The third Joel Engel Festival takes place at the Jerusalem music Centre

Shirelle Dashevsky (photo: Sergey Reutsky)

The third concert of the second joel Engel Festival took place at the Jerusalem Music centre, Mishkenot Sha’ananim on April 30th 2018. In an ongoing project initiated by David Ben Gershon and endorsed by the work of soprano Shirelle Dashevsky, artistic director of the festival, this was another event reintroducing the significant body of music from the St. Petersburg- and Moscow schools of Jewish music of the early 20th century to the concert stage and to public awareness. In close collaboration with Ben Gershon, soprano Shirelle Dashevsky and fellow musicians have performed and recorded some of this repertoire. At the Jerusalem concert, dashevsky was once again at the helm, directing the choir of twelve professional singers. Speaking in Russian, David Ben Gershon spoke about the composers, their works, times and lives.  Pianist Haim Tukachinsky, who accompanied most beautifully throughout the evening, translated the information into Hebrew for non-Russian-speaking audience members. 

The program opened with  Lazare Saminsky’s choral  “Ya’aleh” (May it rise) from the Day of Atonement service. In Saminsky’s “By the River of Babylon” (Psalm 137), Dashevsky’s solo utterances were answered by the choir, the picturesque song abounding in 4th harmonies, drama, with the dream of Jerusalem effectively evoked in pastel sounds, also in the piano accompaniment.  With many Jews studying at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, it was Rimsky Korsakov who urged them to write in their natural, folk style. Following “Louder than a lark singing” Rimsky Korsakov,(text: Tolstoy; soloist: Oxana Dorfman), we heard soprano Natalia Haimova in the delicate atmospheric and virtuosic demands of  “Oriental Romance”.

In his obituary to Joseph Achron, his friend Arnold Schoenberg described Achron  as "one of the most underrated modern composers". Joseph Achron, who joined the Society for Jewish Folk Music in 1911, from then occupying himself in theory and practice with the Jewish music tradition. We heard ‘cellist Hodaya Weltz and Tukachinsky in an evocative, songful and richly-coloured reading of Achron’s “Mystic Fragment”. This was followed by two choral arrangements of Yiddish songs by Achron, the first lilting and humorous, the second ““In Zaltsikn Yam” (In the Salty Sea), a Yiddish workers’ song, to a poem of S. An-sky, more dramatic and intense.

An especially moving moment moment of the evening was Dashevsky, Weltz and Tukachinsky’s profound and expressive performance of Ephraim Shklar’s setting of Yehuda Halevi’s “Yafeh Nof”, also known as “Jerusalem”. Shklar was one of the young composers who founded the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music in 1908. On a lighter note, the choir performed  Shklar’s setting of the Yiddish “Alte Kashe” (Old Riddle), a song both philosophical and humorous, light, illusive and dancelike, the singers’ use of consonants giving its melodies much life and shape. Shklar died in the Riga Ghetto.

Of Moshe Milner’s repertoire of Yiddish songs, we heard soprano Natalia Haimova in poignant singing of  “Der Foygel” (The Bird) from his collection of songs for children titled “Zehn Kinderlider fun Y.L. Perets” for voice and piano (1922), poetic settings of children’s poems by the Polish-Jewish poet Yitschak Leyb Perets.

Joel Engel (1868-1927), a Jewish composer, critic and ethnographer known as “The Father of Jewish Music,” began arranging Jewish folk melodies in the 1890s.  His lectures and compositions were a major inspiration to younger musicians to compose their own classical works inspired by Eastern European Jewish folk music. “Agvania” (Tomato), an early Israeli agricultural song by Engel, was given a jaunty, almost jazzy interpretation, with tenor Uri Elkayam singing the solo. The concert continued with some sections of the first Hebrew-language opera “HaHalutzim” (The Pioneers) composed by Jacob Weinberg in Palestine ( Israel) in 1924. The opera is written as a dramatic, comic piece, its plot including a love story. It expresses Zionism in its purest and most romantic form. Its last performance took place in Carnegie Hall in 1949 before receiving new life in Israel at the 2nd Joel Engel Festival, but the complete opera has yet to be staged in Israel. Ben Gershon and Dashevsky have plans for that. Shirelle Dashevsky’s  wholehearted, theatrical and expressive rendering of Leah’s Aria (text: Song of Songs) reflected all the strong emotions of the opera, with Tukachinsky’s accompaniment highlighting the opera’s full, at times, oriental canvas.  The choir followed with the “Sabbath Song’ and “Hymn to Eretz Israel” choruses.

