The Tel Aviv Wind Quintet performs works from 1893 to 2021 at the Jerusalem Music Centre's "7 at Seven" concert series

Roy Amotz,Nir Gavrieli,Itamar Leshem,Nadav Cohen,Danny Erdman (Courtesy TLVWQ)
 

Attending an event of the "Seven at 7" series of the Jerusalem Music Centre (Mishkenot Sha'ananim) for the first time, there was no mistaking that this subscription series, directed and presented by Prof. Ariel Hirschfeld, is a program with a difference. Alongside the wide repertoire of classical chamber music, the concerts might include jazz, Israeli songs or focus on one specific instrument. "Between Viennese Inebriation and Orchestrated Gefilte Fish" (certainly no conventional title for a concert) was performed by the Tel Aviv Wind Quintet on April 12th 2022.

 

Professor Ariel Hirschfeld, researcher and cultural critic, served as the head of the Faculty of Hebrew Literature of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 2008 to 2012, where he himself had studied Musicology and Hebrew Literature. He opened the evening's proceedings by expressing how happy he was to be hosting the Tel Aviv Wind Quintet, adding that, in the Classical period, there had been many small wind ensembles playing "Harmoniemusik" - a particular body of music written from c.1760-1837 - repertoire whose primary function was to provide social entertainment. Harmonie ensembles provided dinner- and after-dinner music for the emperor in Vienna, these ensembles also popular among the lower aristocracy and wealthy middle classes, circles keen to have their own in-house Harmonie. That being said, an appropriate work to open the concert was Viennese composer Alexander von Zemlinsky's "Humoresque". Talking about the composer and his originality, Hirschfeld feels that Zemlinsky's music is not well-known enough. The Tel Aviv Wind Quintet gave vivid expression to this short, sprightly and uplifting work, its light-heartedness and charm quite a contrast from the usual depth and darker themes explored in Zemlinsky's music.

 

Then, to two contemporary pieces for wind quintet. Israeli composer Moshe Zorman (b.1952) wrote his Suite (2021) for the TLVWQ, its stimulus being the isolation constraints dictated by the Corona pandemic. In fact, the second movement, titled "All in the Family", suggests a family argument (played out by Roy Amotz-flute and Danny Erdman-clarinet) taking place in the fraught reality of lockdown! Yet despite its tongue-in-cheek element, the work is a sophisticated and challenging piece of writing for wind quintet, alive with rhythmic interest, zestful textures and buoyancy, the third movement opening with a bittersweet waltz offering some solos, then to close with a dejected-sounding cluster. Prominent composer, conductor and pianist, Moshe Zorman has composed operas as well as some one hundred works for symphony orchestra, chamber groups and choirs.

 

There was no mistaking the genesis of "Kleztet" (2008) by French composer, conductor and scholar Jean-Philippe Calvin. Producing the work's bold canvas, the TLVWQ instrumentalists gave hearty, exuberant and rapid-fire expression to the Hassidic wedding dances woven throughout, also addressing the work's fragile touches of humour and moments of nostalgic, Jewish melancholy, all these elements set into a collage of fast-changing moods and textures. The players' joie-de-vivre was well conveyed to the audience in this entertaining concert piece. Until 2014 Calvin served as professor and research associate in Contemporary Music as well as the director and the founder of the Variable Geometry Contemporary Music Ensemble at the Royal College of Music (London), then becoming the Clive Marks research associate in Holocaust & Jewish Music studies at World ORT, focusing on "Music, Memory & The Holocaust - The Forgotten Music and the Songs of Sephardic Jews in Post-Ottoman Turkey." 

 

The only work on the program not originally scored for wind quintet was Antonin Dvořák's 1893 String Quartet in F major Op.96 (American), arranged for wind quintet by French oboist David Walter. As to the work inspired by summers spent in the hamlet of Spillville (USA) among Czech compatriots, where the composer was surrounded by nature and friends, there has been much discussion regarding how much or whether there is any American content in the music. Introducing the work, Prof. Hirschfeld claimed there was "nothing not Czech about the work". What is unquestionably American here, however, is a motif in the third movement, one inspired by the repeated call of the Scarlet Tanager, a native bird to evergreen forests in eastern North America. Comparison with the work's string qualities aside, Walter's brilliant transcription of the quartet was embraced wholeheartedly by the TLVWQ players, who brought to the fore the music's melodic freshness and underlying soulfulness with touching personal utterance, lyrical warmth, expressiveness and the vivid timbral mix offered by the wind ensemble constellation. 

