A house concert of Jewish organ music performed and explained by Dr. Yuval Rabin at his Jerusalem home

Dr, Yuval Rabin (courtesy YR)

 

Not every day does one attend a pipe organ concert in a private home, but this was indeed the case on September 6th 2022, with people gathering at the Jerusalem home of Yuval Rabin to hear a concert of Jewish organ music performed on the 21-stop, German-built organ in his home. 

As one mostly associates organ music with church buildings and repertoire, this seemed an atypical program for an instrument mostly found in churches. Dr. Rabin opened the event with an outline of the history of the organ both in the synagogue and in Jewish music in general. Many of us are familiar with the choral music of Polish-German composer Louis Lewandowski (1821–1894), much of it for mixed chorus, solo, and organ, written during his tenure as musical director at the Neue Synagoge in Berlin - appealing, highly melodic music composed in the strict four-part harmony of church music, but with many of the pieces based on ancient cantorial modal melodies.  Rabin included a number of Lewandowski's appealing organ pieces from "Fünf Fest-Präludien" Op. 37 and "Synagogen-Melodien" Op. 47, all brimming with colour, noble, festive (and choral) gestures and threaded with quotes from familiar synagogue melodies.

Born in Lvov, virtuoso concert pianist and conductor Julius Chajes (1910-1965) fled to Palestine, then settling in the USA in 1937 and making an enduring contribution to the music of American Jewry - to American Synagogue repertoire, largely in the Reform milieu, but also in many Conservative synagogues, as well as to the secular Jewish concert repertoire of his adopted country. The musical language of his "Prayer" for organ, based on a traditional melody by J. Neumann, is a testament to Chajes' extensive work with cantors when he served as musical director for the Jewish community in Detroit.

The program included organ works of three German-born Israeli composers. Conductor and singer Karel Salmon (1897-1974), settled in Palestine in 1933, becoming musical director of the Palestine Broadcasting Service (later, Kol Israel), also teaching at the Academy of Music in Jerusalem. His "Six Miniatures for Organ" constitute a fine example of the "Mediterranean style" period of Israeli music, merging the composer's European heritage with Middle Eastern-, Mediterranean- and Jewish folklore material. Rabin gave an articulate, vivid and intelligent reading of the small vignettes, each inspired by a specific source of traditional Jewish melody, bringing out Salmon's detailed treatment of each.

Yuval Rabin spoke of Paul Ben Haim's "Prelude" (1966) as based on the gesture of a Seufzer (sigh). The artist's performance of the small, multi-sectional piece gave rich and engaging expression to its moods and richly coloured soundscape. Composer, conductor, pianist and teacher Paul Ben-Haim (1897-1984), his musical palette also a mix of European styles and local orientalism, remains one of the greatest and most prolific of the founding fathers of Israeli music. 

A fine sample of the compositional style of Haim Alexander (1915-2012) was heard in Rabin's playing of "Meditations on a Yemenite Song", a movement from "The West-East Bridge", a work (and, indeed, its title) indicative of the composer's aim to create a national style with Middle Eastern- and folk-like styles, yet still remaining close to his European background, at the same time, staying in line with contemporary developments of music. Rabin coloured the free variations and their differing ideas and patterns by way of a variety of registers and daring forays, making for excellent listening. 

The program also included a work by Rabin himself - "Fantasia on Sabbath Zemirot" (songs sung around the table during the sabbath and on Jewish holidays.) A demanding and somewhat programmatic work, the songs emerge via a variety of textures, as Rabin engages in some canonic writing, his harmonies at times bordering on clusters; there are humorous and mysterious touches and moments of imposing organ timbres. Rabin's style is personal, appealing and certainly challenging to the player. His explanations throughout the evening made for lively discussion with the audience.

Born in Haifa, Israel in 1973, Rabin studied at the Dunie Weizmann Conservatory (Haifa), the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, the Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Switzerland.) He participates in festivals and performs internationally with ensembles, orchestras and choirs. His CD recordings include “Organ Music from Israel'' and works of C.P.E Bach and Mendelssohn.

 

Works of Bach, Schoenberg and Brahms in Concert No.3 of the 2022 Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival

Dmitry Sitkovetsky (courtesy Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival)

 

Once again, the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival was here to provide music-lovers with late-summer enjoyment, its excitement and energy drawing large crowds and filling the auditorium of the Jerusalem International YMCA to capacity. The 25th Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival (artistic director: Elena Bashkirova) took place September 5th-10th, 2022. Arriving at the venue, one was greeted by Jerusalem's balmy evening breezes and the magical carillon sounds emanating from the YMCA bell tower, as Gaby Shefler entertained festival-goers with a selection of familiar melodies.

