly controlled. As the Angel, young soprano Adaya Peled created the effect of radiance and surprise to turn the plot around and pronounce that Ishmael had been “chosen by heaven
To propagate the empires of a vast people…” and that
“Violets bloom
After frost and cold”.

Here was an impressive home-grown line-up of soloists to join Maestro David Shemer and the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra in a sensitive and highly convincing reading of “Hagar and Ishmael”. The instrumental playing was excellent; kudos to the continuo players for their sympathetic accompaniments.