 

The ensemble produced a concert of first-class, polished performance. For an encore, the TLVWQ performed Mordechai Rechtman's arrangement of the "Badinerie" from Bach's Suite in B minor for flute, strings and continuo, with Roy Amotz' performance of the flute solo convivial, dazzling and easeful.

 

The concert was followed by an informal discussion between audience and players over a glass of wine.

 

The Tel Aviv Wind Quintet: Roy Amotz-flute, Nir Gavrieli-oboe (guest player), Danny Erdman-clarinet, Itamar Leshem-horn, Nadav Cohen-bassoon.

 

 

Jochewed Schwarz (harpsichord) and Ashley Solomon (Baroque flute) perform works of French and German composers at a concert at the Hebrew University (Jerusalem)

 

Jochewed Schwarz, Ashley Solomon (Yitzhak Hochmann)

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Monday noon concert on April 4th 2022 featured Ashley Solomon (UK) on traverso (Baroque flute) and Jochewed Schwarz – harpsichord. Ashley Solomon opened the recital by saying that the works performed would show the changing roles of harpsichord and flute in chamber music, starting from the harpsichord's role of providing accompaniment, to being an equal force with the flute, to taking on a concertato role, as in works by Johann Sebastian's sons. 

 

From French composer/flautist Jacques-Martin Hotteterre's collection of flute arrangements of airs and brunettes of c. 1721, the program opened with two of the ornamented song settings. In the bitter-sweet "Pourquoy, doux Rossignol" (brunette - Jean-Baptiste de Bousset), to a melancholic ostinato figure on the harpsichord, Solomon, with much stylistic refinement, expounded the pleas to a nightingale of a desolate lover whose heart is "consumed in its own fire". The livelier, major "L'autre jour ma Cloris" (Ballard) presented love in a more favourable light, as Solomon progressively integrated the French style's myriad of ornamentation detail and texture into the flow of phrases without disturbing the natural flow of the music's melodic invention.  

 

Although Michel de la Barre's reputation stems more from his playing than his composing, the fact remains that he was the first to publish solo music specifically for flute. His eighteen books of flute music, published 1694-1725, were predominant in the emergence of that instrument as one of the most popular of the 18th century. In de la Barre's Sonata "L'inconnue" (The Unknown) in G major, written at the court of Louis XIV, Schwarz and Solomon gave expression to the music's French disposition, Solomon's graceful and elegantly ornamented playing linked in like-minded partnership with Schwarz, the continuo part also displaying a  some clearly soloistic traits. Following the work's pensive opening then moving into an especially tender section, the extensive Chaconne teemed with interest and variety, featuring a wealth of flute textures and techniques, with some pizzazzy moments on the part of the harpsichord.

 

Ashley Solomon introduced J.S.Bach's Sonata for flute and harpsichord in B minor BW 1030, maintaining that it is one of the most challenging works for the transverse flute and by reminding the listener that its opening movement (Andante) is the longest sonata movement ever composed by Bach. The work itself is sometimes referred to as an example of a "Sonate auf Concertenart": in keeping with Bach's obligato sonatas, the harpsichord part is of equal importance with the flute. Making for a rewarding listening experience, the artists created the rich weave of the sonata, highlighting its melodic allure, textural variety, its subtleties and scope for independence of gesture and expression. Alongside concerto-style writing for the flute, as in the opening movement, with Solomon highlighting Bach’s ingenious manipulations of the principal subject, Schwarz took on the different roles of Bach's lavish and imaginative harpsichord part - the ripieno in the Largo e dolce, a courtly dance illuminated by the unhurried lyricism with the Presto fugue played out with flute, keyboard right hand and keyboard left hand in the manner of a trio sonata. In this work of astounding virtuosity, this most vivid of canvases, one has the feeling that Solomon and Schwarz have addressed each concept and gesture. Masters of historically informed music-making, they revealed the narrative and enigmas that emerge from Bach’s music, elements, indeed defying words.