Shirelle Dashevsky’s plan was to end with another choral setting of “Ya’aleh”, this time by Joel Engel. It was a treat to hear a chamber choir of such a superb standard and some very fine soloists. David Ben Gershon and Shirelle Dashevsky are engaged in an important project, guaranteeing that these composers’ legacy will not sink into oblivion.

 

David Ben Gershon (photo: Sergey Reutsky)

French Exotica - the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra in Couperin's Leçons de ténèbres and on imaginary visits to faraway lands and cultures

David Shemer,Myrna Herzog,Ophira Zakai,Yeela Avital,Anat Czarny (Eliahu Feldman)

“French Exotica”, Concert No.5 of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra’s 2017-2018 season, marked 350 years of the birth of François Couperin. As its title implies the program also presented a specific phenomenon, that of certain 17th-century musical innovators, in this program, the fascination of French Baroque composers with distant and exotic lands, places actually only read about in literature, places whose culture and music was basically unknown to them, lands they would never visit. This writer attended the event on May 2nd at the Jerusalem International YMCA.

 

François Couperin is best known as a composer of harpsichord music. In his program notes, Prof. David Shemer, founder and musical director of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra, opens by stating that “the music of François Couperin is no obvious choice for an orchestral program” but that “the 350th anniversary of his birth is too important a milestone to be forgone in JBO programs!”  In programming of a less conventional kind, Maestro Shemer decided the perform different sections of Couperin’s sacred “Leçons de ténèbres” between other pieces on the program. Amongst the small amount of Couperin’s ecclesiastical music that was published during his lifetime, its text, from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, was traditionally sung close to- and during Easter. To signify the descent into darkness, candles placed on a candelabrum were extinguished one by one after each lesson, until the church was plunged into darkness (Tenebrae). Performing the Leçons, soprano Yeela Avital and mezzo-soprano Anat Czarny alternated in the solo role, performing the final more intense and at times dissonant section together. With Yeela Avital’s more introverted yet vehement emotional approach and Anat Czarny’s more declamatory way of reflecting on the devastation of Jerusalem, both singers dealt admirably with the work’s stringent technical- and musical demands, its controlled yet potent intensity and power. As to the same construction of each section, they introduced each incipit (marked with a Hebrew letter) with its demanding lengthy melismas, followed by Jeremiah’s anguished lament, then to close each section with Jeremiah’s words to the people of the Holy City: ‘Jerusalem, turn to the Lord your God’. The JBO players endorsed the work’s personal introspection.

 

Travelling the world began with Georg Muffat’s “Nobilis Juventus” (Noble Youth) published in 1698, his parade of nations including sections dedicated to the Spanish, the Dutch, the English, and the Italians. “Not really French” but “the most French of the non-French composers”, in Shemer’s words, Muffat, who had studied with Lully, has become “the most valuable source of information on French Baroque performance practice”. Indeed, we were treated to a suite played with majestic and delectable French elegance.

 

The title of Couperin’s “La Sultanne” probably refers to a French noblewoman who is said to have appeared at a ball disguised as the wife of a sultan. The composer’s  four-voiced chamber setting was here enhanced by two flutes (Idit Shemer, Geneviève Blanchard); the elegance, poignancy and tender moments throughout the work probably vouching for the fact that the lady was indeed a woman of noble bearing, with the dark, mellow timbre of the two viols at its opening suggesting the the composer's homage to her An Italianate work, using many aspects of the French Baroque style, it is of exquisite beauty, offering solos and duets to the delight of the audience.  For 'cellist Lucia D'Anna, it was her first performance on viol, carried out (alongside her teacher Myrna Herzog) with assurance and stylistic conviction.

