The Israel Contemporary Players host the Tremolo Ensemble in the opening concert of the 2014-2015 season

The Israel Contemporary Players, under their long-standing house conductor Zsolt Nagy, opened the 24th season with a collection of works by some of the 20th century’s greatest composers. The ensemble was joined by Ensemble Tremolo (director: Tomer Yariv) and soloists. Dan Yuhas and Zmira Lutzky serve as the ICP’s musical directors. This writer attended the concert at the Jerusalem Music Centre, Mishkenot Sha’ananim on September 21st 2014.

As in the ICP’s opening concert 23 years ago, this program opened with “Ionisation” by French-born Edgard Varèse (1883-1965). It is scored exclusively for percussion instruments: crash cymbal, bass drums, concerros (muffled cow-bells struck with a drum stick), high and low tam-tams, gong, bongos, side drum, high and low sirens, slapstick (clapper), guiros (gourd), woodblocks, claves (two wood dowels), triangles, snare drums, maracas, tarole (a high-pitched drum), suspended cymbals, sleigh bells, tubular chimes, cymbals, castanets, celesta, tambourine, anvils and piano. With only chimes, celesta and piano bearing equal-tempered pitch. “Ionisation” (1929-1931) begun six years after the composer immigrated to the USA and referred to by the composer as the “liberation of sound”, became a “landmark”, the the first of many all-percussion scores to be written in the 20th century. In what could have culminated as a chaotic din in the wrong hands, the young artists here were meticulous in bringing to life the score’s subtlety and order, with its richly layered and changing sonorities – high, medium, low but also those produced by skin, metal and wood-tone - its small groups, its homophonic and unison moments, wrenching tempo changes and the grand sonorous coda issued in by the pitched instruments (although pitch here is immaterial) - piano, celesta and chimes – finally fading away with bells, tam-tams and suspended cymbals. The precision and immediacy of the performance were as gripping as was watching it all happen.

Then to the very different sound world of Henry Cowell (1897-1965), one of the most far-reaching and open-minded musical revolutionaries of the USA, a composer who viewed any sound as musical substance with which he could work. In the “Aeolian Harp” (c.1923), a piano piece, Cowell instructs the performer to play inside the piano by sweeping, scraping, strumming and muting the strings. “Aeolian Harp” takes the ancient idea of harps being played by the wind; the piano is used as a zither, with the performer standing at the keyboard, plucking solo notes and strumming chords, while holding down keys in chord formation to produce enchanting harmonies. In his introduction to the score, the composer gives very detailed instructions as to how to produce the effects he has in mind. Pianist Naaman Wagner, using Cowell’s old-fashioned harmonic idiom in this new setting, fashioned the work in its glistening delicacy and varied dynamics. Now based in Berlin, Naaman Wagner is a soloist and chamber musician and a regular performer with the ICP.

Naaman Wagner then performed German composer Helmut Lachenmann’s (b.1935) piano study “Guero” (1969). The piece stems from the period when the composer was defining his style of “musique concrète instrumentale” (tape music pioneer Pierre Schaefer initiated the term “musique concrète”), “in which the sound events are chosen and organized so that the manner in which they are generated is at least as important as the resultant acoustic qualities themselves…” in Lachenmann’s words. In “Guero”, the composer takes a thorough exploration of the instrument’s acoustic possibilities as his starting point and begins to build structures. The guero, or guiro is an open-ended hollow gourd with parallel notches along one side; it is played by rubbing a stick along the notches. In his program notes, Lachenmann describes “Guero” as a “six-manual variant of the eponymous Latin American instrument. Re-creating the composer’s rejection of tradition piano technique, Naaman Wagner showed the order present in the course of the piece, moving from the vertical surfaces of the white keys to their horizontal surfaces, via the black keys into the piano, playing the pegs and, finally, the strings, using the rippling sound of fingernails along the keys as the work’s basic material. Naaman Wagner is confident and convincing, enlisting the listener’s curiosity as he speaks in Lachenmann’s musical language with comfortable fluency.

Following a dangerously unproductive three year spell in Bela Bartok’s life, Concerto no.1 for Piano and Orchestra was written in 1926 along with other piano works for his upcoming concert appearances. An impressive showpiece, Bartok (1881-1945) wrote it in order to have a new piece to perform with orchestras. The solo piano role - with its large, awkward leaps, dense clusters demanding wide stretches of the hand, relentless speed and severe demands on the outer, weaker fingers - says much about the composer’s own virtuosity on the instrument. In his search for new sounds and sonorities, Bartok sees the piano as a percussion instrument. This was the last large piece in which Bartok was to use a key signature. The ICP concert included the second movement of Bela Bartok’s Concerto no.1, scored for piano, winds and percussion, but with no strings. We heard Naaman Wagner as soloist in a haunting dialogue between piano and percussion, the reverie supported by filigree percussion playing in a sensitive, searching reading of the movement.

Then to “Okho”, a unique, poly-cultural percussion work by ethnic Greek composer, theorist and architect-engineer Iannis Xanakis (1922-2001), scored for three performers on djembe and bass drum and premiered in Paris in 1989. A naturalized French citizen, the composer wrote the work for celebrations of the French Bicentennial. The djembe, or djembé, is a rope-tuned, skin-covered goblet drum originally from West Africa. It is powerful and resonant and can produce a variety of sounds. A study in repetition and different ways of introducing irregularity, the work has six sections, each different in intensity, tempo and rhythmic texture. Lior Eldad, Ziv Kaplan and Daniel Solomonov, each playing a number of drums, gave a precise, polished and totally engaging performance. As it proceeded, one’s ear began to pick up on an interesting play of pitches.