 

In the second half of the 18th century, with the transverse flute becoming one of the most popular instruments among circles of "Kenner and Liebhaber" (Connoisseurs and Devotees), much music appeared for the instrument. Among the many composers contributing to the growing body of music for the flute were some members of the Bach family. Moving from repertoire referred to as "gelehrt" (learned) to "galant" (in Jochewed Schwarz' words), the recital in the intimate concert hall of the Hebrew University's Musicology Department concluded with works of two of J.S.Bach's sons. Carl Philipp Emanuel, the most boldly innovative and original of them, is best known for his large collection of harpsichord works. Although the flute sonatas are dwarfed in number by his hundreds of harpsichord sonatas, these eighteen flute works are of the highest quality and rank among the finest of the composer’s chamber works. The majority of them date from 1745-1766, when the composer was in the service of the flute-playing King Frederick II.  Schwarz and Solomon's delightful, communicative and entertaining performance of C.P.E. Bach's Sonata in G major Wq 86 reflected Emanuel's countering of the learned style of the early 18th century masters with freedom of inspiration and emancipation of form.  In his Essay on the True Art of Playing a Keyboard Instrument C.P.E. Bach had written: “Play from the soul, not like a trained bird! …. A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved…"  Interestingly, the title of Op.16 of Johann Christian Bach, the youngest and least-known of J.S.Bach's sons, is "6 Sonatas for Keyboard with Flute Accompaniment". Performing the stirring two-movement D major Sonata Op.16 No.1 by the more conservative Johann Christian, its music chronicling the stylistic developments of the latter half of the 18th century with elements of the Classical-bound prevailing Viennese style, Jochewed Schwarz and Ashley Solomon concluded the program's musical journey - a continuum of less than 100 years, but one tracing decisive stylistic transition. 

 

With Ashley Solomon playing on a copy of a Palanca flute (Martin Wenner) and Jochewed Schwarz on a Frank Hubbard two-manual harpsichord, this recital was certainly one of the current concert season's most outstanding events.

At the Willy Brandt Center, Jerusalem - "Bach and the Brain" - Dr. Keren Avirame talks about our appreciation of Bach's music via the ways our brains function

Dr. Keren Avirame (photo courtesy KA)

 

With the anniversary of J.S.Bach's birth date on March 21st, March 2022 has been alive with many and various concerts of the composer's music. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) has often been referred to as the "greatest composer of all time". Talking of Bach's music, South Korean composer Unsuk Chin, today residing in Berlin, claims that Bach’s music "displays great emotions and fiery temperament, while being the highest conceivable summit of composition as an intellectual art." 

 

Taking place on March 30th at the Willy Brandt Center (Jerusalem), "Bach and the Brain", a talk by neuroscientist/neurotherapist Dr. Keren Avirame, was certainly a very different Bach-oriented event. Prior to the lecture, Dr. Avirame wrote in a Facebook posting: "This event will merge two loves of mine, Bach and the brain. It will take place… just before the holiness of the month of April this year (Ramadan, Passover and Easter)” and “it encourages me to publicly ask those who love Bach and those who don't: What is Bach for you?" Introducing speaker and guest artists, WBC project coordinator for social art Petra Klose welcomed those drawn to the center to hear about Bach from a very different angle.

 

The evening opened with Bulgarian pianist Dimitrina Milenova taking the audience into the Bach mindset and sound world with a pleasing, well-crafted and contrasted performance of three of the Two- and Three-Part Inventions. Then to the lecture, in which Dr. Avirame covered much ground. She spoke of cognition, of how differently the brain functions nowadays in processing information, of the brain being multimodal, having several networks. She spoke of perception and prediction, about the analytical left brain, as opposed to the more emotionally-oriented right brain, of the fact that the nervous system is a rapid learning system and that we have very different levels of processing. Referring to "From Bacteria to Bach and Back", about the origin of human consciousness, she mentioned how philosopher Daniel Dennett talks of different levels of intelligence, choosing Bach's music as the highest of 4th-level thinking. She spoke of music as stimulating emotion and spirituality, of how brain waves synchronize to rhythm and how musical experience enlists the brain, heartbeat and nervous system to join in teamwork.

 

Keren Avirame has asked friends (scientists and musicians) what Bach means for them. She said there is something about Bach that scientists love, that Bach was a "mathematician", that the brain creates order from chaos and that Bach understood the brain. In addition to providing much scientific information, Avirame wished to share her own personal journey with Bach - that, in listening to- and thinking about Bach, she hears structure, that its distinct patterns clear her mind, unveiling- and reminding us of creation.