 

The Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival boasts its very own distinctive features. One is that it brings together musicians from all over the world - young artists performing on stage with more veteran musicians. Another is its concert programming, with each concert offering new- or seldom-performed works and, in some cases, offering a different slant on familiar pieces, all these alongside the canon of chamber music repertoire. Concert No.3 (September 7th) was no exception. It opened with six of J.S.Bach's Three-Part Inventions, BWV 787-801, as set for violin, viola and 'cello by Dmitry Sitkovetsky. Performing them were Sitkovetsky (violin), Hartmut Rohde (viola) and Xenia Jankovic on 'cello. So many of us have studied these 3-part keyboard Inventions (or Sinfonias) in our youth, then to revisit them later with a wider perspective. For the minor-key inventions, Sitkovetsky chose slow tempi, tempi that might not be effective on the harpsichord, but here, on strings, resulting in poetic, lyrical playing that gave prominence to each and every motif. As to the inventions in major keys, the trio members let down their hair to perform them with contrapuntal pizzazz, inviting the listener to follow how Bach plays out the subject matter in each. These perfectly-chiselled jewels, the very same notes that Bach had penned, but seen through the prism of the string player, made for a splendid opener to the concert. 

 

Arnold Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon Op.41 for narrator, string quartet and piano would not be a work often performed on these shores, if at all. Composed during World War II as a protest against tyranny, Lord Byron's poem castigating Napoleon served the composer in expressing his own feelings. An impelling and turbulent piece, rich in motifs and written in the manner of inflected speech (resembling Sprechstimme) Schoenberg makes several references to Beethoven. Conducted by Sitkovetsky, the artists displayed fine-tuned teamwork. Presenting the 12-tone score with feisty precision, the instrumentalists (Nathalia Milstein-piano, violinists Yamen Saadi and Mohamed Hiber, Hartmut Rohde-viola, Astrig Siranossian-'cello), together with narrator (baritone) Dietrich Henschel, brought out the work's compelling message, its sarcasm and scorn. Schoenberg had insisted that the narrator must have "the number of shades, essential to express one hundred and seventy kinds of derision, sarcasm, hatred, ridicule, contempt, condemnation, etc., which I have tried to portray in my music." Henschel did not disappoint, presenting the work's compelling message in a performance that was indeed gripping, resonant and genuinely theatrical.

 

These items were followed by three works of Johannes Brahms.  "Zwei Gesänge" Op.91, published 1884, had a strange genesis - to mend the marriage of violinist Joseph Joachim and wife mezzo-soprano Amalie Weiss (both musical partners of Brahms and personal friends), due to Joachim’s paranoid delusions about an affair he imagined Amalie was having with Fritz August Simrock, Brahms’ publisher. Performing the two songs at the Jerusalem concert were soprano Dorothea Röschmann, Razvan Popovici-viola and Sunwook Kim (piano), their beautifully balanced reading of “Gestillte Sehnsucht” (Longing at Rest, Rückert) and “Geistliches Wiegenlied” (Sacred Lullaby, Geibel) - both songs sharing the image of wind in trees, calming in the first and alarming in the second - sensitive, dynamic and evocative. With fine-sculpted musical gestures, Popovici constantly reached out to interact with Röschmann's poignant singing and beauty of timbre. 

 

In the late summer months of 1865, having left Vienna for a working vacation in Baden, near the Black Forest, Brahms rented an apartment with mountain views and began to imagine the Horn Trio while walking in the woods. His mother, Christiane, had died the previous February in Hamburg. The Trio in E-flat major for horn, violin and piano Op.40 brings together three instruments the composer had played as a young man. (Despite his great love for the instrument, Brahms only engaged the horn in one chamber music work.)  What quickly became clear at the Jerusalem concert was how wholly and naturally the three young outstanding artists - Ben Goldscheider-horn, Clara Jumi-Kang-violin and Nathalia Milstein - had delved into the musical and emotional meaning of this nostalgic and strangely modern piece, identifying with its controlled sentimentality, its agitated and impetuous moments, its urgent gestures, elegiac expressiveness and Romantic warmth. Ben Goldscheider wields the unforgiving horn with easeful mastery and richness of timbre. 

 

The event signed out with Brahms' Piano Quintet in F-minor Op.34, a dark, mighty work of huge scope, often considered to be Brahms' great chamber music epic, though completed when he was only thirty-one. Performing it here were violinists Dmitry Sitkovetsky and Mohamad Hiber, Gérard Caussé-viola, Tim Park-'cello and Sunwook Kim-piano. With both piano and strings playing an equally important role throughout this work, the artists created the whole-of-Brahms emotional journey in playing that was personal, lyrical, mysterious, fresh and with some subtly-flexed touches. 