Of his “Music for Pieces of Wood” (1973), American composer Steve Reich wrote that the work had grown out of “a desire to make music with the simplest possible instruments…Performed by five players, its rhythmic structure is based entirely on the process of rhythmic build-ups or the substitution of beats for rests, and is in three sections of decreasing pattern lengths: 6/4, 4/4, 3/4.” Pitch is established by the wooden claves, but once the piece has begun, this becomes a background sound basis. Each of the three sections employs a new progression to build density and is connected to the neighboring section via the basic quarter note pulse presented by the first player. In solos, smaller combinations and tutti, Lior Eldad, Daniel Solomonov, Nadav Ovadia, Tomer Galili and Oded Geizhals exhibited amazing intensity of concentration and inter-communication in the work, the text of which is written in precise notation but with instructions to repeat each bar “approximately” the number of times indicated.

The program ended as it left the audience right at the turn of the 21st century with Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s (1923-2006) “With Pipes, Drums, Fiddles” (2000), a setting of poems by Hungarian poet Sándor Weöres for mezzo-soprano and four percussionists playing the following instruments: triangle, crotales (antique cymbals), pair of cymbals (high, with a coughing sound), cymbal (sounding like a broken pot), 2 suspended cymbals (high, low), tam-tam or gong (low), 2 cowbells (one dull, one lower), Japanese bell (high), Japanese “rin” temple bells (tuned), Burmese gongs (tuned), tubular bells, 3 snare drums, 2 high rototoms (rotary drums), bongo or conga (tuned), 3 bongos, tambourine, 2 tom-toms (one low but not resonant), log drum, wood drum (muffled), low slit drum, 2 bass drums (medium, low), 4 temple blocks, woodblock, sandpaper blocks, claves, castanets, Japanese wooden rattle, sistrum (rattle), chimes (unpitched), maraca, ratchet, guiro, vibraslap (stiff wire connecting a wood ball to a hollow box), large whip, 2 slide whistles, railway whistle, 2 police whistles, 2 siren whistles, metal pipe, sopranino ocarina in F, 2 soprano ocarinas in C, 3 recorders (soprano, alto, tenor), 4 Hohner M270 chromonicas, lion’s roar, 2 flexatones (flexible metal sheet suspended in a wire frame), glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, 2 marimbas and bass marimba. Joining the highly skilful percussionists was Israeli contralto Noa Frenkel, a highly versatile and gregarious contralto with a rich palette of colors, a singer with a repertoire spanning from Renaissance to contemporary music. She gave superb insight into each of the seven miniatures, with their play of the surreal and the absurd. From the first utterance of the opening song, “Ballad”, performed with abundant chest voice, wild facial expression and uncanny laughter, she swept the audience into a world governed by the unpredictable:

‘A mountain walks.

Another mountain comes towards it.

The wolves howl:

Do not crush us!

I am a mountain.

You, too, are a mountain.

We are indifferent to that.’

Frenkel collaborates closely with the ensemble: in the homophonic “Chinese Temple”, the effect is decidedly bizarre as she uses her voice is as an unpitched bell. “Bitter-Sweet”, evocative and melodious, is the closest piece to a strophic Hungarian folk song, whereas in “Parakeet” Frenkel creates colorful patter in gibberish. Noa Frenkel and the instrumentalists had the audience sitting at the edge of their seats as they presented the theatrical work in all its modernist complexity colored by both childish directness and sophistication with a touch of melancholy. Weöres spoke of art as a land of possibility rather than reality or, rather, “it describes level of reality beneath the troubled surface.”

The Israel Contemporary Players’s opening concert for the 2014-2015 season presented some landmarks of modern music. It was a celebration of fine performance, much of it percussion-centred, of rigorous preparation, deep enquiry into the works and conviction of the musical message of each. It was also a celebration of the outstanding, high level of young Israeli performers.

The Vengerov Festival at the Charles Bronfman Auditorium, Tel Aviv

Following its Tokyo success, the Vengerov Festival was brought to Israel, taking place September 19th and 20th 2014 at the Charles Bronfman Auditorium, Tel Aviv. This writer attended the second of the two Tel Aviv concerts, that on September 20th. A concert of two Russian works, it featured conductor Vag Papian, the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion and Maxim Vengerov himself both as solo violinist and conductor. The concert was moderated by Yossi Schiffmann.

Maxim Vengerov is one of today’s greatest violinists. Born in 1974, he began his solo career at age 5, making his first recording at age 10. In 2007, he turned his attention to conducting, studying with Vag Papian and Yuri Simonov, making his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall. In 2010, he became first chief conductor of the Gstaad Festival Orchestra. Maestro Vengerov divides his time between violin performance, conducting and teaching; he also serves on competition juries. He is visiting professor of the Swiss Menuhin Academy and Menuhin Professor at the Royal Academy of Music. Maxim Vengerov’s plans include the launch of his own recording label VMV (Vengerov Music Vision). He plays on an ex-Kreutzer Stradivarius (1727) violin.