 

Accompanied by Dimitrina Milenova, we then heard young German soprano Julia Binek, currently a member of the Jerusalem Lyric Opera Studio, in a performance of "Blute nur, du liebes Herz!" (Bleed out, you loving heart) from Bach's St. Matthew Passion.

 

Following the talk, we adjourned to a terrace to enjoy some excellent vegetarian/vegan cuisine prepared by young chef Izzeldin Abdul Aziz Bukhari from the Old City of Jerusalem. Owner of Sacred Cuisine, a company that collaborates with local organizations and businesses to organize thought-provoking Somi food events that bring people together around food experiences, Izzeldin Abdul Aziz talked of his family roots in Sufism. “In Sufism,” he explained, “feeding others is considered to be the highest form of worship.”

 

Taking place in the intimate salon of the Willy Brandt Center, this was indeed a unique and interesting event, sending us home with much food for thought!

 

  

 

Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani was in Israel to perform at the Felicja Blumental Music Festival - "Magic Carpet" with Myrna Herzog (viola da gamba) and pieces from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier at a concert with Zvi Meniker and Robert Markham

 

Magic Carpet

Myrna Herzog, Mahan Esfahani (Yoel Levy)

 

The Felicja Blumental International Music Festival was founded in 1999 by Annette Céline to honour the memory of her mother, acclaimed 20th Century pianist, Felicja Blumental. In Tel Aviv’s longest-running classical music Festival, Céline served as artistic director until her death in 2017. Today, under the directorship of Avigail Arnheim and Idit Magal (Felicja Blumental Music Center), the festival, taking place annually at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, continues to honour the memory of both Felicja Blumental and Annette Céline. At a cocktail party prior to two concerts featuring harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani on March 24th 2022, we had the pleasure of meeting guests of honour - Brazilian Ambassador to Israel, his wife and members of his office - as well as Arnheim and Magal. 

 

"Magic Carpet'' took place in the gallery of the Mizne-Blumental Collection, a room that has housed a permanent comprehensive exhibition of early 20th-century European art since 1993, and in which a portrait of Felicja Blumental hangs. Performing together for the first time, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani (Iran/UK/Czech Republic) and Myrna Herzog (Brazil/Israel) - viola da gamba. - played a program of works from the 17th- to 21st centuries. Opening the event was guest-of-honour, Gerson Menandro Garcia de Freitas, Brazilian Ambassador to Israel. The Ambassador spoke of Herzog and Esfahani as upholding the high artistic standards set by Felicja Blumental, a pianist and composer who had made Brazil her new home.

 

The program began with François Couperin's 9^th Concert - 'Ritratto dell'Amore" (Portrait of Love) - from the composer's Concerts Royaux.  Herzog and Esfahani gave expression to the work's elegance and good humour - the energetic (even rakish) playfulness of the livelier dances, graced with the gamba's rippling inégal passages, with the refined discourse of the more tranquil movements rich in harpsichord spreads. Delivering the work suggesting the charms of an imaginary beloved, the artists' suave performance of this chamber music, written for the enjoyment of Louis XIV, was most pleasing, as it intimated French taste on a more private, human scale. 

 

The evening's Brazilian content was represented by "Five Brazilian Miniatures" by Edmundo Villani-Côrtes, the performance of which was dedicated to the memory of Annette Céline. Considered one of the most important Brazilian composers of the 20th century, Villani-Côrtes (b.1930) imbued his works with the blend of popular- and classical music that has become his trademark. Esfahani and Herzog gave a sensitive, finespun reading of the piece, rich in infectious, toe-tapping rhythms and humorous touches. Presenting the audience with the "Brazilianness" of late 20th century compositional aesthetic, Herzog's convincing playing of the work's strongly melancholy and tender modal melodies was complemented by Esfahani's enriching and evocative rendering of Villani-Côrtes' keyboard score. 

 

Mahan Esfahani's connection to the Czech Republic stems from the fact that he studied in Prague with the celebrated Czech harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková. Today, he makes his home in Prague. At the Tel Aviv concert, his performance of Bohuslav Martinů's "Two Pieces for Harpsichord" (1935), a pair of miniatures of contrasted mood straddling tonality and its boundaries, was fresh and intriguing, a small work indicative of how Martinů combined different elements to form his own eclectic, indeed, uniquely cohesive musical language. 

