The Gary Bertini Israel Chamber Choir (music director: Ronen Borshevsky) performs sacred works of J.S.Bach, J.A.Hasse and Mozart

 

 

It was "Masterpieces of the 18th Century" that concluded the 2025-2026 subscription series of the Gary Bertini Israel Chamber Choir (music director: Ronen Borshevsky). This writer attended the performance in the Recanati Auditorium of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art on July 7th, 2026. Soloists were Neta Flomen (soprano), Nitzan Alon (mezzo-soprano), Nevo Weiner (tenor) and Yoav Weiss (baritone). Established by Haggi Goren and Maestro Borshevsky in 2009, the Gary Bertini Choir, numbering some 26 singers, performs repertoire from Renaissance- to contemporary classical works, also folk music, music of Jewish- or Israeli content and world music.

 

The event opened with J.S.Bach's Cantata BWV 106 Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (God's time is the best time), also known as Actus Tragicus, a funeral piece composed in 1707, when the 22-year-old composer was employed as church organist in Mühlhausen.. One of Bach's earliest cantatas, its unusual instrumentation calls for two recorders, two violas da gamba and continuo section, vocal soloists and choir. Although not performing on period instruments, members of the Israeli Chamber Ensemble provided the soft-grained detail and comforting (sometimes almost heavenly) sound evoking the work's intimacy, intense expressiveness and meditation. From the quiet longing of the Sonatina, one of the loveliest, most soulful openings in any Bach cantata, recorder players Inbar Solomon and Leora Vinik wielded the duet's extraordinary beauty and devotion, the recorder roles' sharp seconds and unisons possibly symbolising earthly suffering. As to the soloists, Nevo Weiner gave a richly resonant reading of the mournful Arioso; Nitzan Alon, her voice mellow and even in all registers, shaped the text's meaning throughout "In deine Hände" (Into your hands); Neta Flomin wove the proclamation of the coming of Jesus into "Es ist der alte Bund" (It is the ancient law) with gossamer-fine beauty and ease. With the recorders in unison propelling the music forward, Yoav Weiss, gave "Bestelle dein Haus" (Put your house in order) a sense of divine urging, his voice buoyant, yet avoiding the muscular approach taken by some singers in this aria. Performing one of the pinnacles of Bach’s sacred music with emotional restraint, delicacy, transparency and subtlety, Borshevsky, choir and soloists showed listeners through the work's phases, from fearful death to joyful afterlife, from worldly complacency into uncertainty and on into the light.

 

Based on Psalm 51 (Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love), Johann Adolf Hasse's Miserere in C minor was composed in 1735 for the Ospedale degli Incurabili, one of several institutions in Venice dedicated to caring for- and educating orphaned and abandoned children. Originally written for women’s choir, the Miserere was later revised by Hasse himself to include the more standard vocal ensemble of SATB, soloists and choir and a larger orchestra. He also added two final movements to the piece. The revised version was that performed at the Tel Aviv concert. The eight contrasting sections include arias, soloistic ensemble movements and choruses, the work's message expressing comfort, devotion, and mercy. Cast in a relatively compact structure, Hasse's musical language covers a broad stylistic and emotional range, bringing the dramatic flair of Neapolitan opera music to the penitent and pleading Miserere text. Setting the scene was the choir's majestic, clean and unmannered singing of the opening Miserere chorus. Solos, duets and ensembles followed, the solos and duets (agreeably) free of excessive vibrato. In the tranquil Libera me (Deliver me), recorder players Solomon and Vinik imitated and commented within the weave of Flomen and Alon's natural, unforced singing of the movement. Hasse spent much of his career as an opera composer in Dresden. His choral music is little known but, on the evidence of this performance, it is worth uncovering.  Borshevsky's rendition of the Miserere in C minor captured Hasse's refined juxtaposition of solemn grandeur and graceful beauty.

