"Berlin-Tel Aviv", tenor Assaf Kacholi's first solo album

Photo:Yonatan Birenbaum

Tenor Assaf Kacholi’s solo repertoire spans several genres, from opera to oratorio, from Lieder to Israeli songs. cabaret music and Italian love songs. Born in Israel, Kacholi has been living in Berlin since 2002. In 2007, he joined the highly successful German classical-crossover “Adoro” Ensemble. “Berlin-Tel Aviv”, his first solo album, was released in September 2017 on the GEMA label. His own personal choice of pieces, the disc offers an assortment of songs covering a number of genres, each accompanied on either guitar or piano.

 

The earliest of the pieces on the CD is John Dowland’s lute ayre “Flow My Tears”, with Shani Inbar’s guitar accompaniment indeed a satisfactory substitute for the original lute and Kacholi reflecting Dowland’s gloom in such dejected and contradictory utterances as
“Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world's despite”.

 

Two items of the disc provide an all-to-brief glimpse into a genre close to Kacholi’s heart and one that sits very well with his voice - the Romantic German Lied. In “Ständchen” (Serenade), dating from the last months of Schubert's life, Kacholi and pianist Efrat Levy take time to re-create the limpid music of yearning coloured with Schubert’s major/minor fragility, as the serenader invites her lover to join her on a nocturnal rendezvous. Kacholi’s reading of Clara Schumann’s “Die stille Lotosblume” (The Quiet Lotus Blossom), composed in 1842 (lyrics: Emanuel Geibel) is a beautifully controlled mood study, as the silvery, moonlit poem is presented with poetic lyricism. One senses that Kacholi is very comfortable with the German language. Moving with ease into the musical theatre mode of Kurt Weill, Kacholi strikes a fine balance between the bitter-sweet intimacy of a text telling of betrayal and the political message of “Wie lange noch?” (How long before it’s over?) to lyrics of Walter Mehring. And, on a different note, his debonair singing, evoking Berlin allure in the suave, leisurely foxtrot of “Berlin in Licht” (Berlin in Light).

 

The salon songs of Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846-1916) envelop the human voice with natural, Italian warmth, having been on the playlists of such opera singers as Nellie Melba and Enrico Caruso, as well as being an important part of Pavarotti’s repertoire. Kacholi’s singing of Tosti’s songs engages in their easeful melodiousness, their lush elegance and gentle sentimentality, as he conveys their ideal of love and its niche in our dreams. Especially evocative are his two reflective renditions of Nino Rota’s “What Is a Youth?”, to superbly played accompaniments - the first on guitar (Shani Inbar), with a second rendition together with Orit Wolf on piano -  the latter from a live performance. Wolf and Kacholi’s fine collaboration is also heard in George (and Ira) Gershwin’s “By Strauss”, their quick-witted and entertaining performance articulate, jaunty and certainly “light of foot”.

 

Assaf Kacholi’s ties with Israeli song repertoire, both emotional and profound, filter through generously in his singing of those on the disc. We hear: him and guitarist Yonatan Birenbaum’s exotic and velvet-like performance of Noam Sheriff’s “Thou art Beautiful” (Song of Songs) and their beautifully crafted and moving interpretation of  “My Little Bird” (lyrics: Pinchas Sadeh, music: Oded Lerer). The many facets and colours of Assaf Kacholi’s voice also play out effectively in his evocative and caressing performance of “Lullaby” (lyrics: Natan Alterman, music: Sasha Argov), all the more fetching for Orit Wolf’s poignant accompaniment:
“Now the road itself will sleep
For the end is near…
And the king has lost his crown
As the fools appear.
Rest your head, the boat, the brook,
Tranquil lies the Persian souk,
Turn down the lights, the dark is lush...
And quiet, quiet...hush…”                Translation: Achinoam Nini

 

In recording “Berlin-Tel Aviv”, Assaf Kacholi opens his personal music portfolio to us. His richly endowed voice and warmth of sound invite the listener to listen again, to connect with his musicality and sincerity. The disc is also a statement of personal conflict, a searching of identity, of Assaf Kacholi’s confidence to say: “These are my songs”.

    

 

The Gloriana Ensemble performs "Though Amaryllis Dance in Green" at St. Andrew's Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem

“Though Amaryllis Dance in Green”, the Gloriana Ensemble’s recent concert, took place on December 20th 2014 at St. Andrews Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem. Established in 2010, the group today, consisting of five singers – Lucie Bloch-soprano, Noar Lee Naggan-countertenor, Hillel Sherman-tenor, Yoram Bar Akiva-baritone and Joel Sivan-bass - specializes in performing sacred and secular polyphonic music from the Renaissance and Baroque.

