 |
| Courtesy Miri Shamir |
Offering 18 concerts in 13 cities throughout Israel over the
course of five days, the Hatikva Project was conceived by Sharon Azrieli (chair
of the advisory council of the Azrieli Music, Arts and Culture Centre) for the
Azrieli Foundation in collaboration with Israel's professional- and youth
orchestras. With "Music heals community" as its slogan, the project's
goal was to spread new hope across the nation. ("Hatikva", the title
of Israel's national anthem, translates into English as "hope".) All
the concert programs featured, among other works, compositions of Israeli
composers, as well as Jewish sacred music. This writer attended a concert of
the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by its music director Lahav Shani, at
the Jerusalem Theatre on November 3rd, 2024. Soloists were Dmitry Ratush
(viola) and Shay Bloch (mezzo-soprano).
The program opened with "Therefore Choose Life" by
Boris Pigovat (b.1953, Odessa, USSR), who immigrated to Israel in 1990. "Therefore
Choose Life" (Deuteronomy 30:19), premiered September 2017, is tonal in
concept, the work's opening's intense, foreboding message glazed with
dissonances, indeed, with some clusters. To the listener's surprise, the
foreboding dark sound world gives way to sounds of hope, the latter free of
dissonances, the new musical agenda brightened with the timbral lustre of harp,
xylophones and celesta, the tutti now bringing a new message. A winsome
folk-like melody pervades the final part of the work. This fine piece is well
suited to the IPO's forces - to its marvellous tutti playing, but also to the
poignant soloing on the part of its players. Of "Therefore Choose
Life", Pigovat writes: "...I tried to express my feeling that life
(with all its pain, suffering and tragedies) is meant to be filled with beauty,
hope, light and love." A work of profound humanity that rings applicable
to our times.
Two works on the program featured Shay Bloch. Her
performance of Maurice Ravel's "Two Hebrew Melodies" for voice and
orchestra (originally for voice and piano in 1914, orchestrated by the
composer in 1919) brought out the melismatic, unhurried, spontaneous manner and
deep, emotional mystique of the "Kaddish" prayer (sung in Aramaic),
its tragic pathos followed by the whimsical, cynical melancholy of "The
Eternal Riddle" (sung in Yiddish), with its defiantly repetitive
accompaniment. The IPO's attentive, subtle realization of the instrumental
score endorsed the meaning of both movements. Leonard Bernstein's Symphony
No.1, "Jeremiah" (1942), a remarkably challenging, imaginative and
spiritual work to emerge from the pen of a 24-year-old composer, proved to be a
prediction not only of his future success but also of the tragedy that would
befall his own people. His astonishing mastery in depicting of the
"intensity of the prophet’s pleas with his people" (the composer's
own words) in "Prophecy" (1st movement) and of the "destruction
and chaos brought on by the pagan corruption within the priesthood and the
people" in "Profanation" (2nd movement) took shape as vivid,
dazzling canvases, attesting to the IPO's forces, its rich array of orchestral
colours and timbres and to the players' precision, their dynamic- and
expressive command. Joining the orchestra in "Lamentation", the final
movement, with texts (in Hebrew) from the Book of Lamentations, Bloch's
performance was gripping and sensitive, her voice substantial, resonant and
mellow, as she fervently evoked Jeremiah's mourning over his beloved Jerusalem.
The vocal line was punctuated by elegantly-shaped orchestral interludes.
The program's Israeli content was provided by two short
instrumental works. In "Tefillah" for string orchestra (1961), Tzvi
Avni takes the listener through a generous sweep of emotions, from
introspective-, inward-looking-, even whispy,otherworldly moments, to extravagant,
breathless dance-like rhythms, the sections' contrasting agendas proceeding
seamlessly by virtue of the composer's large palette of melodic ideas,
combinations and textures. Fine concert fare! Principal violist of the Israel
Philharmonic Orchestra (1938-1956) Oedoen Partos composed "Yizkor"
(In Memoriam) for viola and string orchestra in 1946 to commemorate the victims
of the Holocaust. Current IPO principal violist Dmitry Ratush gave an
outstanding performance of this modal tone poem, his playing meticulously shaped, introspective and
expressive, yet restrained, inviting the music itself to communicate its tragic
message to the listener.
Maestro Shani led the orchestra and soloists with
eloquence.
No comments:
Post a Comment