In March of 1878, recovering from his failed marriage and a botched suicide attempt, Piotr Ilych Tchaikovsky (1843-1893) living temporarily in Clarens, Switzerland, sketched his Violin Concerto in D major within eleven days. Visiting him there, his student and friend Yosif Kotek offered him advice on violin matters. On April 1st, the composer and Yosif played through the concerto for Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest. Both Modest and Yosif thought the slow movement to be weak. Four days later, the composer wrote a new slow movement. By April 11th the concerto, dedicated to the great violinist Leopold Auer, was complete. Auer, however, dismissed the piece as unplayable and Tchaikovsky, deeply hurt, feared the work would end up in “the limbo of the hopelessly forgotten”. When the work was finally premiered in 1881 by violinist Hans Richter in an under-rehearsed performance by the Vienna Philharmonic, music critic Eduard Hanslick wrote that he now realized there was music “whose stink one can hear”, claiming that the violin was “no longer played”, rather “pulled about, torn, beaten black and blue”. Auer was later to change his mind, considering the concerto “difficult” but not unplayable and the work’s innate lyricism and popularity has pushed Hanslick’s offensive remarks into obscurity.

We heard Maxim Vengerov as solo violinist in Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D major for violin and orchestra, Op.35, with Vag Papian conducting the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion in a performance which was both exciting and tasteful, a performance presenting the heart of the music rather than a show of violin acrobatics. Vengerov’s palette of color, technique and emotion was drawn on strategically, each musical gesture articulate and paced well as he presented the work’s lyricism, playfulness, intensity and its big heart. Vengerov’s technical ease and virtuosity is never exhibitionistic, never standing in the way of musicality and eloquence. The performance’s strength was the sensitive collaboration between Papian, orchestra and Vengerov, a balance between the concerto’s sheer melodiousness, the composer’s fragility of soul in the Canzonetta:Andante movement, for example, and the devil-may-care, folk-like joy of the final Allegro vivacissimo. Vag Papian wields magical control, creating fine balance between soloist and orchestra, between tutti, solo passages and orchestral “asides”, as he presents a musical canvas to delight the senses. The Rishon LeZion Orchestra boasts a collection of very fine players, as heard in several poignant wind solos interspersed throughout the work.

Then to a very different realm of Russian music with Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s (1844-1908) “Scheherazade” Symphonic Suite Op.35, composed in the summer of 1888 and premiered in November of that year in St. Petersburg, with the composer conducting. The score calls for two flutes, two piccolos, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones and tuba, tympani, triangle, cymbals, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, tam-tam, harp and strings. Consisting of separate, unconnected episodes and pictures, the work was inspired by “The Arabian Nights”, a collection of Arabic, Persian and Indian tales. This choice reflects the composer’s attraction to faraway places, to fantasy and the exotic. On a holiday in Bakchisaray in central Crimea in 1874, Rimsky-Korsakov was intoxicated by the sounds he heard. “It was while hearing the gypsy musicians of Bakchisaray” he wrote “that I first became acquainted with oriental music in its natural state, and I believe I caught the main features of its character”. He prefaced the “Scheherazade” score with a reminder of the story behind the collection of stories: to sabotage Sultan Shahahriar’s vow to kill each of his wives after the wedding night, the Sultana Scheherazade spins an intricate web of tales, one each night for 1001 nights, ultimately fascinating the sultan and winning him over. Later, in his autobiography “My Musical Life”, the composer denied the work’s programmatic content, claiming that the music depicted no actual characters or episodes and that “all these seeming leitmotifs are nothing but pure musical material…to direct only slightly the listener’s path that my own fancy had traveled…that the hearer…should carry away the impression that it is undoubtedly an oriental narrative…” The work quickly became a favorite Romantic concert piece and a prominent work of descriptive symphonic repertoire.

Following intermission at the Tel Aviv concert, one noticed an unusual prop placed adjacent to the conductor’s podium - a table. This served the purpose of conductor and soloist, both roles to be performed by Maxim Vengerov as he alternated each role deftly, his mellifluous solo parts (perhaps as the story-teller) reappearing to introduce or “comment” on each movement. From the fierce and commanding opening theme, Vengerov had the audience listening actively as the work unfolded in its mysterious and magical moments, its urgency and its yearning. Vengerov shaped the music with passion and affection, his conducting language as expressive and precise as his playing, bringing the score to life and leading the orchestra into some powerful climaxes. Rimsky-Korsakov’s score abounds in virtuoso opportunities for principal players in the orchestra and these, together with the percussion section’s many gestures, were a handsome-sounding treat for the audience to hear and to view. Going for crisp textures and transparency of sound, Vengerov invited his orchestra and listeners to step into the world of fairy tales, fantasy, drama and caprice and to savor the brilliance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s marvelous orchestration.

For the encore, we heard “Meditation”, a symphonic intermezzo from Jules Massenet’s lyric opera “Thaïs” (1893), with Maxim Vengerov rendering its honeyed melodies suggestive of sweet and poignant tenderness, sorrow, tenderness and drama. This ended a festive concert of works both popular and familiar to audiences, a program of concert-hall favorites, played, however, with the freshness and discovery that lodge a safe distance from pedestrianism.