Apart from one Spanish- and two French pieces, the ensemble’s new program is made up of a-cappella works from England and Italy, the connection between the two briefly outlined by Hillel Sherman, who introduced works on the program, providing some background about each. When King Henry VIII sent his agents to Venice to engage for his court the best wind and viol players Europe had to offer, the stage was set for English music to be transformed. The music at Queen Elizabeth I’s court took Italian music to its heart, blending it with the inherited glories of earlier English music to produce one of the richest and most evocative repertoires in musical history.

Showing the genre’s sometime connection with Italy, the concert opened with the paradigm of the Renaissance English madrigal, Thomas Morley’s ebullient and effervescent ballett of 1596 “Now Is the Month of Maying” (based on a canzonet of Orazio Vecchi), the English spring freshness and humor of its words only marginally masking its risqué text. The Gloriana Ensemble’s flexible, bright and engaging singing of it promised an evening of pleasurable listening. In William Byrd’s “Is Love a Boy?” (1589), the text’s enigmatic and troubling questions came thick and fast from each voice, emerging with individuality and a sense of urgency, highlighted by Byrd’s sophisticated writing and a play of dynamics. The singers presented the dense contrapuntal texture of Byrd’s “Though Amaryllis Dance in Green”, from which the Gloriana Ensemble’s program takes its name, making incisive use of consonants Then, to one of the many vivid early English market-place street-sellers’ songs: to play out all the levels of meaning in John Dowland’s “Fine Knacks for Ladies” (1600), with its descriptive detail, its teasing syncopations and courtly puns, the singers gave much attention to each word, to timbral colors, to detached phrases as against more legato moments, finally leading to the song’s message – that love remains true in the heart more so than any pretty trinkets for sale. Performing these pieces depends greatly on fine diction and the flavor of British English; the Gloriana singers did not disappoint.

Still in the realm of secular music, but leaving England, we heard three light-hearted songs. In “Le Chant des Oiseaux” by Clement Janequin (c.1485-1568), one of Paris’s foremost chanson composers, the four men dealt admirably with the song’s tricky, onomatopoeic text, its comical patter and descriptive calls of thrushes, robins, nightingales and cuckoos. The singers then delivered an upbeat, witty reading of 16th century Spanish composer Juan del Encina’s “Cucu,cucu”, a song more about adultery than ornithology. In Pierre Passereau’s “Il est bel et bon”, in which two country women brag about their husbands, the singers combined the chanson’s grace and lightness with its hints of rustic directness and double entendres.


The young man singing to his lady-love in Orlando di Lasso’s “Matona mia cara” is a German, probably a soldier; the song, a parody of how Germans spoke in broken Italian, With much animation, the singers conveyed the young man’s infatuation and the lack of subtlety of his intentions! Even more curious is “Allala pia calia”, one of six “moresches” composed by Lasso in a dialect influenced by Moors living in Renaissance Italy. Enjoying the theatrical antics of this flamboyant, unabashedly bawdy villanella, the Gloriana singers took on board its rhythmic and syllabic effects, allowing for an imaginative and richly dynamic performance.
The program presented a number of sacred works. In Orlando di Lasso’s luminous motet “Justorum Animae”, the singers presented the piece’s rich texture, its unique tenderness and hope. Lasso’s curious motet “Super Flumina Babylonis” Psalm 136 (137), speaking of the Hebrews in captivity in Babylon, saw the singers lending whimsy to the game Lasso plays with syllables and the comical spelling out of letters and words in his strange form of humor. A pivotal work in sacred section of the program was (some of) Venetian composer Giovanni Croce’s “Nove Lamentatione”, a lofty, spiritual piece sung to texts from the Book of Lamentations. In the program notes, Dr. Alon Schab (Haifa University) wrote about this mysteriously unknown work, whose original parts are in the Münster Regional Ecumenical Library (Germany). With Hillel Sherman reading the text of each section, the male singers, conducted by Joel Sivan, took listeners into the pious and mournful mood of Lamentations, allowing time to place phrases strategically, these phrase endings carefully shaped. On a lighter note, the quintet performed Mantuan Jewish violinist and composer Salamone Rossi’s “Hallelujah” (Psalm 146) from the composer’s 1622 groundbreaking collection of Hebrew motets, always a crowd-pleaser and for good reasons!