 

And to W.A.Mozart's Missa Credo in C major K.257, its title explaining the acclamations of “Credo” that constantly punctuate the so-named movement. Composed in Salzburg in 1776, this Mass is remarkable for its density of invention within the narrowest of confines, showing the 20-year-old Mozart's adherence to Count Hieronymus Colloredo’s preference for concise services. Even by the standards of the Salzburg church, however, this Mass is unusually eventful: jubilant ceremonial sonorities consist with sudden contrasts that feel almost operatic in their timing. Maestro Borshevsky addresses the work's wealth of beautiful melodies, its rhetorically vivid and structurally decisive style, its drama, its assertive energy and dynamic contrasts and the work's "vehemence" (with few exceptions), in which the music does not always support the words. (Indeed, with Mozart known to have been irreverent at times, might it be that the Credo Mass comes across as a work of largely secular defiance and independence?)  One fascinating feature of the work is the existence of two distinct choral bodies. For the solo singers, who generally function as a quartet, Mozart wrote in a filigreed and more ornamented manner than for the choir, The Tel Aviv performance offered much interest in the exchanges between the two choral groups. “Benedictus qui venit” (Blessed is he), with its exquisite writing providing introspective, meandering songfulness for the soloists, was moving (indeed, supportive of the words in every way!) Altogether, the singers were splendidly supported by the ICE's instrumentalists, the instrumental score's chamber-music quality sometimes soaring into almost symphonic proportions.  

 

"Shattered Dreams" - the Nari Baroque Ensemble performs European and English vocal music at the Dormition Abbey, Jerusalem

 

 

Yotam Haran, Guy Pardo, Liron Givoni, Naomi Hassoun (Noam Livay)

"Shattered Dreams" was the somewhat enigmatic (indeed, thought-provoking) title given to the Nari Baroque Ensemble's recent concert of Baroque (mostly) secular music performed in the Divan hall of the Abbey of the Dormition, Mt. Zion, Jerusalem, on June 22nd 2026. Fr. Simeon Gloger welcomed the audience to the event. Members of the award-winning Nari Ensemble are Liron Givoni (soprano), Naomi Hassoun (recorders), Yotam Haran (Baroque 'cello) and Guy Pardo (harpsichord).

 

Each of Nari's concerts tells a story. Falling into three sections, this program presented musical works interspersed with original texts, the latter recited by Liron Givoni and Yotam Haran in fine, articulate English and with much emotion. The program comprised mostly da capo arias, with Pardo and Haran forming the continuo section and Hassoun taking on all the solo obbligato roles on the various recorders, from sopranino to voice flute. The concert offered a representative selection of Baroque arias and art songs by German, French, Italian and English composers.

 

Of course, the subject was love and its many aspects. There were a number of idolised, blissful love songs, always cast against idyllic, pantheistic nature settings, as in George Frideric Handel's Flammende Rose, Zierde der Erden (Flaming rose, adornment of the earth), in Handel's beautifully crafted Meine Seele hört im Sehen (My soul hears through seeing) and in the ensemble's wonderfully embellished reading of the composer's Endless pleasure, endless love. There was Alessandro Scarlatti's Quel venta che d'intorno (That wind which constantly plays around you), Pietro Torri's Son rosignolo (I am a nightingale), the latter abundant in bird calls, both vocal- and on the sopranino recorder, and The Midsummer Wish by Henry Carey, with its references to the lush natural English surroundings of the Thames.

 

However, so very many of the beautiful, bittersweet love songs from the 17th century are infused with longing, doubt, disappointment, refusal, jealousy, and farewell. Effectively performed, Handel's Brillava protetto (His radiance endured) speaks of grief endured and lingering sorrow. We experience the "enchanting pain" referred to in John Christopher Pepusch's Who, from his Heart securing and the efforts to "try to regain or quit the Cruel fair" in Pepusch's Why shou'd I love, the longing and word painting applied in the "beautiful, silvery tears" of Alessandro Scarlatti's Onde chiare che spargete (Clear waves, which scatter) and the predominance of happiness (yet hinting at "rebellious hearts" and "jealous fears") in Joseph Bodin de Boismortier's Règne, Amour (Reign, Love), its pastoral ambience fashioned by the velvety sounds of the voice flute, the work's French style suggestive of dance.  