 

Haim Alexander's "Improvisations on a Persian Wedding Song" (1974) reflects the aim of several European-born Israeli composers to engage in writing of an Eastern or oriental style (Alexander immigrated to Palestine {Israel} in 1936 from Germany) to create a locally-influenced style of composition here in Israel. Esfahani's playing of Alexander's harpsichord piece was zesty, intense and flexed, its insistent melodic, dance-like motifs carefully evading western harmonic associations, as the melody found its way in and out of a constantly spiralling, repetitive, uninterrupted accompaniment, then winding down to a single unison. 

 

After studying and performing in Russia, Germany and Holland, Moscow-born pianist/composer Uri Brener (b.1974) made his home in Israel. Brener dedicated "Magic Carpet" for viola da gamba and harpsichord to Myrna Herzog and Mahan Esfahani. This performance was the world premiere of  the work (the concert taking its title from this piece). Herzog and Esfahani gave refined, dedicated, in-depth expression to the rich, exotic hues of Brener's oriental musical canvas, to both its mystery and intensity, a journey taking the listener through the piece's wide range of textures and timbres, evoking from eerie, otherworldly sensations to busy, "crowd scenes" and wild, unrelenting dances. Brener's writing for the two instruments is sophisticated, informed and impactful. A truly multifaceted musician, the composer has previously transcended boundaries to probe various different musical worlds, here delving into the world of orientalism via his own sensibility, his refined and subtle musical language.

 

J.S.Bach's Sonata No. 2 in D major BWV 1028 for harpsichord and viola da gamba was intended for the 7-string viol, an instrument of which Bach was especially fond, and may very well have been composed with virtuoso gambist Carl Friedrich Abel in mind. Infusing the imitative dialogue of the opening Adagio with tranquillity and inquiry, the artists then chose not to take the brisk, tightly-constructed Allegro at breakneck speed, as they invited us to follow the abundance of interest they were displaying. Then, the solemn (indeed, meditational), lilting Andante, played by them with personal feeling and fragility before launching into the final Allegro (here, Bach entrusts the harpsichord and the viol witha short cadential episodes) its weave of delightful rhythmic figures rich in energy and articulacy.

 

The gallery of the Mizne-Blumental Collection made for an atmospheric setting for this memorable concert, indeed, a major event of the 2021-2022 concert season.

 

                                         —-------------------------------------------

 

Bach - Preludes and Fugues, 300-year Celebration

 

The same evening, the Felicja Blumental Music Festival hosted a unique Bach concert in the Tel Aviv Museum's Recanati Auditorium. Information put together by Aviad Stier on J.S.Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" was presented to the audience by Avigail Arnheim.

 

Three artists each performed four (different) pairs of preludes and fugues from the WTC (Books I, II) on different keyboard instruments. In correct historical order, the program began with Mahan Esfahani playing them on a two-manual harpsichord. This was followed by Zvi Meniker (Israel-Germany) on fortepiano and Robert Markham (UK) on the modern piano. With no aim to pronounce which of the three keyboard instruments was superior (or the most authentic) for the repertoire, this was a fascinating event, with each of the three outstanding artists offering profound readings of the pieces in playing that was personal, intelligent, sensitive, articulate and aesthetically pleasing. How was such an extraordinary event going to end? Literally, by taking the listener's breath away: in the same historical order, each artist then performed Prelude No. 1 from the WTC I, signing out with his own powerful, unspoken gesture of respect and humility.  

Zvi Meniker (Yoel Levy)

 

Mahan Esfahani (Yoel Levy)

Robert Markham (Yoel Levy)

The Jerusalem Opera celebrates its tenth anniversary at the Jerusalem Theatre with a gala concert of opera gems

Rotem Braten (flute), soprano Tali Ketzef (Elad Zagman)

 

There was magic in the air in the Henry Crown auditorium of the Jerusalem Theatre on March 15th 2022 as people arrived to attend the gala evening celebrating the Jerusalem Opera's 10th anniversary.  Presenting opera choruses and arias were local and Israeli-trained opera singers with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Omer Arieli, the Jerusalem Opera's musical director. Master of ceremonies was Yair Haidu, who has done the honours since the opera's first gala evening in 2012; his father, Prof. Andre Hajdu, was one of the visionaries and initiators of the Jerusalem Opera. Welcoming the audience and thanking all the people and organizations for making the Jerusalem Opera a reality was Jerusalem deputy mayor Yosi Havilio. 

