The "Profeti della Quinta" ensemble at the May 2013 Abu Gosh Festival




One of the closing events of the May 2013 Abu Gosh Festival on May 18^th was by the “Profeti della Quinta” vocal ensemble in a concert titled “Behold, thou art fair, my love” in the Kiryat Yearim Church of the Ark of the Covenant in the village of Abu Gosh (Jerusalem environs). Members of the ensemble are Doron Schleifer and David Feldman-countertenors, Dino Lüthy and Dan Dunkelblum-tenors and Elam Rotem-bass, harpsichordist. Joining them was their lutenist Ori Harmelin. The program focused on the subject of love.

The “Profeti della Quinta” ensemble was originally established in the Galilee region of Israel by Elam Rotem.  Currently based in Switzerland, where all members have been studying at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, the group focuses on repertoire of the 16^th and early 17^th centuries, basing interpretation on research into performance practice of the time – on temperament, diminution, ornamentation and on playing from facsimile editions. The singers perform a-cappella, also collaborating with instrumentalists and additional singers, when required.

Prior to moving to Basel, Elam Rotem (b.1984) graduated from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance where he studied harpsichord under Dr. David Shemer. At the Basel Schola Cantorum, he furthered his studies in early musical style and performance practice. Rotem is presently researching early Italian opera in a collaboratary PhD program of the Schola Cantorum and the University of Würzburg.

The Profeti della Quinta group have performed and recorded works by the Mantuan Jewish singer, violinist and composer Salamone Rossi (1570-1630) – the first Jewish musician to compose, perform and publish polyphonic settings of synagogue liturgy for mixed choir - and have been involved in a film on him by Joseph Rochlitz – “The Search for Salamone Rossi”(2012). At the Abu Gosh concert, the ensemble performed a number of Rossi works, both sacred and secular. The composer’s sacred works “Hashirim Asher Lishlomo” (The Songs of Solomon), using Hebrew texts, consist of 33 a-cappella motets, including Psalms, hymns and prayers for the Sabbath, holyday services, concerts and for one wedding; they were published in 1622. Departing from the ancient tradition of Jewish chants, Rossi, however, brought harmony and polyphony into the synagogue, composing in the current styles of European music but in a more homophonic manner in order to give the verbal text prominence. The Abu Gosh Festival program opened with Rossi’s setting of Psalm 128, in which there was much bandying of key words, its last section joyful and quite contrapuntal. Following a richly dynamic reading of Psalm 100, we heard the ever-popular Rossi piece “Halleluja” (Psalm 146) in a silky-timbred, well shaped performance, its sweeping melodic lines gently ornamented. Rossi’s “Kaddish”, composed to an unexpected triple-time dance rhythm, was dynamic and mellifluous in timbre. The Profeti singers performed Rossi’s sacred pieces in a strong, totally secure, intelligible style and with the understanding that comes from careful scholarship and familiarity with Hebrew biblical texts. The group’s signature brightness of timbre is always energizing, their reading- and interpretation of the pieces bristling with interest. One could claim that, performing these works with only men singers (and without instruments when performed in the synagogue), as would have been done by Rossi, their effect is indeed authentic. 

Although considered a conservative composer, Rossi was the first to publish madrigals with basso continuo parts; composed for the Gonzaga court, they are also groundbreaking in the elaboration he infuses into the chittarone parts.   Opening with a wonderfully colored performance of the composer’s madrigal to Ottavio Rinuccini’s “Sfogava con le stele” (One who was lovesick), the Profeti della Quinta singers performed settings of secular texts. From Rossi’s First Book of Madrigals we heard two songs to texts by Giovanni Battista Guarini: “Tirsi mio, caro Tirsi” (My Tirsi, dear Tirsi) opened with countertenor Doron Schleifer (singing of an abandoned woman) and Ori Harmelin in dialogue. Accompanied by Rotem (harpsichord) and Harmelin in “Pargoletta che non sai” (Little one, you do not know), Schleifer, Feldman, Lüthy and Dunkelblum, adding a little theatrical content and much humor to the concert, portrayed two couples confronting love’s tribulations. 

Claudio Monteverdi’s (1567-1643) “Filli cara e amata” (Dear, beloved Filli) presents a bucolic setting and the innocent games of nymphs and shepherds. In contrast, “Rimanti in pace” (Remain in peace), a feast of vocal sound, timbral colors and emotion, in the hands of the Profeti singers, is the heartbreaking plaint of the wounded and dying Tirsi as he laments with his sorrowful Fillida. We hear individual utterances, astonishing harmonic effects and a fine play of bass timbres. In “Zefiro torna e il bel tempo rimena", a dramatic, narrative piece with some homophonic blocks.  Singers and audience reveled in the piece’s rhythmic changes and daring final dissonances, the latter explained by the final line of Petrarca's text:

'Zephyr returns and with him fair weather,
And the fowers and grass, his sweet family,
And Procne's warbling and Philomel's plangent song,
And spring in all its white display.