 

Georg Philipp Telemann, who left one of the most extensive and celebrated legacies of recorder music of the Baroque era was, himself, a virtuoso recorder player. The program featured three Telemann pieces. In Nein, du wirst mich nicht versäumen (No, you will not forsake me) from Wer sehnet sich nach Kerker, Stein und Ketten (Who longs for dungeons, stones, and chains) a sacred cantata, the text celebrates the believer's spiritual and moral freedom from earthly trials. Here, Hassoun's virtuosic playing and Givoni's zesty reading of the vocal line were delightfully interwoven. From Telemann's collection of Easter and Pentecost cantatas, in the vehement Du bist verflucht! (You are accursed!), a da capo aria with recitative, the artists give masterful balance to the work's melodious element and counterpoint via their vocal- and instrumental finesse, the continuo instruments adding textural weight to the piece's all-consuming subject matter. Of an interesting genre, created in response to the growing popularity of works with moralizing texts, we heard a fiery, intense performance of Du bist ein tolles Ungeheuer (You are a wild monster) from the composer's Six Moral Cantatas (c.1739). For the program's only instrumental piece, Haran, Pardo and Hassoun (on soprano recorder) gave an evocative reading of L'hiver (Winter) from Telemann's Der getreue Musikmeister (The Faithful Music Master). 

 

Liron Givoni's enunciation of the relevant languages was excellent. Altogether, the Nari Baroque Ensemble presented an evening of informed, polished and moving performance. 

Conducted by Omer Arieli, the Jerusalem Opera performs Jules Massenet's "Cendrillon" (Cinderella). Libretto: Henri Caïn. Stage director: Daniel Lasry

 

Nadezhda Gaidukova, Mima Millo (Elad Zagman

Cinderella is one of the most beloved fairy tales of all time: A young woman of unmatched grace and goodness overcomes the abuse of her stepfamily, receives the help of a fairy godmother and wins the heart of a royal suitor, to live happily ever after. For almost 2,000 years, versions of the Cinderella story have been told across the globe, inspiring settings by authors, playwrights, musicians and filmmakers. The Henry Crown Hall of the Jerusalem Theatre seemed to be bursting at the seams on June 18th 2026 to accommodate the large number of people arriving to attend the Jerusalem Opera's latest production - Cinderella (in the original version, Cendrillon) composed by Jules-Émile Frédéric Massenet. An opera in four acts, Massenet uses the French libretto of Henri Caïn, one based on Perrault's 1698 version of the Cinderella fairy tale. Daniel Lasry was the stage director, with Omer Arieli (Jerusalem Opera musical director) conducting the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and singers. The cast included soloists, a small choir, actors (the Spirits) and dancers (choreography: Yasmin Gariv).

 

Jules Massenet was the most prolific and successful composer of French opera in the late 19th- and early 20th centuries. Cendrillon premiered at the Opéra-Comique on May 24, 1899, at the height of Massenet’s career. It was an immediate success, soon to be performed across the world, becoming popular again in the latter half of the 20th century. The opera offers a mature and insightful recounting of the Cinderella story, without sacrificing humour or glamour in doing so. Massenet's score is constantly inventive, with much French post-Wagnerian writing, especially when the dramatic action is amorous. And while the major tunes are not catchy, the wide range of brilliant, even exotic music makes for excellent listening. The Jerusalem audience was presented with an impressive and well-cast line-up of soloists. Cendrillon’s father, a weak, inconsistent and conflicted man, objects to the indignities the step-mother inflicts on the young girl. With his warmth of timbre and fine dramatic presence, bass baritone Ivo Yordanov (Bulgaria) made for a compelling and kindly Pandolfe. In her uninhibited  portrayal of the outlandish stepmother, mezzo-soprano Noa Hope Sion (no new face to Jerusalem Opera productions) and the two grabby step-sisters (Shlomit Kovalsky, Yahav Dagan Gersht), formed a well-matched trio, united in their perception of the world, in their polished obnoxiousness, their vocal outbursts and droll buffoonery. Another exemplar of the distinct voice Massenet assigns to female characters is the role of the fairy godmother, here performed by soprano Nofar Yacobi. She delivers Massenet’s quirky coloratura part with glittering ease and brilliance, conveying all the charming authority demanded for the part. With no pumpkin carriage or mice-turned-valets, this is Cinderella for the adult audience, the sombre quality of the emotions of Cendrillon and the Prince (as dictated by the libretto’s heavy drift and Massenet’s lugubriousness) adding a more psychological dimension to the story. Both characters perform extended arias in which they bemoan their fates: Cendrillon is lonely and downcast; the prince is lonely and depressed. Mezzo-soprano Nadezhda Gaidukova, in the opera's trouser role, engaged her bold, richly-timbred vocal palette, her theatrical know-how and emotional depth to create the brooding character of the Prince, her voice adding distinctive colour to the love duets. Articulate, expressive and versatile, using the stage (and the Henry Crown Hall) to advantage, soprano Mima Millo reads into the persona of Massenet's Cinderella, taking the audience into the world of her emotion and passion with natural, vibrant vocal ease. So here, despite the fairy-tale aspect of the Cinderella story, the title character and her prince are recognizably human, "two lost people searching for love and meaning", in the words of stage director Daniel Lasry. As a last touch, the Jerusalem Opera production makes a point of reminding us that Cinderella is indeed a rags-to-riches princess, finally decking Millo out in an evening gown made of large, brightly-coloured raglike squares of fabric rather than a dreamy, white ball dress! 