 

Opening the evening's musical program and marking the 180th anniversary of the premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's "Nabucco", Omer Arieli led the JSO in a fresh, contrasted and exhilarating performance of the overture, one consisting of themes from the opera, including that of the Chorus of Hebrew Slaves, as well as the depiction of the Israelites' curse on Ismaele for his betrayal. Then, two arias from Verdi's "Il trovatore" - Leonora's Aria sung with delicacy, expressiveness and fine vocal control by soprano Mima Millo, followed by the Gypsy Aria, into which mezzo soprano Noa Hope infused strong, saucy gypsy presence, as she and Arieli brought its vibrant dance rhythms to the stage. In the Slander Aria from Rossini's "Barber of Seville", bass-baritone Vladimir Braun, one of Israel's major, long-established opera singers, addressed each word and syllable, articulately explaining the source and nature of slander with the wink of an eye, as the orchestra endorsed his every word. Then to baritone Oded Reich's exuberant performance of the Toreador Song from Bizet's "Carmen", an aria celebratory in character, in which the arrogant toreador Escamillo describes various situations in the bullring, the cheering of the crowds and the fame that comes with victory. The stringent vocal and theatrical challenges of the Mad Scene from Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" were met admirably by soprano Tali Ketzef, wielding the coloratura as a vehicle of dramatic expression. Kudos to Rotem Braten for her sensitive, attentive rendering of the Mad Scene's flute obbligato, literally accompanying Lucia's descent through agony and delusion to death. On a happier note was Song to the Moon from "Russalka" (Dvořák), arguably one of the most beautiful arias ever written for the soprano voice, with Olga Senderskaya’s honeyed, mellow vocal colours and appealing stage presence rendering the aria a study in subtle shadings and deep feeling.

 

Then to the evening's opera choruses - from Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Tsar's Bride", the Marfa’s Aria was sung delicately and with delightful shaping by soprano Yekaterina Chepeleva, this followed by a quartet (Braun, Chepeleva, Hope, Stas Davidov); Millo, Ketzef and Hope addressed the complex melodic weave and individuality of roles in a trio from "Der Rosenkavalier" (Richard Strauss); and, with much good cheer, all the singers joined to perform the Champagne Chorus from "Die Fledermaus" (Johann Strauss II). Returning to "Nabucco", the festive, sparkling event signed out with a more thoughtful item - the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, the performance of it dedicated to the Ukrainian refugees. Once again, as in the Jerusalem Opera's productions over the past ten years, Maestro Omer Arieli's in-depth, dedicated guidance and direction of singers and orchestra transported the audience into the joyful, gripping, turbulent and alluring world of opera.

 

 

Oded Reich,Vladimir Braun,Olga Senderskaya (Elad Zagman)

The Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra is back with another Bach Festival. Hortus Musicus (Estonia) and director Andres Mustonen joined the JBO for "Schütz and his Contemporaries"

Hortus Musicus (Pnina Even Tal)

 

With the anniversary of J.S.Bach's birth on March 21st, the Bach Festival  is once again under way. Under the auspices of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra and directed by JBO founder and artistic director David Shemer, Bach Festival VI opened with a three-day Baroque workshop for young musicians, topped off by a concert performed by participants.

 

For "Schütz and his Contemporaries", held in the conference hall of the Jerusalem International YMCA on March 14th 2022, the JBO was joined by Hortus Musicus (Estonia) and its violinist/director Andres Mustonen, who conducted the concert. Hortus Musicus and Mustonen are no new faces to Israeli concert platforms, neither was this concert their first collaboration with the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra. Prof. Shemer opened the evening's proceedings by making chronological order for the festival: early Baroque repertoire will be performed before concerts of Bach's music.