 

The program concluded with the final suite from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opéra-ballet “Les Indes Galantes”, a work whose titles (referring to African slaves and savages) would today not be considered politically correct. However, behind these fantastical stories set in distant lands, lies one historical event that connects Rameau with exotic peoples and inspired at least some of the movements of “Les Indes Galantes”: in 1725, a delegation of Native Americans from the Louisiana Territory visited Paris to pledge allegiance to King Louis XV. During that visit they performed a dance that Rameau witnessed and took as his inspiration to compose a movement for harpsichord he called "Les Sauvages." That same piece reappeared in 1735 as music for the climactic "Danse du grand calumet de Paix" (Dance of the great peace pipe) of the final suite of “Les Indes Galantes”. The instrumentalists gave the suite an exuberant, good-natured reading, its heavy (folksy...er...primitive) steps only a minimal part of what was basically finely-chiseled court music, complete with French Ouverture, its final exuberant movement joined by the singers. A program of exquisite music played with attention to detail and pleasing stylistic engagement.

 

Karl Jenkins' "The Armed Man: Mass for Peace" performed by the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir, orchestra and soloists

Photo: Yael Ilan

Taking place at the Jerusalem International YMCA on April 29th 2018 and conducted by Salome Rebello, Karl Jenkins’ “The Armed Man: a Mass for Peace” was the joint performance of members of five branches of the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir. They were joined by the Jerusalem Street Orchestra (founded and directed by Ido Shpitalnik) and vocal soloists. This gala concert was the first performance of the work by an Israeli choir.

 

Welsh oboist and composer Karl Jenkins (b.1944), whose oeuvre ranges from pop, to symphonic music, spiritual chorus, ethnic music and to film music, composed the “The Armed Man” in 1999 at the time of the Kosovo conflict. It was premiered in April 2000 at London’s Royal Albert Hall and has since been much performed and recorded. Jenkins explains that “The Armed Man” was inspired by the "L'Homme armé" Masses that were prevalent in the 16th century, and he makes this reference clear with movements based on Renaissance polyphony. The work also includes writing in earlier and later styles. In the masterful weaving of disparate sources into a constantly changing and compelling whole, “The Armed Man - a Mass for Peace” manages to combine parts of the Ordinary of the Mass with other texts pertaining to war and its horrors -  a Japanese poem about the firestorms that followed the atomic bombs, an apocalyptic passage from India's Mahabharata and more.

 

The Oratorio performance opening with the choir’s delicate and finely blended singing of the 15th century French song, it was the prominent drum part that endorsed the work’s ominous message. Altogether, the Jerusalem Street Orchestra’s percussionists performed with impressive precision, giving much intensity and meaning to their major role throughout the work.  Salome Rebello’s direction of choir and orchestra was masterful: she integrated the voices of so many singers into a splendidly-blended choral sound, attentive to entries and phrase-endings, acutely responsive to the work’s dynamic variety and sensitive to the meaning of its texts. Hence, the singers’ velvety, delicate treatment of the “Agnus Dei” or the powerful tutti versus sotto voce moments of the “Sanctus”. Orchestra and singers led the listener into the depths of Jenkins’ message, a message not given to soft-pedalling, as in the rich, harmonic language used for Rudyard Kipling’s “Hymn Before Action”, John Dryden/Jonathan Swift’s unrelenting, powerful and frenetic “Charge!” (displaying some excellent brass playing on the part of orchestra members) and Toge Sankichi’s starkly visual description of the horrors of war in “Angry Flames”:

‘Pushing up through smoke

From a world half darkened by overhanging cloud.
The shroud that mushroomed out
And struck the dome of the sky,
Black, red, blue,
Dance in the air,
Merge, scatter glittering sparks already tower
Over the whole city.
Quivering like seaweed…’