 

With no orchestra pit in the Henry Crown Auditorium, Maestro Omer Arieli and the JSO instrumentalists occupied the back of the stage, with singers and the few props at the front. And there were some appealing staging effects, as in the dream scenes. In Act III, the chorus of fairies appears wearing their own tall, forest-type head-dresses, arranging themselves in a line down the centre of the stage for Cendrillon and the Prince's dream-like meeting in the woods. The dancers did a fine job throughout, reminding the audience that dance has always been an integral part of French opera. Keeping the music light on its feet, Maestro Arieli led the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra through the pizzazz and colour of one of Massenet’s most irresistible scores in a seamless ride of silvery, vivacious music, highlighting and incorporating the composer's humour and wit. 

 

 Another glittering and memorable Jerusalem Opera production!

 

Maestro Omer Arieli (Elad Zagman)

 

Hosting Shuli Waterman (viola) and Hillel Zori ('cello), the Carmel Quartet (music director: Yoel Greenberg) performs works of Byrd, J.S.Bach and Brahms

Yoel Greenberg,Tami Waterman,Hillel Zori,Tali Goldberg,Rachel Ringelstein,Shuli Waterman

The Carmel Quartet signed out of the 2025-2026 Strings and More series with "Echoes from the Past". Presented by Prof. Yoel Greenberg (music director and a member of the Carmel Quartet since 2003), together with Carmel Quartet violinists Rachel Ringelstein and Tali Goldberg and 'cellist Tami Waterman, the quartet hosted Shuli Waterman (viola) and Hillel Zori ('cello). This writer attended the (English language) explained concert on June 10th 2026, at the Jerusalem Music Centre, Mishkenot Sha'ananim.

 

Somewhat unexpectedly, the evening's program opened with a piece from the vast legacy of the golden age of viol consort music in England (1575-1650) - William Byrd's Fantasia III à 6. Seated in a circle, as did viol (and other) players of the upper classes for their social entertainment of music-making, the artists presented the piece's initial dark and mellifluous sound world. Moving seamlessly from section to section, their playing underscored the play of motifs tossed from one instrument to another, also drawing one's attention to the occasional "clash" of false relations (a characteristic of English music from this period), as the sonorous sections gave way to a series of rustic dances. Not performed on period instruments, the players, however, did away with the use of vibrato, producing a clean, candid, informed and pleasingly convincing reading of the piece.

 