Taking place in Tel Aviv for the second year running, the 2022 Abu Ghosh Festival (October 11th-13th) will offer a rich selection of musical events

Vocapella Limburg (photo: Florian Lill)

                                               

As in 2021, the upcoming Abu Ghosh Festival will once again be held in Tel Aviv, taking place from October 11th to 13th 2022.  Popular from the 1950s as an annual event, the festival's organization was taken over in 1992 by music-lover Gershon Cohen and choral conductor Hanna Tzur, the revamped festival then happening twice a year. Attended by music-lovers from far and wide, people have been flocking to the two Abu Ghosh churches to hear the festival concerts, also enjoying the craft stalls, outdoor events and the relaxed, holiday atmosphere. As the Kiryat Yearim Church is presently undergoing renovation, the Sukkot Festival will take place at the Yitzhak Rabin Centre in Tel Aviv. The Rabin Centre, located on a hill, boasts commanding panoramic views of the Yarkon Park and of the city of Tel Aviv, with beautiful grounds and three concert venues – the Leah Rabin Hall, the Round Hall and the Triguboff Gardens nestling in the spectacular grounds. As of 2021, a new team has taken over the running of the festival, most of its members active on the Israeli music scene - Amit Tiefenbrunn - music director, Tessa Harari - management and production, Alon Harari - production coordinator and Yeela Avital - participation director and fundraising. The team has set its sights at creating a multi-sensory cultural experience with music at its core, providing listeners with events of diverse musical styles - western classical music, regional-, ethnic-, folk-, jazz- and classical Israeli music. 

 

Here's a question: how do you prefer your concert program? Strictly classical? If so, you might like to attend Concert No.6: “Bach. Bach? Bach!”- the best of Bach’s Motets, Mass and Concerto for 2 flutes - featuring the Israeli Vocal Ensemble and the Barrocade Ensemble. Or Concert no.11: “Vivaldi - The Four Seasons/Mozart-Exultate Jubilate” with violinist Roi Shiloah and soprano Veronica Brook. Or two concerts introducing the festival's overseas guest choir - Concert no.12 “Motets and Madrigals-past to present'' and Concert no.15, “Shining Dreams'', both performed by Vocapella Limburg, an award-winning male choir from Belgium. In “Romantic Psalms”, Concert No.16, the Tel Aviv Chamber Choir and soloists, directed by Michael Shani, will present an all-Psalm program.  "The Reign of Love - Rome and Venice’s Baroque Opera Grandeur” (Concert No.20) will offer festival-goers a glimpse into some 17th- and 18th century Italian aristocratic families, their composers and operas of the time. 

 

But let's say the festival atmosphere tempts you to move “outside the box” and indulge in a little mixing of styles, you might just choose to hear “Mediterranean Sensuality” (Concert no.3), performed by the Mezzo Ensemble, an encounter between songs and dances of 17th century Europe and Greek music of the 20th century. “Carmen’s Jazz Vibe” (Concert No.4) promises a daring and electrifying program, in which soprano Daniela Skorka joins the Guy Mintus Trio. "La Folia" (Concert No.10) will present the concept of insanity as expressed in both early- and contemporary music. For this event, Inbar Solomon (recorders), Yizhar Karshon (harpsichord) and Amit Tiefenbrunn (viola da gamba) will be joined by choreographer/dancer Nirit Rakhbi. In a “Magical Mystery Tour” (Concert No.13), English Baroque music, Shakespearean music, early Celtic music and Italian opera will come together as performed by Sunita Stanislav (Scottish harp), Uri Schleifer (Irish fiddle), Genevieve Blanchard (Baroque flute) and soprano Yeela Avital.

 

