Yuval Rabin performs organ works of Bach, Mendelssohn, Lewandowski and Y.Rabin at a house concert in Jerusalem

 

Courtesy Terra Sancta Organ Festival

Among the instruments on view in the music room of Yuval Rabin's home in Jerusalem are an upright piano, a harpsichord, a clavichord, a pipe organ and a didgeridoo! The event we were attending was a house concert on November 5th 2024, performed by Dr. Rabin on the pipe organ, a German-built instrument boasting eleven registers and four basic timbres.

 

Leipzig Germany was the location of the program's first items, opening with J.S.Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, written some time between 1706 and 1713 when the composer was in his early twenties. Often heard played on large church organs that highlight the work's imposing majesty, it is conceivable that Bach might have written this piece with the pedal harpsichord in mind. Articulate, and sparingly embellished, Rabin's playing gave expression to the contrasts and variety of the Passacaglia's 21 variations, the Fugue building up to a massive climax of suspended harmonies and full instrumental sonority. Bach's Six Organ Trio Sonatas, representing a new organ genre established by the composer c.1727-1730, were written for his son Wilhelm Friedemann to study. These sonatas, attractive and immediately appealing to the listener, pose ferocious interpretive and technical demands for the player, requiring the right and left hand to play independent melodic lines on separate keyboards while the feet play the basso continuo. From the buoyant, good natured opening movement, through the gently undulating Siciliano, to the witty dialogue in bell-like timbres of the final Allegro, Yuval Rabin's performance of Sonata No.1 in E-flat major BWV 525 presented the piece's supremely Italianate character, as he chose to give each voice distinct tone colourings to allow Bach’s counterpoint to be heard clearly. 

 

J.S.Bach was a central figure in the music education of the prodigious young Felix Mendelssohn, the latter's versatile music career including organ recitals, in which he was known to be a fine improvisor. Both the counterpoint and the chorale movements of his organ sonatas reflect his lifelong immersion in the music of Bach. Mendelssohn reached new heights of awareness in his composition in the 1830s, as heard in his last and most significant works for the organ -  Six Sonatas Op.65. Especially fond of Mendelssohn's organ music, Rabin chose to perform Sonata No. 4 in B-flat major of the Op. 65 collection. The flamboyant, grand opening Allegro con brio, a toccata offering trumpet-like passages, was followed by an Andante religioso, its expressive melody reminiscent of Bach’s chorale movements. Another tranquil movement, a lyrical and charming Allegretto, its melody accompanied by an obbligato of continuous semi-quavers, gave no hint as to the tour de force to follow -  the Allegro maestoso e vivace, a majestic, ebullient fugue, its subject beginning with sixteenth notes in the pedals, book-ended by majestic opening and closing sections. Rabin's playing reflected the elegance and impetuous vitality which characterize Mendelssohn's music in general.

 

Moving to Berlin, we heard a short work by Polish-German composer Louis Lewandowski (1821–1894). Thanks to the support of Alexander Mendelssohn, a cousin of Felix Mendelssohn, Lewandowski was able to attend the Berlin Academy of  Music, an institution which did not admit Jewish students. Lewandowski was then to become one of the pioneers of the central European cantorial style.  Rabin performed one of the Fünf Fest-Präludien, Op. 37, written during Lewandowski's tenure as musical director at the Neue Synagoge in Berlin. Each of the Preludes relates to a specific Jewish holiday, each highly melodic, each composed in the strict four-part harmony of church music, with many of the pieces based on ancient cantorial modal melodies. The artist played Prelude No.2, based on the Kol Nidrei melody, sung on the eve of the Day of Atonement, the piece's opening evoking the momentousness and aura of the occasion, its musical quotations clearly emerging as they weave through the fabric of the piece.

 

The thread running through the program culminated in a composition of Yuval Rabin himself - "Hommage à Mendelssohn".  Based on "Yedid Nefesh" (Lover of my soul), a Sabbath melody, Rabin incorporates many musical turns of phrase from Mendelssohn's writing. Following statement of the melody itself, we hear four vivid and challenging variations inspired by Mendelssohn's stylish organ phraseology, the final variation an elaborate fugue. An impressive work, well handled.

 

Dr. Yuval Rabin serves as president of the Israel Organ Association.