William Byrd’s wonderfully contemplative and stately “Confirma Hoc Deus” boasts two superb soprano magical parts, here, not entirely matched in timbre by Noar Lee Naggan’s reedy countertenor sound and Lucie Bloch’s delicate, slimmer soprano voice. This was followed by Thomas Tallis’ small anthem “O Nata Lux”, suitably bathed in “light”, its homophonic texture colored with cross-rhythms harmonic dicords to evoke the suffering conveyed in its text.

With a new line-up of singers, Ensemble Gloriana has much to offer its audience in the way of polished, well-informed performance, fine intonation, excellent diction and interesting repertoire. Some singers are more communicative with the audience than others. Pieces conducted by Joel Sivan fared better than those not; his warm, blending voice provides the ideal bass line for Renaissance and Baroque music. Noar Lee Naggan's sturdy countertenor voice adds body to the general sound Lucie Bloch’s creamy, delicate voice and Noar Lee Naggan’s pithy vocal timbre do not always find a meeting point. But the group's performance is stylish, delving into the profound and spiritual mood of scacred music and reaching out generously to the insouciance inherent in secular vocal repertoire of the time.

The Jerusalem Oratorio Chamber Choir at Christ Church, Jerusalem

The Jerusalem Oratorio Chamber Choir performed its final concert for the 2012-2013 season at Christ Church in Jerusalem’s Old City. Completing his first year as full-time musical director of the ensemble, Ofer dal Lal conducted the singers in the concert, with Dror Schweid at the piano. The 30-member Chamber Choir is the representative ensemble of the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir, regularly performing in churches and concert venues in Israel and overseas. The Jerusalem Oratorio Choir is supported by the Israeli Ministry of Culture and the Jerusalem Municipality.

Ofer dal Lal is a graduate of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where he studied choral conducting with Professor Stanley Sperber, orchestral conducting with Professor Eitan Globerson and composition with Professor Menachem Zur. He is presently taking graduate studies in choral conducting with Mr. Ronen Borshevsky and orchestral conducting with Mr. Yi-An Xu at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, Tel Aviv. Dal Lal has long served as assistant to both Professor Sperber and Mr, Ronen Borshevsky and conducted the premiere of "Loquimini Veritatem" by Israeli composer Sarah Shoham in 2012.

Works performed in the evening’s program spanned the 15^th to 20^th centuries. The concert opened with Franco-Flemish composer Guillaume Dufay’s (1400-1474) Marian antiphon “Ave Maris Stella” (Hail, Star of the Sea), the chant setting we heard performed cleanly and with elegance; vocal parts were clearly delineated, with the plainchant melody remaining audible. This was followed by the somewhat enigmatic English composer Richard Nicholson’s (1570-1639) setting of “Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem”, an anthem highlighting “sound” and melody, but constructed with rather static harmonies. More interesting was Ofer dal Lal’s 5-voiced vocal setting of John Dowland’s “Flow My Tears”, a lute song reworked several times by the composer himself, by Byrd, Morley, Farnaby and others, also cited by poets and playwrights. Dal Lal’s reading of it drew attention to the poem and its key words (“happy” for example in this gloomy setting!), an emphasis practised by Dowland’s contemporaries in light of the enriched beauty of Elizabethan language. In a lighter vein, there was a pleasing, dynamic performance of Dowland’s whimsical madrigal “Come Away”, its double-entendres amusing, at the same time enumerating a lady’s disdain and rejection.

Two late sacred works by W.A.Mozart (1756-1791) constituted a major section of the concert. In lieu of a string orchestra, Dror Schweid accompanied the singers on the (unfortunately out-of-tune) piano. The first was Mozart’s exquisitely simple and compact “Ave Verum Corpus” K.618 (Hail, true Body), with dal Lal and his singers bringing out the piece’s meditational, tranquil, otherworldly mood. We then heard selected movements from Mozart’s Requiem Mass in d minor K.626. Soloist was soprano Noga Shahar.  The performance addressed the work’s sacred agenda, its drama and its pathos (the more relaxed sections sometimes a little behind the beat) in an expansive range of dynamic changes. The Requiem’s arcane counterpoint and evocation of strange liturgical archaism came together in a performance that could indeed be described as majestic and impassioned. Schweid dealt courageously with the role of evoking Mozart’s full orchestral score. 