Bach Suites for Solo 'Cello at the 2014 Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival

The 17th Jerusalem International Festival of Chamber Music took place at the Jerusalem International YMCA from September 4th to 13th 2014. Well attended, the concerts attracted music-lovers from far and wide. This year’s concerts commemorated “two diverse but, each in their own way, highly significant anniversaries…the centenary of the outbreak of World War I…[and] the 160th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss”… in the words of pianist Elena Bashkirova, the festival’s artistic director. Another focus of the festival was the chamber sextet. With the 2014 Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival drawing to a close, this writer attended a concert on September 12th , a program very different in format to the typical JICMF program – three of J.S.Bach’s Six Suites for Unaccompanied ‘Cello, each performed by a different ‘cellist.

Gabriel Schwabe, born 1988 in Berlin to German-Spanish parents, began playing the ‘cello at age nine, studying under Prof. Catalin Ilea at the University of the Arts (Berlin) from 2000 to 2008. The recipient of many prestigious prizes, a soloist, chamber musician and recitalist, he has been artistic director of the “Resonanzen Siegburg” chamber music since 2012. Gabriel Schwabe plays a ‘cello by Francesco Ruggieri (Cremona, 1674). Pablo Casals, who in 1889, at the age of 13, found a copy of the suites in a used music store, eventually saving them from the fate of didactic exercises and restoring them to their rightful status as ‘cello works of primary importance, characterized Suite no.2 in d minor as “tragic”. Opening the Prelude in a spontaneous, slightly flexed manner, Schwabe’s strategic playing breathed freshness and a constantly lively presence of sound. Characterized by the contrast between fast runs and arpeggios in high- and low register, the artist guided the listener through the many gestures of the Allemande with a vivid, singing sound. Following a feisty, coherent, highly spirited reading of the Courante, Schwabe’s treatment of the Sarabande was meditative and intimate, his tone broad, as he explored the mysteries of the movement. Excitement, intensity and dissonance mingled with the carefree joie-de-vivre of the Gigue, concluding the performance with a sense of freedom. Choosing discrete, minimal use of vibrato, Gabriel Schwabe’s playing of the work spoke of personal involvement and youthful energy.

Born in 1982 to musician parents in Rochester, New York, Alisa Weilerstein began ‘cello studies at age four, making her debut at age 13 with the Cleveland Orchestra with Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme”. As a soloist, she has performed widely. An active chamber musician, Weilerstein also performs with her father violinist Donald Weilerstein and mother Vivian Hornik Weilerstein as the Weilerstein Trio. Highly involved in contemporary music, Alisa Weilerstein has worked extensively with composers Osvaldo Golijov, Lera Auerbach and Joseph Hallman. She is the recipient of several awards. Alisa Weilerstein plays on a 1790 William Forster ‘cello. At the festival concert, she played Suite no.3 in C major. Presenting the Prelude’s cascading 16th notes and shifting patterns with huge dynamic interest, virtuosity and temperament, Weilestein, taking the movement to its rich chordal cadenza with all its rhetorical impact, was in her element and promising to keep the audience at the edge of their seats. In the Allemande, the artist used Bach’s turns, double-stops and thirty-second notes to present the movement’s hide-and-seek elasticity and originality, still weaving some sweetness and naïveté through it. Following Weilerstein’s gregariously emotional and spectacular playing of the Courante, the Sarabande was taken very slowly, as she played out its languishing message out note by note, with melodic lines free of ornaments, save for slight vibrato used to color longer notes. Choosing to play Bourrée I with charm and elegance, her detached notes rendering it light-of-foot, Bourrée II was more singing and serious, with a tinge of pain. The Gigue, shifting from the tender to the vehement, from calm to urgency, the occasional dissonant moment hinting here at the common jig-like folk dance, bristled festively with positive energy. Weilerstein’s eye-to-eye rapport with the broad, bold character of the C major scale went hand-in-glove with her ample use of the low c string and its dramatic resonance.

Born in Moscow in 1961, Alexander Kniazev began ‘cello studies at age six, graduating from the Moscow Conservatory in 1986. Also an organist, he then graduated from the Nizhny-Novgorod Conservatory as an organ major in 1991. A soloist and chamber musician, Kniazev has won prizes in prestigious competitions. As well as performing, he teaches at the Moscow Conservatory and gives master classes in Europe and Asia. Bach’s works have always been of supreme importance to Kniazev. His recording of the complete Bach Suites for Solo ‘Cello was released in 2004 on the Warner Classics label. In his own words, “I try to find a reading of Bach’s music that must first and foremost be very animated…In no way should you attempt to make a ‘museum’ out of it.” At the Jerusalem concert, he performed Bach’s Solo ‘Cello Suite no. 5 in c minor, the only of the suites for which a Bach autograph exists. The work calls for the top string of the ‘cello to be lowered from an “a” to a “g” (scordatura), strengthening the c minor chord overtones. Using plenty of vibrato, Kniazev set the scene for the work with an intense, brooding reading of the mammoth Prelude, addressing its motifs and melodic lines in detail, its Allegro section lighter but still in a serious vein. The artist then brought out the large Allemande’s pensive, somewhat vulnerable character, allowing its melodic strands to dictate flexibility of pace and sound. The Courante was no romp, with Kniazev laying emphasis on its irregular shapes and voice-play. His playing of the Sarabande was probing and deeply emotional, its single line of wrenching leaps and tensions brimming with sadness and pain, down to the movement’s final, hushed pianississimo utterance. Not rushed, the two Gavottes breathed delicate and dancelike naïveté, their voices engaged in conversation. Kniazev paced the Gigue with care, the soul-searching aura of the c minor scale preserved right up to the work’s concluding notes. Alexander Kniazev plays on a distinctively mellow ‘cello that belongs to the Russian State Collection. An instrument played by Piatigorsky, its pedigree reads “Bergonzi, Cremona 1733. Curiously enough, no ‘cellos are known to have been made by Bergonzi. In the 19th century, many ‘cellos produced by the Venetian instrument builder Matteo Goffriller were attributed to Bergonzi. This may be the case here.