Festival-goers can also choose from music of different countries and ethnic styles, from the toe-tapping music of Argentina in “Concertango - 100 Years of Tango from Gardell to Piazzolla" (Concert No.2) or traditional Celtic and Jewish music, gypsy rhythms and a touch of jazz improvisation, performed by the Tzalool Duo (Concert No.5). East meets west in an "Ethnic Celebration" (Concert No.7), a program that includes Bartok's "Romanian Folk Dances", but also Turkish, Armenian, and Israeli Music, as performed by the Galilee Ensemble. No new faces to Israeli audiences, members of the Hortus Musicus Ensemble (artistic director – Andres Mustonen) will take listeners on a whirlwind tour of the Balkans and the Orient. For those of us who are partial to American country music - getting a buzz from the songs of Bob Dylan, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash - the "Jacks of Diamond" players and vocalists will fit the bill with a "Folk, Bluegrass and Country Celebration" (Concert No.14). For people transported by the music of such greats as Mercedes Sosa, Dorival Caymmi, Villa-Lobos and Ariel Ramirez, Daniela Skorka and guitarist Eyal Leber will perform popular songs from Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Chile in “Latin-American Classics'' (Concert No,17). “Passion and Emotion” (Concert No.18), featuring singers Yasmin Levy and Yaniv D’Or with Ensemble Naya, will stir up emotions in an evening of Ladino and Spanish music, not to mention the wild, extreme sentiments of love, injustice, sadness and heartache to be experienced in “Fuego y Tierra” (Fire and Earth) (Concert No.19), a traditional Flamenco performance of song, guitar and dance.

 

And, no less important, festival-goers will have an opportunity to hear some of Israel's young, up-and-coming choral singers. Three of Israel's prominent youth choirs can be heard performing a wide variety of choral repertoire in “The Next Generation” (Concert No.8).

 

Winding up the 2022 Abu Ghosh Festival, the Rockberry Sisters, a unique all-female cover band, will indeed rock listeners into reliving the nostalgia of the “50’s and 60’s Greatest Hits” with songs of the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, The Monkeys, The Supremes, Elvis, The Beach Boys, and many more. The 2022 Abu Ghosh Festival also promises outdoor stalls selling up-market arts and crafts.

 

Ticket reservations:  https://www.goshow.co.il/pages/minisite/234  

The Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion signs out of the 2021-2022 season with "Beethoven/Chopin". Conductor: Dan Ettinger. Guest pianist: Alexander Korsantia

Photo: Miri Shamir

 

Alexander Korsantia (Courtesy A. Korsantia)

Over recent years, there has been much discussion about the programming of symphony concerts and whether we hear too much frequently-performed repertoire without moving outside of the box to hear lesser known- or new works. The audience packing the hall of the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Centre to capacity on August 14th 2022 to attend "Beethoven/Chopin", the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion's final concert for the 2021-2022 season, was proof that the undisputed masterpieces of the Classical and Romantic eras still remain fresh and exciting to the public. Conducted by Dan Ettinger, the orchestra's musical director, and featuring pianist Alexander Korsantia (Georgia), this event was to have taken place in January 2022, but ended up being postponed due to a rising wave of the coronavirus.

 

The concert opened with Frédéric Chopin's Concerto No.2 in F minor Op.21 for piano and orchestra. Actually, the first concerto the composer penned, it was written by the 19-year-old Chopin on his return home to Warsaw from a successful impromptu solo debut in Vienna and completed in the autumn of 1829. From the first moments of the opening movement (Maestoso), the audience is swept up by Korsantia's natural manoeuvring of the movement's exquisite poetic elements, contrasted by moments of dramatic urgency, as the pianist allows the ebb and flow of Chopin's narrative and melodic inventiveness to dictate his personal shaping and nuancing of the music. As to the Larghetto (a forerunner of the nocturnes Chopin would later compose) Korsantia's masterful weaving of its dreamy, embellished, noble phrases was offset by delicate, attentive playing on the part of the orchestra, the movement's contrasting middle section beginning dramatically, with the piano's agitated "comments" placed above tremolo string textures. Korsantia's handling of the final movement's virtuosic passagework served as a means rather than an end, delighting the listener with the freshness and joy of Chopin's mazurka theme, a horn solo introducing the brilliant F major coda. In streamlined teamwork, Ettinger and Korsantia presented the magic of Chopin's lyricism and cantabile melodiousness, his lustrous sonorities and Romantic, pianistic expressiveness. For an encore, the pianist's wistful, relaxed and beautifully measured reading of a Rag by American pianist/composer William Bolcom (b.1938) invited the piece to speak for itself. No new face to Israeli audiences, Alexander Korsantia today resides in Boston, where he is a Professor of Piano on the faculty of the New England Conservatory.