 

In his 'Historical Description of the Noble Art of Singing and Playing' (1690), Wolfgang Caspar-Printz described the “three famous S’s” - court music director of Dresden Heinrich Schütz; Johann Hermann Schein, the choirmaster of Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church and Samuel Scheidt, the music director from Halle – as “the three best composers in Germany at this time”. They were close friends, working and living in the same part of Germany. Indeed, Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) has frequently been referred to as the greatest German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach. Following his early set of madrigals, almost all of the Saxon-born’s known works are vocal settings of sacred texts, with or without instruments (he  received most of his training in Venice from Giovanni Gabrieli); these works remain pivotal repertoire of Protestant church music. Schütz' unique achievement was introducing into German music the new style of the Italian monodists without creating an inferior hybrid style; his music remained individual and German in feeling. At the Jerusalem concert, we heard a number of his sacred motets, the vocal roles performed by members of Hortus Musicus. One highlight was tenor Anto Õnnis' singing of "Venite ad me", his performance of the multi-sectional piece rich in timbre and dynamics and devotional in mood. 

 

Johann Hermann Schein was born within a year of both Schütz and Scheidt.  Although less in the limelight than Schütz, Schein (employed at the Thomasschule in Leipzig) was one of the most illustrious predecessors of J. S. Bach. His importance as a composer lies in the use he made of Italian monody and concerted style in Lutheran church music. Although the majority of Schein's output was vocal music, he is probably best known for the "Banchetto Musicale" (1617) a collection of twenty instrumental "variation" suites, all bearing an identical format. One of these suites made for a vibrant opening work to the evening's program, with Hortus Musicus' fine band of early winds (also the JBO's Alma Mayer-Nir) and percussion joining the JBO strings and keyboard to colour the various sections with timbral variety and vigour. (The instrumentation for these suites is not specified in the score.) While some of Schein's sacred music uses the sophisticated techniques of the Italian madrigal, Schein's secular music (for which he wrote all the words) includes such genres as drinking songs of surprising simplicity and humour. With much zest and witty banter, the Hortus Musicus singers' performance of songs from the 1626 "Studenten-Schmaus" (Student Banquet) collection suggested a focus more on drink than on banquet cuisine!  In Samuel Scheidt's canzon on "O Nachbar Roland", one of six large-scale canzons from his "Ludi Musici" (1621) and based on a melody popular in England, the composer had specified the use of viols, trombones, bassoons and optional cornetts. An ideal piece for the Jerusalem concert's joint ensemble, it provided plenty of opportunities for creative ensemble playing, with a variety of timbres created by diverse instrumental combinations producing constant differentiation of articulation and dynamics and giving the performance a playful swing.

 

Another contemporary, organist/organ technician Paul Peuerl was a German who spent his career in the Austrian towns of Steyr and Horn. Most of his surviving music consists of instrumental suites, free fantasies and a small number of texted Lieder with serio-comic texts. Of the latter, we heard a hearty reading of "O Musica" (1613).

'O Music, you noble art,

Much praise is lavished upon you,

For you bring great pleasure and entertain us,

Renewing our sorrowful lives.

Wherever you go, there is great joy

with dancing, singing and skipping.

Sadness rarely dwells with you,

Our hearts are aflame with joy.

O music, you noble art!'

 

Probably the least familiar of the composers representing early German Baroque music on this program, Johannes Schultz, of whose life and work little is known, worked as an organist in Dannenberg, Lower Saxony. He engaged in the writing of the ensemble canzona, a genre less common in Germany than in Italy, of which we heard the joint ensemble in two of contrasting character. 

 

Michael Praetorius' compositions also show the influence of Italian composers, as well as that of his younger contemporary Heinrich Schütz. Concluding the concert was a suite from "Terpsichore", Praetorius' sole surviving secular work (and the bread-and-butter repertoire for many of us in our early music training.) If the collection of over 300 dances takes its name from the muse of dance, Mustonen and the instrumentalists certainly endorsed this heartily, with playing of much colour, inspiration and energy. It is assumed that the collection was primarily intended to be performed on violins, but here the addition of the "buzzies" (of which there are too few players in Israel) certainly added to the excitement and vitality of the performance, as Mustonen led the players with relish and a sense of abandonment. 

 

For Baroque music aficionados, here was a fine opportunity to hear a representative collection of early German Baroque works. An extra advantage was hearing them played in the Jerusalem YMCA's conference hall, a space offering the audience closer proximity with the artists and the music-making experience.