Here was a profoundly thought-provoking program in which each artist gave the audience a glimpse into his/her engagement with Bach’s most personal ‘cello music, each holding discourse in a language beyond words.

Violinist and conductor Maxim Vengerov comes to Tel Aviv



On September 19th and 20th 2014, the Tel Aviv and Israeli concert scene will wake from its aestivation (aestivation: inactivity and lower metabolic rate in response to high temperatures…) with the first Vengerov Festival to take place in Israel. Both concerts will take place at the Charles Bronfman Auditorium, Tel Aviv. Alongside Maxim Vengerov, the concerts will feature pianist Shira Shaked, conductor Vag Papian, the Menuhin Academy Orchestra (Switzerland) and the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion.

The first program (September 19th 14:00) will not only pay homage to composers who wrote for the violin; it will pay homage to the tradition of fine violin playing itself and to some of the greatest violinists, namely Auer, Brodsky, Sarasate, Albertini and Oistrakh. We will hear Vengerov the chamber musician in works of Barber and Prokofiev and Vengerov the soloist and conductor performing Tchaikovsky and Saint-Saëns with the Menuhin Orchestra.

In the second concert (September 20th 21:00), Vengerov will solo in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major (under the baton of Vag Papian) and will both solo and conduct in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade”. Musicologist and journalist Yossi Schiffmann will host the evening’s event.

Israeli pianist Shira Shaked (b.1981), a graduate of both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Academies of Music, resides in New York and is currently studying for a doctoral degree with Prof. Gilbert Kalish at Stony Brook University, New York. She has given recitals in Israel and abroad and accompanies singers at the New Israeli Opera and the Beit Zvi School for the Performing Arts. Shira Shaked is a composer; she has recently recorded some of her music.

Conductor and pianist Vag Papian was born in 1956 in Erevan, Armenia and completed studies at the Moscow and St. Petersburg Conservatories. He took the position of associate conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra in 1984, becoming its artistic director and chief conductor in 1987. An internationally performing artist, he immigrated to Israel in 1990, has conducted several Israeli orchestras, making his conducting debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005. In 2006 he took up the appointment of artistic director of the Ashdod Symphony Orchestra and in 2008 was appointed chief conductor and artistic director of the Kazakhstan State Academic Orchestra. Vag Papian teaches piano and conducting at Tel Aviv University. As a recital partner of Maxim Vengerov, Maestro Papian has toured in Europe, the USA and the Far East, recording with Vengerov for the EMI Classic label.

Founded in 1977 and formerly known as “Camerata Lysy” and “Camerata Menuhin”, the Menuhin Academy Soloists are an ensemble consisting of gifted young string players, all of whom attend the International Menuhin Music Academy (Switzerland). There they study instrumental technique, chamber music, take master classes and workshops and have opportunities to gain solo- and ensemble concert experience. Performing with the Menuhin Academy Soloists is an integral part of the Menuhin Academy’s educational agenda.

Violinist and violist Maxim Vengerov was born in 1974 to a Jewish family with a strong musical tradition in Novosibirsk, Russia. He began his solo career at age five, making his first recording at age ten. He studied conducting at the Ippolitov-Ivanov Moscow Institute. He solos and conducts worldwide, frequently doing both in the same concert. Vengerov’s interest in many forms of musical expression has also brought him in contact with Baroque music, jazz and rock. In 2013, the Vengerov Festival was launched in Tokyo. Maxim Vengerov has a passion for teaching and encouraging young talent. He is presently visiting professor of the Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland and Menuhin Professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1997 he became the first classical musician to be appointed International Goodwill Ambassador by UNICEF. Maestro Vengerov has been hailed as one of the world’s finest musicians and has been referred to as the “greatest living string player in the world today”. He will be introducing the Soloists of the International Menuhin Music Academy to the Israeli public, an orchestra led by him internationally and recently at the acclaimed Sion Music Festival.

What makes a musical giant like Maxim Vengerov tick? Two opportunities to find out await Israeli audiences very soon. The first Vengerov Festival in Israel promises exciting concert fare!