 As to the soloists, we heard choir member Kevin McKenzie in the spine-chilling text of “Save Me from Bloody Men” (Psalms 56, 59), Dean Hosam Naoum (St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, Jerusalem) in the “Sanctus” sung in Arabic and 14-year-old Nimrod Werber in the “Kyrie” (Palestrina). And to two unaccompanied solos: Cantor Prof. Eliyahu Schleifer’s engaging unaccompanied traditional singing (in Hebrew) of Psalm 23, incorporating word-painting, and young Mohammad Abu Sneineh’s rendering of “Adhaan”, the traditional Muslim call to prayer, emerging compelling and gripping, as he took time to set out each phrase with conviction.

 This event constituted a highlight in the history of the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir’s annual joint choral performances. An ambitious undertaking on the part of conductor Salome Rebello, who hails from Mumbai, India, and in Israel since 2008, her dedication and musicality, combined with her belief in what amateur sings can achieve and, of course, the hard work invested by her singers in the challenging project, produced splendid results, making for a powerful choral experience for the choir members and a memorable evening for all. Maestro Ido Shpitalnik and the young members of the Jerusalem Street Orchestra continue to move from strength to strength, making a valuable contribution to Jerusalem’s cultural life.

 

 

 

Three Pianos and Four Strings at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem

Photo: Shirley Burdick

Taking place in Ein Kerem on April 21st 2018 , “Three Pianos and Four Strings” was the third of four concerts of this ensemble in the 2017-2018 Eden-Tamir Music Center concert series. Artists performing were violinists Nitzan Ben Canetty and Dima Pocitari, Gili Radian-Sade-viola and Gal Nyska-’cello. The three pianists were Dror Semmel, Ron Trachtman and a new face to the trio, Keren Hanan.

The program opened with J.S.Bach’s  concerto for Two Pianos (Harpsichords) in C-minor BWV 1060 (c.1730). A  transcription of a lost concerto for two solo instruments and string orchestra, it is thought by scholars to have been originally written for violin and oboe soloists. Only the harpsichord version survives but, supporting the above surmise is the fact that the two solo instruments do not use identical melodic ranges: one compass fitting that of the oboe exactly, with the differing melodic characteristics of the two solo parts again suggesting an uneven pair of solo instruments. At the Ein Kerem concert, Dror Semmel and Ron Trachtman played the keyboard roles, with the string quartet, light, transparent but substantial, taking on the orchestral capacity most satisfactorily. Semmel and Trachtman’s crisp, clean touch and  punctilious dialogue gave expression to this style, a style at the same time reserved yet abounding in vigorous rhythmic energy. Supported by delicate pizzicato playing of the strings in the Largo ovvero Adagio (2nd movement), the pianists engaged in lyrical thematic interchange, then to intertwine utterances in what might resemble an operatic duet. In the final movement (Allegro), the artists’ contrasting layering of dynamics was bracing and vital and graced with some attractive ornamentation. .

Then, to L.van Beethoven’s String Quartet in F-major Op.18/1, performed by the string quartet with Classical beauty and geniality, its Haydnesque sense of well-being punctuated by Beethoven’s characteristic intensiveness and outbursts. The second movement (Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato) was handled with poignancy, its opening melody, mournful and personal,  played by the first violin (Nitzan Ben Canetty), to be answered by the second violin (Dima Pokitari) and viola (Gili Radian-Sade), with a moving ‘cello solo (Gal Nyska). as the tragic movement built up to an intense climax, then to fade away. Any seriousness was swept away by the following good-natured Scherzo, with its playful first violin solos, to end with the wink of an eye. The quartet’s reading of the final Allegro abounded in charm, appeal and wit and a feel of ebullient spaciousness.