We heard the Oratorio Chamber Choir in Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s 1843 setting of Psalm 43 “Richte mich, Gott” (Do me justice, o God), a work for eight voices but not scored as two equal choirs – rather, in gender groups. Opening with imposing singing of the lower voice motif, the various different sections of the piece contrasted well, moving into the imposing and rousing final section. The choir’s German pronunciation needs some work.

Moving into the 20^th century and back to a cappella singing, we heard Benjamin Britten’s (1913-1976) “A Hymn to the Virgin” for two choirs, composed (in 1930, revised 1934) to an anonymous text. The ensemble gave a convincing performance of the piece, addressing its beauty of line and spare clarity of texture. With the first choir singing the text in English, the second – Naomi Brill Engel, Orna Harari, Shlomo Tirosh and Benny Schwarzwald, placed in the balcony – responded in Latin, creating a concept close to the format of traditional English devotional music.

With events in Israel currently celebrating composer Tzvi Avni’s 85^th birthday, it was indeed fitting that the Oratorio Chamber Choir should perform a work of his. Avni’s “Piyutim LeShabbat” (Sabbath Melodies), a work composed in 1971 and based on Babylonian Jewish Melodies, constitutes one of several works in which Avni (b. 1927, Germany) has created an individual synthesis of oriental elements with his own personal musical language. A work of delicate textures and gentle dissonances, the ensemble gave Avni’s articulate choral writing and simple melodies that merge in flowing lines a pleasing reading. Shira Cohen was soloist.

The ensemble performed three Afro-American spirituals with infectious enjoyment. The members’ singing was confident and well-shaped, their English pronunciation suitably leaning towards the American. Elia Talbar Reznik’s earthy, well-endowed voice made for a fine and spirited solo in “Daniel”.

The program concluded with a work by one of today’s most important British composers of church music - organist, choral conductor and composer Colin Mawby (b.1936). In an interview with Kevin Mayhew, Mawby was quoted as saying “My composition is instinctive and I take no notice of musical fashion which, I feel militates against the sense of the spiritual…I try and write music that speaks to people’s souls, music that listeners can respond to emotionally and spiritually”. His “Ave Verum Corpus”, composed in 1978 for eight voices and organ (or orchestra) ended the concert on a tranquil and devotional note. Ofer dal Lal and his singers gave expression to the work’s stately, contemplative mood, its lush, sonorous texture of autumnal harmonies, set off by splendid melodiousness.

With much fine singing and a strong sense of collaboration between conductor and singers, the Jerusalem Oratorio Chamber Choir gave the audience a rich sampling of the many styles of music in its repertoire and what we may expect in the future.

Maarten Engeltjes and Israel Golani with the Barrocade Ensemble at the May 2013 Abu Gosh Festival

Maarten Engeltjes and Israel Golani (photo:Martin Nota)

Concert no.2 of the 43^rd Abu Gosh Vocal Festival featured two artists from the Netherlands –

countertenor Maarten Engeltjes and Israeli-born theorbo-, Baroque guitar and lute player Israel Golani, together with harpsichordist and organist Yizhar Karshon and members of the Barrocade Ensemble.  The concert took place on May 14^th 2013 in the Kiryat Yearim Church of the Ark of the Covenant, 10 kilometers west of Jerusalem, in the Jerusalem Hills.

Born in 1984, Maarten Engeltjes began singing as a boy soprano at age four. His countertenor debut was at age 16 with performances in works of Bach and Händel. In 2003, he was selected to participate in a master class run by Michael Chance; this led to a joint concert. A graduate of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague (2007), Engeltjes has been coached by Andreas Scholl and his former teacher Richard Levitt and is the recipient of prestigious prizes. Today he runs a busy international performing schedule, records and premieres new works. This Abu Gosh concert was the singer’s Israeli concert debut.

Having graduated with honors in Musicology from Tel Aviv University, Israel Golani studied performance on historical plucked instruments with Fred Jacobs at the Sweelinck Conservatory (Amsterdam) and Elizabeth Kenny at the London Royal Conservatory of Music. He has been involved in projects with the Flanders Opera, the Holland Opera and Opera Studio Nederland. In 2005, he directed “Ballo Cantabile” – a production of modern dance and Baroque music. Together with Maarten Engeltjes, he performed in the Junge Elite concert series at the 2009 Mecklenberg-Vorpommern Festival in northern Germany.