Ignacy Friedman Complete Songs - premiere recording of Lieder by this prominent Polish pianist-composer

 

Polish-Jewish musician Ignacy Friedman (1882-1948) is today best remembered as one of the greatest pianists of the Golden Age, in particular, for his performances of the works of Frédéric Chopin and as a prominent musical personality whose character infused everything he played. Born in Podgórze, the son of a theatre orchestra musician, he grew up being familiar with the styles of Polish-, Jewish- and Austrian music. Friedman left Kraków in 1900 to study composition at the Leipzig Conservatory with Hugo Riemann, then moving to Vienna for piano studies with Theodor Leschetizky. His Vienna debut in November 1904,in which he played three piano concertos, was the launching of a forty-year international touring- and recording career, during which he collaborated with such artists as Bronisław Huberman, Emanuel Feuermann, Erica Morini, Mischa Elman, Leopold Auer, Antal Dorati, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Willem Mengelberg, Arthur Nikisch and Eugène Ysaÿe. Till 1914, Friedman lived in Berlin; during World War I he lived in Copenhagen, after which he resided in Italy. In 1938, with the imminence of World War II, Friedman tried to secure a teaching position in America, but with no success. However, in 1940, due to cancellations of other artists, he landed a concert tour of Australia, where he then remained, furthering his performing-, teaching-, recording- and broadcasting career. His health began to fail in 1943 and he died in Sydney five years later.

 

In addition to editing the complete works of Chopin and a number of major works of Liszt, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schumann, Friedman produced several transcriptions of various works. However, he also composed many short works, as well as a piano quintet and three string quartets. It is known that he occasionally included a composition of his own in concert performances.  "Ignacy Friedman Complete Songs", recorded in 2021 for the (Polish) Acte Préalable label, is the first disc to appear of the composer's songs for solo voice and piano. With the exception of three songs in German, set to lyrics of Otto Julius Bierbaum, Friedman chose texts of prominent Polish writers - Adam Mickiewicz, Maria Konopnicka and Adam Asnyk - being highly motivated to set poetry of members of the Young Poland movement - Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Lucjan Rydel and Tadeusz Miciński. Included in the liner notes are English translations of all the texts. Performing the 37 songs are two Polish-born artists - bass-baritone Szymon Choynacki and pianist Jakub Tchorzewski - and Turkish soprano Şen Acar. In her liner notes, Dr. hab. Jolanta Guzy-Pasiak notes that there is "reason to believe that, at the beginning of the 20th century, these songs enjoyed a degree of popularity"… and that "they were published by major publishers…" However, since Friedman's death in 1948, the songs were no longer performed in his homeland, as the Communist authorities had made it their business to obscure works of composers living outside of Poland. Only with the fall of the Iron Curtain have works of such composers resumed their place as an intrinsic part of Polish musical repertoire.

 

Ignacy Friedman's songs constitute a rich collection of Lieder, their subjects ranging from love, (some sensuous in description, others naive and pastoral, several telling of unrequited- or one-sided love), all cushioned in rich, imaginative nature descriptions. Many songs speak of loneliness and death and there is a smattering of more folk-like songs, bucolic and humorous in nature. The items included in each opus do not necessarily bear musical or textual connection, the words of each often taken from writings of different poets. Romantic in style and colour, largely tonal, their musical style influenced by that of the great Lied composers, Friedman's settings flow wonderfully, his sophisticated use of harmony adding vividness and meaning to the songs' superb melodiousness, as he intertwines and dovetails vocal lines and piano accompaniment with subtlety, invention and interest. Friedman's lush and inspiring writing for piano reflects back to his own greatness as a pianist. For those performing this repertoire, his formidable piano writing will be as alluring and engaging to the singer and audience as it will to the pianist. With each finely-chiselled song, the listener is transported into a mood, into an evocative scene, to the inner workings of the poet's mind via the composer's musical- and emotional language. Running through very many of the songs, there is a gnawing sense of dejection and melancholy, elements often present in Polish artistic expression.

 

In addition to their commitment of finding the scores to the songs, Szymon Choynacki, Jakub Tchorzewski and Şen Acar have recorded these gems with profound inquiry as to the content of each, with attention to colour, detail and masterful shaping, in music-making of sensitivity, emotional involvement and close teamwork, introducing today's listener to this significant body of songs, works belonging to the rich heritage of Polish music. In Dr. Guzy-Pasiak's words: "Not every forgotten composer is so lucky to have his music rediscovered after a long time by outstanding performers."

 

 

Ignacy Friedman (Courtesy festiwal.nifc.pl)