As in the case of the earlier Bach work on the program, Bach’s Piano (Harpsichord) Concerto in E-major BWV 1053 is also a reworking of a lost concerto, possibly for oboe or oboe d’amore. A work revered  for its complex and tricky solo role, Dror Semmel addressed it with lightness of touch and much delightful fingerwork, as, in the opening movement, he and the quartet at times engaged in separate agendas, at others, collaborating in joint optimistic expression. In this work, Dima Pocitari took on the role of 1st violin. In the Siciliano (2nd movement) taken at a comfortable pace, the artists presented its daring harmonic turns, as the piano wove its lines through and around chords played by the strings, then to reverse  roles. For my taste, it was a touch too restrained for a movement as poetic. Semmel’s energetic playing saw him through the rich and elaborate final movement (Allegro), its unrelenting and elaborate movement endorsed with textural lucidity and with some splendid flamboyant spreads.

In one of the ensemble’s previous Ein Kerem concerts, we heard the two-piano version of W.A.Mozart’s Concerto in F-major K.242. At the present concert, Semmel and Trachtman were joined by Keren Chanan to perform the original three-piano version. If one considers the list of people  for whom the composer wrote piano concertos, it is clear that both Salzburg and Vienna could boast any number of first-rate women pianists, this list, of course, including Mozart’s sister Nannerl. It was, however, Count Ernst Lodron, one of the most musically sophisticated members of Salzburg’s nobility, who commissioned the 20-year-old Mozart to write the K.242 Concerto, a work also referred to as the “Lodron” Concerto. It was to be played by the Count’s wife and two daughters, who happened to be Mozart’s students. Each part, in which case, was tailored to the ability of the performer who would play it, with the degree of difficulty adjusted for differences in skill and experience: two of the solo parts are moderately difficult, while the third, that intended for the younger of the two daughters, is more modest in its demands. Despite the unavoidably awkward positioning of the three pianos on the small stage of the Eden-Tamir Music Center, the artists managed to maintain eye contact, as they engaged in well-coordinated gestures, offering the concerto energetic, stylish flare in the outer movements in a performance bristling with charm, joy and delicacy and indulging in its copious Rococo figuration.  With Pocitari leading in, the second movement (Adagio), defined by its lyrical, melodic passages, emerged poignant and highly expressive, one might even say, "feminine" in style. In the final movement (Rondeau, Tempo di Minuetto) each soloist was heard in individual utterances, as the string quartet built the movement up to a dramatic finale.  Found on the manuscript, the dedication, written in Mozart’s own hand, reads: “For Her Excellency, Her Ladyship, the Countess Lodron...and her daughters, their Ladyships the Countesses Aloysia and Giuseppa." Performing it at Ein Kerem, with the string quartet functioning effectively in the one-instrument-to-a-part concept, certainly created the idea of a house performance at the Lodron residence, with the three noble lady students shining in the presence of their guests.

 

Throwing convention to the winds, Ensemble PHOENIX performs works of the Stylus Fantasticus genre

Myrna Herzog,Lilia Slavny,Marina Minkin (photo:Eliahu Feldman)

Ensemble PHOENIX, founded and directed by Myrna Herzog, has recently presented a program dedicated to the Stylus Fantasticus genre. Performing the works were Marina Minkin-harpsichord, Myrna Herzog-viola da gamba and guest violinist Lilia Slavny, who today resides in Holland. This writer attended the concert on April 16th 2018 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

 

The Stylus Fantasticus represents a free and unrestrained form of composing, the effect at times being almost like written out improvisation, in which the music moves from key to key in a free and unconventional manner. Fast transitions and sudden changes in affect are very characteristic of this particular Baroque style. In her program notes, Dr. Myrna Herzog quotes German scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), who in 1650 described music of the Stylus Fantasticus as “the most free and unrestrained method of composing...bound to nothing, neither to any words nor to a melodic subject...instituted to display genius and to teach the hidden design of harmony and the ingenious composition of harmonic phrases and fugues.”