The Jerusalem Academy Choir in concert prior to its concert tour of Hungary

On August 27th 2014, the Jerusalem Academy of Music Chamber Choir, conducted by its artistic director Professor Stanley Sperber, performed a program of a-cappella works prior to the choir’s concert tour of Hungary as guest choir of the 2014 Jewish Summer Festival. The concert took place in the Navon Hall (Giv’at Ram Campus) adjacent to the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, in the presence of Mr. Yitzhak Navon, fifth President of the State of Israel and Honorary President of the JAMD, Attorney Yair Green and other members of the Academy board of directors. Established by Avner Itai in 1969, the Academy Chamber Choir (manager: Nir Cohen) today comprises 30 singers, mostly vocal department majors training for careers in singing. The ensemble performs the gamut of choral music, appearing widely. One highlight of the choir’s 2013-2014 season was singing in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of Krzysztof Penderecki’s “Polish Requiem”, conducted by the composer himself. One of the Jerusalem Academy Chamber Choir’s upcoming performances in Hungary will take place in the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest, the largest synagogue in Europe, having seating for some 3000 people.

The evening’s program was rich in content, offering a wide selection of a-cappella mixed choir repertoire. The singers set the scene with Salamone Rossi’s 6-voiced motet “Od’cha” (Psalm 118:21-24), their natural singing voices blending to create a bright, unadulterated choral sound, allowing for the work’s meaning to shine through:

‘I thank you that you have answered me

And brought salvation to me.

The stone which the builders rejected

Has become the cornerstone…’

The choir gave a beautifully introspective performance of Henry Purcell’s “Hear My Prayer” (Psalm 102:2), its suspensions and false relations used to communicate and color the text. Sperber’s reading of William Byrd’s anthem for six voices “Sing Joyfully” (Psalm 81:2-5) uses incisive textures to fire the piece’s brilliant counterpoint and exuberance, vocal textures also evoking timbres of the timbrel, harp, viol and trumpet, all mentioned in the text.

A unique work on the program, and of Giuseppe Verdi’s oeuvre, was “Ave Maria” (1889), a motet based on a bizarre enigmatic scale devised- and advertised in a journal by a certain Adolfo Crescentini, who challenged composers to write a work using it. The aging Verdi took up the challenge, his result magical and austere, unusual in its harmonic ambiguity and a technical tour-de-force. The Academy Chamber Choir’s performance of it was soul-searching and spiritual, the members’ transparent choral sound allowing for the rising and falling cantus firmus, the “scala enigmatica”, to be followed.

A central and larger work of the program was Benjamin Britten’s “Hymn to St, Cecilia” opus 27 (text: W.H.Auden), one of the choral masterpieces of 20th century English music and a work that challenges performers on many levels – technical, emotional and interpretational. The Academy Choir’s fresh, bright and poignantly luminous timbre was wholly suited to the concept of early 20th century British (and the young Britten’s) choral sound (the boy soprano solo in the third section replaced here, for obvious reasons, by a woman soprano); Sperber and his singers worked effectively with Auden’s imaginative text and precarious transitions.

Hungarian music, of one form or another, occupied a central part of the program. There were two arrangements of pieces by Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Taub (1744-1828), the first Hassidic Rebbe of Hungary, sometimes referred to as the “sweet singer of Israel”; Yehezkel Braun’s arrangement of Taub’s “Royz, Royz” (Rose, rose) was sung in Yiddish, while “Szól a Kakas Már”(The rooster crows in the morning), a traditional Hungarian Hassidic tune arranged in lush harmonies by the choir’s associate conductor Tami Kleinhaus, was performed in Hungarian. We heard Zoltán Kodály’s arrangement of the Hungarian folksong “Esti Dal” (Evening darkness overtook me near the woods), its touching melodic beauty outlined by unaffected soprano voices set against gentle humming and, then surprisingly, Koday’s full-bodied setting of “Baruch Shem K’vod” (Blessed be the name of the glory) from the Jewish prayer book, in Hebrew! Stanley Sperber spoke of Kodaly’s interaction with Jews and his familiarity with “nussach” (traditional Jewish melody). The program also included works of Hungarian-born Israeli composers. In Oedoen Partos’s (1907-1977) fine setting of the “Mavdil” prayer (Who distinguishes), based on traditional Sephardic tunes, the choir presented the work’s strong melodiousness and ample dissonances with joy and spontaneity. Composer and ethnomusicologist Andre Hajdu (b.1932), who was a student of Kodály in Budapest, was present at the Academy concert. His tonal, playful “Arba Midot” (Four Qualities) was followed by “She’elot Habanim” (Questions of the Sons), a small but vivid canvas in which Hajdu’s writing brings to life characters from the Passover Haggadah with sharp theatrical color, humor and some references to Jewish cantillation.

Still within the realm of Jewish music, the choir performed Stanley Sperber’s arrangement of Ben Zion Shenker’s “Eshet Chayil” (A Woman of Worth), Proverbs 31:10-31. Shenker (b.1925), a Modzitz Hassid from Brooklyn, has done much to maintain the Modzitz musical tradition, but is also a leading composer of Chassidic music in his own right. “Eshet Chayil” is one of his best known Sabbath songs; the choir gave this jaunty arrangement a sympathetic and charming rendition.