Maarten Engeltjes and Israel Golani’s performance of a number of John Dowland’s (1563-1625) lute songs formed a major part of the concert. Elgeltjes and Golani, seated together, presented the individual character and message of each of these small jewels, most of which tell of love affairs gone wrong or going wrong. In Engeltjes and Golani’s reading of Dowland’s hallmark pavan-ayre “Flow My Tears” the text was treated with ongoing interest and subtlety; tinged with sadness and dynamic changes, including finely controlled pianissimi, they presented different aspects of the text, the word “happy” proving to be merely another shade of Dowland’s melancholy!  With “Sorrow Stay” and “In Darkness Let Me Dwell” we move with them into the most lachrymose of Dowland’s songs; together the artists color the songs with heartbreak, pausing on such key words as “pity” in the former, in the latter, allowing for Dowland’s dissonances to emerge, camouflaging the meter to affect the listener afresh. Dowland places all in proportion when writing that “though the title doth promise tears…no doubt pleasant are the tears which music weeps, neither are tears shed always in sorrow but sometimes in joy and gladness.”

With some interesting ornaments and flutters, small pauses and hesitations, Dowland’s “Now, O Now” was presented less as the “Frog Galliard”, however, rather more as a thoughtful, reticent utterance. (Both titles are thought to have referred to Queen Elizabeth I’s final suitor for marriage -refused by her- the French Duc d’Alençon, in England from 1579 to 1581, a small, ugly man but a fine dancer. She referred to him as “The Frog”.) Another galliard “Can She Excuse” probably refers to Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, who became the Queen’s court favorite after the Duc d’Alençon had parted. In their compelling performance of the song, wordy in its urgency, Engeltjes and Golani use its rhythmic quirkiness to dramatize the dilemma of the Queen’s displeasure of Devereux. In “Dear, If You Change”, a desperate attempt to prove love’s sincerity, Engeltjes and Golani move together, the singer delighting the audience with his bell-like upper register notes and fine British diction. The artists float the contemplation of feminine beauty in “Time Stands Still”, gracing its frozen, rapt wonder with superbly shaped phrase endings. Theirs is a close integration of vocal- and lute parts; Engeltjes’ gestures are compelling, his sound forthright and fresh, with Golani’s response mirroring verbal texts and moods and in constant musical dialogue with the singer.

Israel Golani’s poetic performance of Dowland’s “A Dream” displayed stylish eloquence and good taste. Playing an Allemande for lute solo by the Dutch composer and instrumentalist Nicolas Vallet (1583-1642) the artist’s delicate reading of the work used slight flexing of tempo, giving the melody natural pliancy and a sense of process.

We then heard Engeltjes, Golani (theorbo) and members of Ensemble Barrocade in Antonio Vivaldi’s (1678-1741) “Stabat Mater” RV 621. Commissioned by the Chiesa Santa Maria della Pace (Brescia, Lombardy) and first performed there in Holy Week of 1712, it was scored for the church’s in-house ensemble of two violins, viola and continuo. The soloist may well have been the prestigious male alto Filippo Sandri or, in his absence, another male alto. In any case, the Vivaldi “Stabat Mater” is countertenor repertoire. Barrocade and Engeltjes’ reading of the work expressed its pathos and tragedy, but it was fired by emotion, energy and dynamic changes, making for a sense of urgency and drama and avoiding the bleak dourness often present in many interpretations we hear of it. The singer’s buoyant and easeful handling of melismas, his tasteful and economical use of vibrato and his open, expansive and spontaneous vocal sound complemented the ensemble’s animated and articulate punctuation of the instrumental score. The one-to-a-part instrumental situation made for transparency and there was constant communication between instrumentalists and singer.

Maarten Engeltjes and the instrumentalists concluded the concert with the first aria of J.S.Bach’s (1680-1750) cantata “Widerstehe doch der Sünde” (Just Resist Sin) BWV 54 (1714), the first of four cantatas written for the alto soloist and possibly the first solo cantata. Although a strict da capo aria, its dissonant opening chord and tensely throbbing rhythm are unconventional, clearly inspired by the ominous text of Georg Christian Lehms that focuses on the stealthy poisoning of the soul from pervading sin.
‘Just resist sin.
Lest its poison seize you.
Don’t let Satan blind you;
For those who defile God’s honor
Will incur a curse that is deadly.’
An interesting work indeed, with the players’ incisive playing reflecting its vitriolic message, it seemed to be placed somewhat too low for Engeltjes’ voice, with his lower register not penetrating the instrumental texture with the ease he does in his higher range.