 

The PHOENIX program opened with the Israeli premiere of (half of) Marin Marais’ “La Gamme en forme de petit Opéra”. The artists premiered the complete work some days prior to this in Haifa. "La Gamme" is a lengthy and unique work of movements that ascend the steps of the octave, producing a large canvas of character pieces that move swiftly from one to the next, as its frequently short transitions unpredictably sweep the listener into new tempi, textures and tonalities. Marin Marais was himself a great virtuoso on the viol, so it is little wonder that he demands the viol player take on a double role here, systematically dividing his (in this case, her) time between joining the harpsichord as a bass instrument and duetting with the violin (on occasions, playing above it!) Lilia Slavny lavished much expression on the work’s moods, songs and dances, whether they be fiery or touching or even folk-like in character.  Marin Marais’ harpsichord role bristles with interest and challenges.  Demanding virtuosity and much focus on the part of all three players, the work had the audience perched at the edge of their seats. It must have been as surprising and unconventional to audiences of Marin Marais’ time as it is to our ears today!  As to it being in the form of an “opera”, each audience member is invited to create his own libretto and plot.

 

Then to Georg Muffat, whose cosmopolitan career took him from his birthplace in Savoy to all of the Continent’s most brilliant capitals, including Paris, where he learned the Lullian orchestral style and Rome, where he became a member of Arcangelo Corelli’s circle. The Sonata a Violino Solo, Muffat’s earliest surviving work, was composed in Prague in 1677 following the composer’s year-long sojourn in Vienna. In Vienna, he was surely influenced by his encounter with Heinrich Biber, also an original personality and a violin virtuoso, whose compositions boasted colourful programmatic content. Biber’s 1677 Sonata is unlike any other piece of its period...and probably unlike any other sonata! Following Slavny’s serene and cantabile ornamented playing of the opening movement, with its split melodic exchange, she forged into the work’s daring forays that take on extravagant harmonic excursions and runs of virtuosic frenzy. Slavny presented its virtuosic runs with brilliant passagework in playing that was richly sonorous and articulate, her rhythmic flexibility giving the performance a sense of spontaneity. As to the other instrumental roles, her fellow musicians gave the continuo plenty to say.

 

We then heard Marina Minkin performing J.S.Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D-minor BWV 903, composed probably in the 1720s in Weimar,  one of the most challenging and virtuosic works written for the harpsichord; Bach’s extensive use of arpeggiated writing points to the fact that this piece was indeed intended for the harpsichord, as does its title “Fantasie chromatique pour le Clavecin”. Minkin’s playing of the Fantasie was a pertinent reminder that Bach was known as a great improviser, as she negotiated the large, expansive and wildly emotional piece, its bold harmonic structure and startling modulations with dexterity, intelligence and a sense of suspense… Minkin kept us aware of the fact that each following phrase would be a new, unpredictable adventure for the listener (Bach’s own careful, sleight-of-hand stratagem was present all the time) as we chose to revel in the wild, chromatically whirling abundance of runs, passages and arpeggios. Under her fingers, the recitative section emerged as subtle and thoughtful. From the outset of the fugue, there was a sense of order being restored, but we were soon to discover that the Stylus Fantasticus had waved its magic wand once again, producing a fugue with an element of freedom and uncertainty as it spiralled to its conclusion of bravura passagework, scales and octave-doubling in the bass. Marina Minkin was playing a Frank Hubbard harpsichord (1979).

 

The Hebrew University noon concert ended with a work by Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli (c.1630-c.1669), an Italian-born composer who first worked as a composer in the court of Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria in Innsbruck before moving to Messina, where he was employed as a virtuoso violinist. There, he murdered castrato Giovanni Marquett, not before dedicating some of his songs to him. (This incident meant his having to flee Sicily, first to France and then to Spain.) Messina was, however, distinguished for its avant-garde cultural activity. Pandolfi Mealli’s Sonata Op.3/2 “La Cesta” would have certainly fit into this cultural setting. Slavny’s easeful technique and insightful reading of the text takes the listener through the work’s unconventional roller coaster ride of strong emotions and sudden outbursts, with the work, at times, pursuing unorthodox harmonic courses.