The evening’s discussion led to the viola and its bleak plight - its role in symphonic- or string quartet settings to provide middle harmonies, to the fact that there is not much solo repertoire written for viola and to the unfortunate situation of the viola and viola players being the target for many jokes! It was flautist/composer Johann Joachim Quantz who referred to the viola as "unimportant in the music world" as "the instrument…often played by people who are either beginners in music or do not have the talent to distinguish themselves on the violin..."  J.S.Bach himself was an excellent performer on both violin and the viola. According to his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Sebastian's interest in harmony meant he was partial to playing middle parts, i.e. the viola. In Brandenburg Concerto No.6 BWV 1051 (Greenberg refers to it as "Bach's social protest against the lowly status of the viola"), the score does not call for violins. Instead, two violas play the leading roles, supported by two violas da gamba, a 'cello, a violone and harpsichord (here, adjusted to suit the ensemble.) With his employer, Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen a reasonable gamba player, Bach was able to enjoy playing one of the viola parts in this concerto. At the Jerusalem concert, Yoel Greenberg and Rachel Ringelstein performed the leading viola roles, with Hillel Zori undertaking the gamba part on 'cello. Following the opening Allegro, its main theme in close canon, with the two viola parts entering right on the heels of each other, the second movement (Adagio) was played only by the leading violas and 'cellos, the violas spinning out long lines rising into the violin’s usual register, as they enlisted some attractive ornamenting. Then, to the hearty Allegro (3rd movement), with the soloists elaborating the main theme with florid passages of sixteenth-notes. Altogether, a splendid reading of the work, music unique in its glorious, mellow tapestry of string textures.

 

Another work in which the viola is well represented is Johannes Brahms' String Sextet No.2 Op.36 in G major. From the pen of the 30-something-year-old composer, Sextet No. 2 reveals Brahms as having honed the elements of his craft, with emphasis on his skill as a contrapuntalist. The work’s instrumentation (two violins, two violas, two 'cellos) invites tonal richness and depth that seems to defy the chamber music genre. Here, we are aware of a measure of austerity, the sextet's climate of resignation foreshadowing many of the composer’s more mature works. Who could have imagined that G major could feel this melancholy and unsettled? The players gave the work a dedicated, polished performance, one carefully paced, their ensemble playing communicating a sense of shared purpose. Beginning with the opening Allegro's ghostly murmur in the first viola, moving on to the movement's drama and sublime moments, to the Scherzo's poignant-, bittersweet- and Hungarian-inspired aspects, the Adagio  emerged impressive in its variations, the latter encompassing the full range of the string sextet's sonorities, the variations ranging from the introspective to the ebullient. In the hide-and-seek of the final movement, an exhilarating contrapuntal tour de force, the players' virtuosity and freshness were engaging throughout. Yoel Greenberg expressed that he wanted the audience to sense their enjoyment in playing. I believe it did.

 

Referring to the works, to performance practice of their times and to writings of the composers' contemporaries, Prof. Greenberg's talk was lively, informative and convivial, enriched by texts beautifully read by Carmel Quartet members and by some interesting illustrations shown on a screen. 

Prof. Yoel Greenberg (Courtesy Carmel Quartet)

The Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra closes its 36th concert season with "David's Lament" - works of Jeremiah Clarke and William Boyce. Conductor: Andrew Parrott (UK)

Maestro Andrew Parrott © Yoel Levy

 

Each concert of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra's 2025-2026 subscription concert season visited a different European city, presenting works of its major composers. David's Lament, the final concert of the JBO's 36th season, took the audience to London, but with a different approach: the program consisted of works of Jeremiah Clarke and William Boyce - two composers not necessarily familiar to members of the JBO's listening public. The concert was conducted by the orchestra's honorary conductor Maestro Andrew Parrott (UK). Soloists were Tatiana Levin (soprano), Yonathan Suissa (haute-contra/tenor), Itamar Hildesheim (tenor) and Daniel Ze'ev Ben Baruch (baritone), with Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra founder/music director Prof. David Shemer at the harpsichord. This writer attended the event at the Jerusalem International YMCA on June 7th, 2026.

 

Henry Purcell’s untimely death in November 1695 elicited many musical- and literary tributes. Several composers wrote odes in his memory, one of the more elaborate being that of Jeremiah Clarke (1674-1707), one of Purcell’s younger colleagues. Holding prominent positions in turn at Winchester College, St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Chapel Royal, Clarke's output was not limited to church music: he wrote songs, incidental music for theatre, works for harpsichord, and, as mentioned, courtly odes. Taking Clarke's Come, come along for a dance and a song, Ode on the Death of Henry Purcell (1695), Maestro Parrott put together a suite of instrumental pieces. Delightful items, they were given a colourful, zesty reading, some suggesting just a few folksy elements, the pieces offering vibrant roles for the JBO's impressive line-up of wind players. Included was a delicately ornamented harpsichord solo of "Mister Purcell's Farewell" (Shemer), the suite signing out with Alon Melnik's hearty trumpet solo in Jeremiah Clarke’s best-known composition - the Trumpet Voluntary (originally called The Prince of Denmark’s March) - a piece formerly attributed to Purcell.