The meadows laugh, the sky is serene;
Jove delights in watching his daughter;
Air and sea and earth are full of love;
Every beast tells itself to find a mate.

Yet for me, alas, return those heaviest of sighs,
Drawn from the depths of my heart
By she who has taken its keys to heaven;
And despite birdsong and fields of flowers
And the honest, gentle acts of fair maidens
I am but a desert surrounded by savage beasts.'

Ori Harmelin (b. Haifa, 1982) began his musical training at age 15, studying classical guitar and composition. He later studied lute with Isidoro Roitman and composition with Arie Shapira. In 2003, Harmelin moved to Germany to study lute with Professor Rolf Lislevand at the Trossingen Music Academy. Providing the Abu Gosh concert with a poignant instrumental interlude on the chitarrone, Harmelin performed a Passacaglia by the illustrious Italian lutenist and composer Alessandro Piccinini (1566-c.1638). Despite its gentle sound, Harmelin has a flowing command of the instrument; in playing that was forthright, his melodic lines were expressive, singing and articulate. His playing of this complex material revealed its deep beauty and grace. 

Moving more than 300 years forward in time, yet remaining in the same style, we heard the premiering of some of Elam Rotem’s most recent compositions. Rotem himself preferred to describe the event as a pre-premiering! Since completing his “Joseph and His Brothers” (to be issued on CD in 2014 on the Pan Classics label), a work using the biblical Hebrew text, that has  impressed and moved audiences in Europe and Israel, Rotem is now in the process of setting some new shorter texts, several of them from the “Song of Songs”. These recent pieces will exist both as separate songs and as a group. In his opinion, “Samson and Delilah”, also heard for the first time at the Abu Gosh concert, its text focusing on love and on dialogue, will fit in well with the pieces from the “Song of Songs”. Whereas the idea of “Joseph and His Brothers” was that of early Italian opera, here the style deals more to love songs and madrigals; in both styles, the composer has aimed to integrate the beauty of biblical texts with the musical language of 1600. As to instrumental scoring for the new works, Rotem sees this as somewhat flexible…according to what players he has at hand. Elam Rotem’s settings of the “Song of Songs” reflect the fantasy, fragrance, freedom of expression and sensuousness of this poetry; they are fresh, rich in contrasting sections, solos, fine shaping and effects. “Samson and Delilah” (not the complete story) bristled with fast exchange between singers, with drama and urgency. Elam Rotem is leaving his mark on this highly specialized style of composition.

The Profeti della Quinta singers perform with informed- and polished assurance as an ensemble and as soloists. Theirs is artistry at its finest. Having occasion to talk to Elam Rotem, I asked him how he goes about composing; his answer was simple - “at the harpsichord, with a pencil and the Bible”. 

Songs of Solomon and David - music of the Jews of northern Italy - S.Rossi and B.Marcello

A lecture-concert at Jerusalem’s Beit Avi Chai December 12th 2009 focused on the subject of “The Songs of Solomon and David”, music of the Golden Age of north Italian Jewry. Professor Michael Melzer discussed and presented works inspired by the harmonious synagogue music of Venice and Mantua of the 17th and 18th centuries. Performing with him were soprano Yeela Avital, countertenor David Feldman, tenor Ya’acov Halperin and bass Yair Polishook; Yael Melzer and Michael Melzer played recorders, Amit Tiefenbrunn viol and Yizhar Karshon played spinet and organ.

The program consisted of instrumental- and vocal works by the Mantuan Jewish violinist, singer and composer Salamone Rossi Hebreo (c.1570-1630) and the Venetian composer Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739). Strange bedfellows? Well, not as strange as one might think. Melzer drew parallels and contrasts between the music of the two composers in a juxtaposition that offered a stimulating and enjoyable evening of music and ideas.