 

For an encore, the trio played one more section of Marin Marais’ “La Gamme”, its tender, appealing disposition suggesting that this must represent a love scene of the imaginary opera. Dr. Myrna Herzog’s latest program is proof that there were just a few Baroque composers who were ready to throw convention to the winds and let madcap individualism take over, hence the existence of this curious and intoxicating musical repertoire. Playing it is highly demanding on all levels and for all players. The audience was delighted to be a part of this exhilarating event!

 

 

"The Emperor of Atlantis", an opera composed in the Terezin concentration camp, performed in Tel Aviv on Holocaust Memorial Day 2018

Courtesy the Isreael Chamber Orchestra

Commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel (April 12th 2018), a semi-staged English language version of “The Emperor of Atlantis” was performed at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, as one program of the Israel Chamber Orchestra’s “Redefining the Classics” concert series. Conductor Adrian Sylveen (USA) and singers (Israeli and others) are involved in the Vienna-Tel Aviv Vocal Connection, a non-profit organization that nurtures opera singers.  Proceeds from the Tel Aviv concert were donated to the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel.

Composed by Viktor Ullmann to Peter Kien’s libretto, the short opera (subtitled “The Disobedience of Death”) was written between 1943 and 1944 when the composer and writer were both prisoners at the Terezín concentration camp. A signature masterpiece of Terezin’s musical scene and a poignant glimpse into the lives of the suffering masses, it was first rehearsed by inmates of the camp, most of whom did not survive to the premiere. The score, daring in its satirization of the political situation of WWII, while delivering timeless messages on the power of life and death, is courageously provocative. Fortunately, it was smuggled out of the camp. Its performances worldwide serve as an extraordinary testament to conviction, wit and humanity in the face of barbarity. Ullmann’s musical score, calling for standard orchestral instruments as well as saxophone, guitar, harpsichord and piano, integrates post-Bergian lyricism with cabaret music in his musical style of the opera. It is a fine musical composition -  warm, confrontational, cynical,  jazzy and expressive, indeed, beguilingly powerful. The opera ends  with the chorale to the text "Come, Death, who art our worthy guest." accompanied by slowing drum beats.

The Emperor of Atlantis, ruler over much of the world, proclaims universal war and declares that his old ally Death will lead the campaign. Death, offended by the Emperor’s presumption, goes on strike, meaning that men will not die. Confusion results: a soldier and a girl-soldier from opposite sides sing a love duet instead of fighting; the sick and suffering find no release. Death, who is then persuaded to return when humanity finds the prospect of endless life unendurable, dictates one condition - that the Emperor be the first to die.

At the Tel Aviv performance, some singing took place behind the orchestra and some in front of it, giving different scenes a sense of distance or two locations. The singers were well chosen: tenor Daniel Kamalic (USA), playing  both Harlequin (representing life) and the soldier, has much stage presence, engaging face and body in lively cabaret-type acting as the former and joining Lithuanian soprano Jurate Svedaite, “the girl with the short hair”, in a tender and poignant love duet. Conveying the opera’s bitter satire on militarism, Israeli mezzo-soprano Ayelet Amotz-Avramson gave a spirited characterization of the warmongering drummer, her vocal timbre rich and flexible, as she contended well with the orchestra. As the Loudspeaker, Finnish bass Erik Rousi was articulate and engaging, with bass-baritone Steven Fredericks (USA) evoking Death in an imposing and spine-chilling manner. In the role of the Emperor, Samuel Berlad (Germany) had the audience spellbound as he sang his farewell aria with conviction, his voice mellifluous, pleasing and convincing. Sylveen and the Israel Chamber Orchestra contributed much to the performance in their richly-coloured presentation of the instrumental score.