 

David’s lament over Saul and Jonathan has inspired centuries of musical adaptations, one celebrated Renaissance setting of this passage (Samuel 1:19–27) being Josquin des Prez' Planxit autem David, other notable polyphonic settings including works of Nicolas Gombert and Orlando di Lasso. A later work, Thomas Weelkes' sublime When David Heard, explores the depths of David's grief and emotion. Moving into the 20th- and 21st centuries, one might mention Yehezkel Braun's extensive vocal work David's Lament over Saul and Jonathan (2009) Eric Whitacre's When David Heard (1999) and Canadian composer Kai Leung's When David Heard (2022). William Boyce (1711-1779) wrote David's Lamentation over Saul and Jonathan in 1736 at age 24, revising it for performances in Dublin during the mid-1740s. Maestro Parrott directed the JBO players and four singers in the earlier London version, (libretto: John Lockman, based on Samuel 1). This was the first performance of the elegiac work to be heard on Israeli concert platforms. Following the profoundly poignant two-movement Overture in G minor, each gesture addressed with punctilious shaping, we were transported to the melancholy, at times darkly intense character of the "dramatic scene" (This is not really an oratorio). As to the choral sections, the four fine young singers joined to produce a rich, consolidated, coherent vocal ensemble sound, their treatment of the texts indicative to the recountal. Boyce's work has no dramatis personae: the soloists undertake roles as narrator or protagonist as the drama progresses. Yonathan Suissa (in tenor voice) reads into the text via his direct, unmannered singing, his narration and presentation of dialogues transparent, convincing and engaging.  Itamar Hildesheim's vivid story-telling and word painting highlight the work's dramatic aspects and contrasts. The two singers then join to deliver the musical and emotional crux of the work - "Sad Israel, thy beauty's pride" - a duet of sublime beauty, the solo violin (Noam Gal) delicately underscoring the duet's noble, intimate expressiveness. Baritone Daniel Ze'ev Ben Baruch's vibrant, buoyant singing and Tatiana Levin's well- anchored and full-bodied soprano  made up the well-chosen vocal team. In this eloquent and insightful performance, indeed, a fine vehicle for the singers and JBO instrumentalists, Maestro Parrott sheds important light on a composer of an era traditionally dominated by the figure of Handel. The event brought the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra's 2025-2026 concert season to an exhilarating and majestic end. 

 

Conducted by Maestro Ingo Metzmacher (Germany), the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performs Bruckner's Symphony No.8 in C minor

 

Ingo Metzmacher © feliXbroede

The prospect of hearing Anton Bruckner's Symphony No.8 in C minor seemed to take some audience members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra out of their comfort zone. Or did it, at the same time, draw and challenge listeners to experience the epic work in all its sweeping radiance?  Bruckner's Symphony No.8 was conducted by  Maestro Ingo Metzmacher (Germany). This writer attended the performance in the Sherover Theatre, Jerusalem, on May 31st, 2026.

 

Bruckner was in his sixties when he wrote his monumental Eighth Symphony, informed by Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, and Bruckner’s own earlier works. The making of Symphony No.8, the composer's last completed symphony, however, got off to a rocky start. Writing it occupied Bruckner for three years. Finishing the first version in 1887, Bruckner sent the score to conductor Hermann Levi., who rejected the piece, claiming it was basically unperformable. Over the next few years, Bruckner effectively recomposed the work. In the 1887 version, for example, the first movement ends in major-key triumph. The revised version ends the first movement (Allegro moderato) with "sighs" from the violas in minor-key dejection, melodramatically described by the composer himself as " when one is on his deathbed, and opposite hangs a clock, which, while his life comes to its end, beats on ever steadily: tick, tock, tick, tock". The other movements were also subtly but profoundly revised, resulting in heightened focus of Bruckner's musical ideas. Many Bruckner symphonies exist in more than one version. The Eighth exists in four. The version performed at the recent IPO concert was the scholarly edition of Leopold Novak, published in 1955 and based on Bruckner’s 1890 version. The work is scored for a large orchestra, with 15 brass instruments, including eight horns, four of which double on Wagner tubas. 