Maestro Sperber then led his singers through a selection of Israeli song repertoire: following a spirited reading of Mordechai Zeira’s “Shirat Hechalil” (Song of the Flute) (arr. Michael Wolpe), the darbuka accompaniment lending zing and regional flavor, we heard a sensitive performance of David Zehavi’s “Halicha LeKesaria” (A Walk to Caesarea), in an arrangement by Shai Sobol, a graduate of the choir. Its text is by Hannah Szenes (1921-1944), a young woman who assisted in the rescue of Hungarian Jews about to be deported to Auschwitz and who was eventually tried and executed. The song was sung by the Academy Chamber Choir at Dachau two years ago. In a lighter vein, Tami Kleinhaus’s spiffy, bluesy, joyful arrangement of Yoni Rechter’s “Atur Mitzchech” (Your forehead is ornamented), then Menachem Wiesenberg’s jagged, densely textured, full-on dissonant arrangement of Yohanan Zarai’s “Vayiven Uziyahu” (And Uziyahu built) (Chronicles II, 26:9-10), a daring and interesting musical gesture on the part of the arranger and a real feat on the part of the singers!

Yehezkel Braun was born in Germany in 1922. His family moved to Mandate Palestine when he was two, where he grew up surrounded by local traditional music that was later to leave a profound influence on him as a composer. He was deeply interested in Jewish melody and Gregorian chant. Yehezkel Braun died on August 27th 2014, the very day of the Academy concert. For all present, it was especially meaningful to hear his “Hem Amru” (They said) from the Sayings of the Fathers. A work written in 2005, this is a small musical gem, one of the many by Yehezkel Braun. We were well entertained by the piece, as by the soloists, as the singers enunciated the verses articulately, presenting the many shades of wisdom and meaning of each verse.

Professor Sperber brings solo voices together to form a fine choral blend. Throughout the evening, the students performed many solos within the works. Under Stanley Sperber’s guidance, the Academy Chamber Choir excels in precision and fine intonation, in the performing of different styles and in warmth of sound resulting from good teamwork and enjoyment.

Maggie Cole and Idit Shemer perform music of Philippe Gaubert at the Felicja Blumental Music Center, Tel Aviv



 



 



A truly unique program to see the 2013-2014 Israeli concert season out was “Philippe Gaubert’s Coloring Box”, a concert performed by Israeli flautist Idit Shemer and visiting keyboard artist Maggie Cole (USA/UK). This writer attended the performance at the Felicja Blumental Music Center, Tel Aviv, on June 28th

 2014. The recital consisted solely of music for flute and piano by French composer, flautist and conductor Philippe Gaubert. Cole and Shemer have been working on the Gaubert project for a year. At the end of August, they will be resident musicians at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, New Hampshire, also making a recording of Gaubert’s works.

Philippe Gaubert (1869-1941) was one of the primary interpreters of the French flute school. His father, a cobbler and a fine amateur clarinetist, gave him his first music lessons. As a child, Gaubert took flute lessons with Jules Taffanel and later with his son the great pedagogue Paul Taffanel. In his teens, Gaubert played first flute at the Concerts du Conservatoire and the Paris Opéra, becoming assistant conductor at the Concerts du Conservatoire from 1904 and professor of flute at the Paris Conservatoire following World War I, also building up a splendid career as a conductor, particularly of modern music. His first recordings were made in 1918. He became musical director of the Paris Opéra in 1920. Gaubert was still conducting with the Opéra when it was evacuated to Cahors – his hometown – in June 1940. His oeuvre includes many chamber works, several scored for flute – reflecting the revolution in flute playing initiated by Debussy and flute builder Theobald Boehm - but also for other instruments. Gaubert also composed songs, three symphonic poems, a violin concerto, ballet music and two operas – “Fresques” (1923) and “Naïla” (1927). Today, he is probably best remembered by flautists for his editing and completion of Paul Taffanel’s comprehensive treatise “Méthode complete de flute”, published in 1923, a major treatise covering the history, theory and practice of the flute. With Gaubert a prominent flautist/composer of his day, his music is now enjoying renewed interest. In 2009, the renowned French flautist and flute teacher Nicolas Duchamp was formally commissioned by the Gaubert family to celebrate Gaubert's life, music and contribution to the French art of flute playing. This took the form of concerts performed worldwide titled "GAUBERT VIVANT!" with pianist Barbara McKenzie, premiering in Paris in 2009. Duchamp has also recorded using the famous Gaubert flute.

The concert opened with “Sicilienne”, originally composed for flute and orchestra, but better known in its setting for flute and piano, probably arranged by Gaubert himself. Other short pieces we heard were “Romance”, “Ballade” and “Madrigal”. The major works of the recital were the first two of Gaubert’s three neo Romantic/Impressionistic sonatas for flute and piano – Sonata no. 1 in A major (1917), dedicated to the memory of Paul Taffanel and Sonata no. 2 in C major (1924) dedicated to the renowned flautist and teacher Marcel Moyse. What came across throughout the concert was the fine sense of balance and give-and-take Shemer and Cole have created. Their total immersion in- and communication of Gaubert’s lyrical, delicate style (influenced much by Fauré and Debussy) took the audience on a journey of superbly crafted, lush melodic playing and suave harmonic color, imaginative transitions, pastoral associations (Sonata no.2), alluring inner voices, well crafted shapes and gentle whimsy. More intense moments were treated subtly, never tainted by excessive drama or roughness, the artists also keeping a safe distance from over-sentimentality in the works’ many intimate, gossamer-fine and mellifluous moments. Here were two artists offering polished, secure performance, fine collaboration and good taste. Gaubert offers the flute some sparkling, virtuosic passagework, his keyboard writing challenging, pianistic and by no means secondary; Cole and Shemer, however, used the music’s technical challenges to lend prominence to the music’s elegantly French aesthetic.