During the opera’s final rehearsal in September of 1944, SS officers present were outraged at what they heard. Any further work of the opera’s performance was swiftly halted as “Der Kaiser von Atlantis” was immediately banned. In fact, the entire cast, orchestra, Ullmann, Kien, and their families were promptly shipped in a transport to Auschwitz. Only the composition and some of the singers survived. Following the Tel Aviv performance of April 2018, all present stood for two minutes’ silence in memory of artists who perished in the Holocaust.

 

Pianist Amir Katz in an all-Liszt recital in Tel Aviv

Amir Katz (photo: Robert Recker)

Of late, Israeli pianist Amir Katz has been immersed in the musical world and piano works of Franz Liszt. On April 14th 2018, he gave an all-Liszt recital as part of the Piano Recital Series of the Israel Conservatory of Music, Tel Aviv.

 

Katz chose to gently lure his listeners into the rich and complex world of Liszt's piano music via Consolation No.3 in D-flat major S.172, taking time to spell out each melodic gesture and each turn of harmony of rare beauty and Chopinesque delicacy in silky, glittering subtlety, adding just a hint of nostalgia. He then embarked on the S.144 and 145 Concert Études. The three S144 concert etudes are virtuosic essays from Liszt's early creative period. “Un sospiro”, with its drama and reminiscences, displays Katz ‘ skillful handling of the lush arpeggios that never overshadow the melody, however light, followed by both the full tutti alongside the eloquence and freshness of his gossamer touch in “La leggierezza”. Then, following a grand introduction, to the pianist’s intensely personal reading of “Il lamento”, as he invites the score, with its alien harmonies and interesting passagework, to take him and the listener into its range of emotions.The Zwei  Konzertetüden S.145 opened with the sparkling “Waldesrauschen” (Forest Murmurs), its sixteenth-note movement descriptive of forest stirrings, calm, floating and graceful, at times, swirling and agitated at others with its streams of cascading figures. Katz’ hopping and crisp rendition of “Gnomenreigen” (Dance of the Gnomes) presented the humorous, feisty, good-natured and somewhat devilish character of this piece. Published in 1862, Mephisto Waltz No.1, S.514, a demonic, whirling dance, displaying Franz Liszt's dazzling mastery of energy, takes its inspiration from Lenau’s version of the Faust story; its music effectively portrays the evil temptations generated by Mephisto. It also refers to Liszt’s own virtuosic career and to sociocultural concerns of the time, including the widespread fascination with the virtuoso musician as a demonic agent! I think, in Amir Katz’ case, we can rule out the latter. Between the frenetic, fully “orchestrated” outer sections of Mephisto Waltz No.1, Katz gave tender expression and nostalgic whimsy to gestures of the middle section.

 

Following the intermission, Amir Katz performed the Piano Sonata in B-minor S.178 (1853), a work dedicated to Robert Schumann that represents the pinnacle of Liszt’s compositional achievements.  Katz’ articulate reading of the mammoth opus and his perspective of its cyclical structure guided the listener through the transformations of its themes, its sweeping energy and play of textures and tempi, his virtuosic skill and stamina (devoid of all dense, over-muscular display) serving him splendidly in the piece’s full-on, (indeed, mephistophelian) moments. Making for ravishing contrasts were some moments of exquisite refinement and fragility. Katz’ strategic timing made the work all the more palpable.

 

Of Franz Liszt’s very many (mostly) solo piano settings of works of other composers, we heard the pianist in superb arrangements of two Schubert Lieder. Katz’ playing of Schubert’s “Ständchen” (Serenade) - the much-loved love-song coloured with just a hint of grey cloud - was all flowing charm, beauty and songfulness and as lush as the song’s nature description. Katz’ rendition of the "Erlkönig" (Erlking) made for an astounding end to the evening, as he engaged his consummate technique to recreating the ballad’s drama, mystery and urgency, appropriating separate timbres to each of the three characters, playing them out against the dark, wild night and relentless sound of the galloping horse’s hooves, in a performance of rare involvement, sensitivity and depth.
 

Born in Ramat Gan (Israel), Amir Katz today resides in Berlin.