Marcello was born in Venice to a noble family. He combined a career in law and public service with music. The fact that he was financially secure meant that he felt no obligation to compose music that would prove “popular” to Venetian audiences. His oeuvre is diverse – church music, oratorios, hundreds of solo cantatas, duets, sonatas, concertos and sinfonias. He was, however, best known, during his lifetime and after his death, for his settings (using somewhat free Italian paraphrases by G.A.Guistiniani) of the first fifty Psalms, the work he called “Estro poetico-armonico” (Venice 1724-1727); the Psalms are scored for one to four solo voices with figured bass, with some pieces including solo instruments. In this collection, his last and most ambitious work, he used motifs from Venetian Jewish liturgy of his time, having heard music sung in the synagogues there. The texts are dominant, but the works themselves have much to offer to performers and listeners in a mix of sophisticated harmonies and counterpoint, melismas, modulations and dissonances. With his mission of reviving the “true” music of the Ancient World, Marcello advised that performance of the Psalms be “precise and without arbitrary ornament, particularly in the solo parts, keeping in mind that we are singing to God”… The performance at Beit Avi Chai, Melzer commented, would be the first of Marcello’s “Estro poetico-armonico” in Israel.

Serving at the court of the Gonzagas from 1587 to 1628, Rossi’s output includes sonatas and dances for string ensemble, madrigals, canzonettas, music for dramatic productions at Mantua and Psalms to the Hebrew texts. Rossi has been referred to as the “father of the trio sonata”. Despite his being a court composer, (he was exempted by his Christian patrons from wearing the badge of “shame”) Rossi lived in the Jewish ghetto of Mantua, as did his sister, a successful singer known as “Madame Europa”. An innovator in his instrumental music, Rossi was the first Jew to compose, perform and publish polyphonic settings of synagogue liturgy for mixed choir.

The concert opened with a Sinfonia and Galiarda by Rossi, performed on recorders, with basso continuo. In Rossi’s Sonata sopra la Bergamesca (the Bergamesca was a popular repeated bass line in Europe), the artists colored the variations with ornaments and differing textures. In his Sonata sopra l’aria di Ruggiero (the Ruggiero ground bass, in a major scale, consists of four short phrases) the players entertained the audience well, addressing the virtuosic nature of Rossi’s instrumental writing. Melzer, introducing another pair of court dances on the program, mentioned that some of the dances (despite their being composed for the entertainment at the Gonzago court) had been named after certain people in the Jewish ghetto of Mantua. The pleasing performance of these lilting galliards was supported by elegant and attentive continuo playing on the part of Tiefenbrunn and Karshon.

Rossi’s “Ha-shirim asher le-Shlomo” (The Songs of Solomon) were published in 1623. The 33 motets, set for from three to eight voices, include Psalms, hymns and prayers for Sabbath and holyday services as well as one wedding ode. The pieces, though reverential, are predominantly homophonic, polyphonic, decidedly early Baroque-style works, lacking in any association to traditional synagogue music, save the Hebrew texts. In publishing this work, Rossi relied on the spiritual support of his friend Rabbi Leone Modena (1571-1648), who issued a responsum in 1605, approving polyphonic singing in the synagogue. The “Ha-Shirim asher le-Shlomo” collection does not, in fact, include any texts from the biblical “Song of Solomon”, leading musicians to suppose that the title is actually a play on words referring to Rossi’s first name. We heard Keter (Kedusha) and Psalm 67 performed by the vocal quartet. (It is supposed that the songs were first performed by four singers only.) We heard fine choral singing, a combination of articulate, expressive melodic strands combined with rich, unaffected harmonies.

One hundred years after Rossi, Marcello’s Psalm settings present an entirely different musical approach. Melzer pointed out Marcello’s late Baroque less harmonioustendencies, his inclusion of dissonances and of unconventional harmonic turns. This non-conservative approach can be seen in Marcello’s choice of problematic verbal texts. Take, for example, Psalm 42, an expression of spiritual depression. Yair Polishook, in his solo performance of it, utilized his rich palette of vocal colors and agility to present a convincing reading of this theatrical piece, with its drama and mood changes. Marcello’s instrumental interludes added interest.

Most of Psalm 22 expresses David’s agony and suffering.
.. ‘Roaring lions tearing their prey
Open their mouths wide against me.

I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
It has melted away within me….’

With orchestration changing from one small section to the next, Marcello does not shy away from strange instrumental writing. The final melody of this miniature drama comes from Ashkenazi synagogue liturgy. The work was sung by countertenor David Feldman. His voice is mellifluous and pleasing. In this personal and vehement outpouring of the soul, however, he holds back, somewhat too unflustered by what he is expressing.

Psalm 37 compares the fate of godless people to that of the righteous. The vocal quartet performed with organ accompaniment, the singers’ articulate phrasing and expressiveness drawing out the polyphonic dimensions of the piece. Yeela Avital’s bell-like timbre and sense of the authentic quality of Baroque music never fails to delight her audience. A new face was young tenor Ya’acov Halperin, a student of the vocal faculty of the Jerusalem Academy of Music.

Michael Melzer’s lecture-concerts are highly enjoyable, well presented, informal yet well researched and accessible to audiences. A printed program would be still an advantage to those present.



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