American-born Maggie Cole began playing piano as a child. An interest in early keyboards led her to England, where she studied harpsichord with Jill Severs and Kenneth Gilbert. Today she performs internationally on piano, harpsichord and fortepiano. She is a prominent figure on the early music scene. With an avid interest in the Classical style, she explores it with Trio Goya, in which she is joined by violinist Kati Debretzeni and ‘cellist Sebastian Comberti. A member of the Sarasa Ensemble, Cole frequently appears with them on harpsichord and fortepiano. She also has much interest in performing contemporary music. Residing in London, Maggie Cole is involved in community issues and active as a promoter of concerts, running concerts at London Lighthouse to raise money for this AIDS/HIV facility.

In addition to modern flute, Jerusalem-born Idit Shemer performs on early flutes. She studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, the University of Wisconsin (USA) and in England. Performing in Israel and Europe, Shemer frequently appears as soloist with the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra, also playing in chamber groups and has recorded four CDs in recent years. Such composers as Oded Assaf, Oded Zehavi and Haim Alexander have composed works for her. Seeking to expand the repertoire for flute, she looks for original, unknown works and also arranges music written for other instruments. Apart from performing and teaching, Idit Shemer writes prose, has published two novels, the first having won the Prime Minister’s Prize.

"Spanish Soul" - Hadas Faran Asia, Ira Givol, Oded Shuv at the 45th Abu Gosh Vocal Music Festival

One of the more intimate events of the 45th Abu Gosh Vocal Music Festival was “Spanish Soul – Lorca, De Falla, Bizet”, an afternoon concert June 7th in the crypt of the 12th century Abu Gosh Crusader Benedictine Church. Those performing were soprano Hadas Faran Asia, ‘cellist Ira Givol and guitarist Oded Shouv. In this, their first performing project together, the artists took the listener on a short historical tour through vocal- and instrumental Spanish music from the 15th century through to music of the 20th century, beginning with anonymous songs. Oded Shouv gave explanations on the various works, also providing most of the arrangements for the program.

One interesting arrangement was the merging of “Mille Regretz”, a chanson attributed to Josquin des Prez (c.1440-1521), with a version of the same text composed 100 years later by Luis de Narváez (fl.1526-1549) titled “La Canción del Emperador” (The Emperor’s Song) .

‘A thousand regrets at deserting you

And leaving behind your loving face.

I feel so much sadness and such painful distress

That it seems to me my days will soon dwindle away.’

An interesting work, and one probably unfamiliar to many of us in the audience, was G.F.Händel’s secular ‘Spanish’ Cantata “Nò se emenderà jamàs” (1707), an early composition from the composer’s Italian period and the only Händel cantata in the Spanish language, calling for obbligato guitar. Perfectly scored for this trio, the artists gave it a spirited and communicative performance, celebrating Händel’s only, somewhat enigmatic foray into Spanish music. In addition to being a poet, painter, pianist and arranger, Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) collected songs from singers in Spain. We heard three of his arrangements of these, set by him for voice and piano, rearranged by Oded Shouv for guitar and voice. Beginning with the off-beat rhythms of the untamed “Anda Jaleo” (Go Make a Row), to the sultry 15th century “La Morillas de Jaén” (Jaén’s Morals) to the vivid and exuberant “Viva Sevilla!” there was much fine collaboration between the two artists, with Faran Asia infusing the songs with verve, emotion and spontaneity and Shouv displaying real expertise and virtuosity in the Flamenco style. A friend of Lorca, Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) was influenced by Flamenco-, gypsy music and by Impressionism. His “Siette Canciones Populares” (Seven Popular Songs) of 1914 feature songs from different regions of Spain, their pre-existing melodies and authentic texts arranged somewhat freely by the composer. Via the music’s fiery rhythms, its poignant moments, colorful scoring and textures and its intense dance rhythms, Faran-Asia, Shouv and Givol painted a scene of vivid Spanish colors and temperament. Punctuating the intensity and movement, time stood still in their poignant performance of the fragile lullaby “Nana”. A splendid arrangement of the Habanera and Seguidilla from Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen” was the final vocal work on the program, with Faran Asia wholeheartedly depicting Carmen as a sensuous, fickle and hot-blooded character. Altogether, her temperament and vocal timbre and agility suit this musical genre; her performance was rewarding.

Offering a glimpse into Spanish instrumental music, Oded Shouv and Ira Givol gave a brilliant and dynamic reading of a Ricercada of Diego Ortiz (c.1510-1570), a clean, precise and athletic performance of Gaspar Sanz’ (1640-1710) “Canarios” - a lively, syncopated dance from the Canary Islands (originally written for the five-course Baroque guitar) - and a movement from Falla’s ballet “The Three-Cornered Hat” arranged by Shuv, in which the artists used instrumental effects to describe the situation involving the two main characters - an infatuated, macho judge and the miller’s gentle, faithful wife.

Offering an attractive program in the fine acoustics of the Crypt, these three artists, each known individually to the concert-going public, provided a polished and totally enjoyable musical event. This was excellent festival fare.