 

Symphony No.8 was premiered in December 1892, with the Vienna Philharmonic performing it at the Musikverein (Vienna) and conducted by Hans Richter. The audience included Brahms, Hugo Wolf and Johann Strauss. The critic Eduard Hanslick spoke of the work as having a "nightmarish hangover style - a future we therefore do not envy!" Indeed, Brahms had previously described Bruckner's works as "symphonic boa-constrictors". 

 

Offering more explanations as to extra-musical ideas behind the symphony, Bruckner himself suggested that the Scherzo, (he places it before the slow movement) was "a portrait of the figure of German Michael" (a bucolic rustic from German folk tradition), the languid, radiant, harp-ennobled trio section of the Scherzo depicting Michael dreaming. The composer added that the opening of the Finale was inspired by the Cossacks, the Russians having visited the Austrian Emperor not long before. Whether today's listener wishes to rely on- or relate to such associations raises some questions. What is imperative to all hearing the work, however, is the fact that Bruckner was a spiritual composer, and that his spirituality as a person is certainly present in Symphony No.8. Bruckner was also a renowned organist. The brass section of Symphony No.8 often functions as an organ, a direct connection with Bruckner’s deeply religious nature. From the unsettling darkness sounding right at the start of this symphony, building up power repeatedly and then letting it subside, to the Finale's coda, in blazing C major, Ingo Metzmacher's direction was one of commitment, transparency and musical precision, of structural comprehensibility and precise ensemble control. Relinquishing the use of a baton, he shows the audience through the symphony's vast, grand canvas, through its dark sonorities and moments of shattering drama, also leading us through such uncanny moments as that at the centre of the first movement, where Bruckner paints one of the emptiest, most desolate musical landscapes ever - a single flute sounding over tolling, funereal trumpets and chromatic "gasps" in the basses. As per usual, the IPO's outstanding instrumentalists, both sections and individual players, provided some memorable moments, too many to mention here. Hearing and watching the players in the huge wind sections was a stirring experience. From the Scherzo on, all eyes were on timpanist Dan Moshayev, his playing punctilious and sensitive. Metzmacher and the IPO players joined in profound, mutual elucidation of the music, in.an organic inevitability that comes when orchestra and conductor find a synergetic union. Not only exposing the music’s darkness and pain, but also its optimistic, spiritual ecstasy, Ingo Metzmacher's conducting was both passionate and eloquent, never manic. Born in Hanover in 1957 (where his father was a well-known 'cellist), this was his first appearance with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In an interview with Colin Anderson in TWENTIETH-CENTURY REFLECTIONS, Maestro Metzmacher makes reference to "the German tradition" which he clarifies as "clear, forward music-making, very honest, not a big show for yourself."  

 

Sharon Prushansky performs early 19th-century European works on the Graf fortepiano of the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Jerusalem

 

Sharon Prushansky (Courtesy Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra)

At the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, on May 23rd 2026, Sharon Prushansky performed "Between Classicism and Early Romanticism". Ms. Prushansky played a selection of early 19th-century works on the center's recently-acquired 1819 Graf fortepiano, an excellent instrument made by historic piano builder Paul McNulty (US), based on pianos played by Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin.

 

The program opened with Ludwig van Beethoven's Sonata No.15 in D major Op.28 "Pastoral". Although from the beginning of the composer's so-called middle period, the sonata follows the traditional fast-slow-scherzo-finale pattern. Addressing its easy-going and genial character, Beethoven's Hamburg publisher gave the sonata the title of "Pastoral", a soubriquet that becomes particularly clear in the final movement (Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo.) From the opening movement (Allegro), its "heartbeat" providing an air of mystery, Prushansky's playing is stylistic, carefully shaped, tasteful and understated. Via the direct sound world of the fortepiano, she reads into the score's fine detail, also pointing out Beethoven's small surprising turns. In the Andante, the sustained melody set over a staccato, broken-chord bass (one of the work's idiomatic effects), she allows gentle hesitations to shape the movement's course. Following the Scherzo, negotiated with the wink of an eye, Prushansky’s playing of the final movement, with its drone-like opening figure, emerges clean and vivid, indeed, suggestive of rustic charm.

 

In 1805, Irish poet Thomas Moore wrote a short poem titled “The Last Rose of Summer” This was later set to a traditional tune, the poem and the tune published in 1813 in Volume 5 of Moore’s Selection of Irish Melodies. Several composers have created their own arrangements and fantasies based on the tune. How exactly Felix Mendelssohn came across “The Last Rose of Summer” is unclear; he composed a fantasia on that tune in 1827, published as Op.15. The melody is presented in plain and unadorned Adagio passages contrasted by intense presto utterances. Prushansky makes a good case for the attractive and somewhat curious Last Rose of Summer Fantasy. 

 

Despite his short life, Friedrich Theodor Fröhlich (1803-1836) is nevertheless regarded today as Switzerland’s most significant early Romantic composer. He was also a brilliant pianist. Leaving behind over 700 compositions, Fröhlich's choral works and songs, all in the Romantic vein, are impressive. He also composed two symphonies, overtures and much chamber music, as well as piano pieces. Of the latter genre, Sharon Prushansky performed 3 Elegien (Three Elegies) for solo piano from Op.15 (1833). She gave rhapsodic expression to the pieces' pianistic, personal, highly melodious and fetchingly Romantic moods, so suited to the congenial attributes of the fortepiano. The second piece she played, (with the puzzling title of) Andante: Nicht an Alexis (Not to Alexis), is characterized by the unusual time signature of 5/8 (the first piece in history using the signature of 5/8 throughout?). It is quirky and quite lovely. Altogether, this was a fine opportunity to hear music of the mostly-forgotten composer.

 

Frédéric Chopin composed mazurkas virtually throughout his life. Boasting nearly 60 of them, these miniatures form a pivotal body of the composer's most personal musical utterances, a constant reminder of the cultural ties he held to his native Poland, as well as of the memory he retained of the mentality of his people. The Jerusalem recital included three of Chopin's early mazurkas. Playing Mazurka in F minor Op.7 No.3, its pianissimo opening suggesting  bagpipes, then the much-loved hearty, jauntily dancing Mazurka in B-flat major, to the Mazurka in C-sharp minor Op.6 No.2, the latter’s rustic atmosphere introduced by the contrarily accentuated fifths drone in the bass, Prushansky addresses the unique character of each (including curious, deviant motifs appearing in several of the mazurkas), freely shaping and flexing gestures, presenting the wealth of melodic invention and of harmonic-, rhythmic- and expressive nuances of each dance with spontaneity.

 

As part of the broad musical education given to her by her father, Clara Wieck learned to compose. From childhood to middle age, she produced a considerable body of works. Her six Soirées musicales Op.6 (1835-1836), written at age 16 or 17, remain one of her most notable works in the solo piano repertoire. Composed in her distinctive lyrical style, the pieces (suggesting the influence of Mendelssohn and Chopin), reflect her ability to combine elements of Romanticism with Classical structures. Her husband, Robert Schumann, spoke of the Soirées musicales as boasting a "wealth of unconventional resources, her ability to entangle the secret, more deeply twisting threads and then to unravel them." Prushansky's exquisitely delicate rendition of the Notturno in F major transported the listener into the beauty, delicacy and Romantic freedom of Clara Schumann's musical world, the artist's hearty, radiant playing of the Mazurka in G major and the Polonaise in A minor conjuring up the grand ambience of the glittering concert halls in which Clara would have appeared throughout Europe and England. Performing the (largely forgotten) Impromptu in E Major (1844), Prushansky highlighted its wistful flow of melodies with supple phrasing, subtle dynamics and a warm tone.  How inspiring it was to hear these splendid pieces of Clara Schumann!

 

Born in Israel in 1987, Sharon Prushansky attended the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music (Tel Aviv), earning a bachelor's degree there in piano and organ, then attending the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland, where she studied harpsichord, organ and fortepiano. A specialist in historical performance as well as in historical keyboard instruments, she mostly focuses on music of the Romantic era, also performing on modern pianos and the organ. Since 2009, Sharon Prushansky has resided in Switzerland.