 

For the performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's mammoth Symphony No.3 in E flat major Op.55 "Eroica", Dan Ettinger needed no podium, no baton and no score. We were in for a performance that would have the audience perched at the edge of its seats. From the two defiant opening chords of the first movement, the Rishon LeZion Orchestra punctuated the excitement of the Allegro con brio's shattering dissonances and rhythmic dislocations with luxuriant, soaring, cantabile utterances. Then to Ettinger's solemn and moving recreation of the Marcia funebre, its major middle section and intense fugal section moving back to the funeral subject, now with added poignancy, grief and anger, the coda's reticent, downy final statement of the main theme suggesting resignation, then to build up to an intense climax. With a solo oboe introducing a rustic melody, we are transported to the lightweight, tripping Scherzo, a piece then displaying a gigantic expressive range and challenging horn writing, the sotto voce sections often underscoring no less tension than the movement's heroic utterances. In the Finale, Ettinger and his players entertain the audience with the Allegro molto's pot-pourri - one comprising the suspenseful, the unpredictable and the hearty, all emanating from the rich inventiveness of Beethoven’s imagination - as the bass line develops into a series of variations that climaxes with a slow hymn. As Maestro Ettinger turned to- and moved towards sections and individual players, his close physical proximity to them swept away the cobwebs of routine, putting his own stamp on the revolutionary originality of the “Eroica”, reflecting a work consistently fresh and illuminating, a work so innovative and influential that it was to change the course of music history. 

Maestro Dan Ettinger (Courtesy DE)

 

 

"I Know a Forest" - Octopus, the Israeli Pianists Quartet, in a new program of European and Israeli works, together with poetry readings by Alex Ansky

Meir Wiesel, Ifat Zaidel, Tavor Gochman, Bart Berman (Maxim Reider)

 

Following the two-year long silence imposed on performing artists by the Covid-19 pandemic, Octopus, the Israeli Pianists Quartet, has returned to the concert hall with an original and unique program of music and poetry. Joining Ifat Zaidel, Bart Berman, Tavor Gochman and Meir Wiesel, (four pianists on two pianos) was actor Alex Ansky. "I Know a Forest", a two-dimensional program, took place at the Tzavta Theatre Tel Aviv on June 1st 2022.

 

The theme of nature and forests gave rise to the event's opening works and poems, either directly or by allusion. As to the latter, Robert Schumann’s rarely performed Andante and Variations in B-flat major Opus 46, originally written for two pianos, two 'cellos and horn, was rearranged by Schumann himself for two pianos. The setting we heard, that of Ernst Naumann/Bart Berman, recreated the unusually lush dark and warm colours of Schumann's original scoring. The four pianists gave expression to the work's lyricism, poetic beauty and understated virtuosity, their playing, rich in textures, moving between frolicsome, restless sections and idyllic tranquillity, so characteristic of Schumann's rich inner world, as they preserved the home-oriented intimacy of 19th century chamber music. The program that inspired Alexander Glazunov's "The Forest'', Fantasia for Grand Orchestra Op.19, a work influenced by the realm of fairy-tales, starts thus: "Frightening is the forest at night when the trees take the forms of monsters, and mysterious sounds fill the air." Performing K. Chernoff’s wonderfully pianistic setting for eight hands of "The Forest", a dark and highly Romantic work of large proportions, the artists gave a vivid reading of the pantheistic tone-poem, its emotional content layered with fear, apprehension, gloom, foreboding and magic.

 

And to the program's Spanish content (works by two French composers!), many of us are familiar with Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate’s "Carmen Fantasy" (1883), a celebration of the rich and exotic melodies from Bizet's best-loved opera. Another such work is the "Carmen Fantasie", a virtuoso showpiece for violin and orchestra constituting a section of Franz Waxman's score to the 1946 movie "Humoresque". At the Tel Aviv concert, the Octopus players gave a polished and refreshing performance of the "Fantasy On Themes From Bizet's Carmen", written for two pianos-eight hands, by American composer Mack Wilberg (b.1955). Drawing on familiar themes from Georges Bizet's opera - the Toreador Song, the Habanera, the Act II prelude, and Carmen's "Chanson Boheme" - Wilberg's interesting writing, with its elegant use of dissonance, its Spanish fire and allusions to the story's passion, lust, jealousy, obsession, and revenge, made for a fascinating item. Emmanuel Chabrier's work for orchestra "España", originally conceived as a piece for piano duet, was the outcome of the composer's research trip on the folk music and dances of Spain. Although deprived of the play of timbres of the various instrumental combinations in the orchestral version, Camille Chevillard's arrangement of "España" for two pianos-eight hands nevertheless captures the light and warmth of Spain and the sensuous allure of Spanish dance - the fiery jota and the slow, sultry malagueña - as well as  the virtuosic nature of the original score, as the artists engaged the full resources of two pianos to present the work's spicy mix of rhythms, harmonic colour and joy.

 

The program concluded with a selection of Israeli songs - Bart Berman's touching, imaginative and subtle settings of "Adorned is your forehead with black and gold" (Yoni Rechter) and "Jerusalem of Gold" (Naomi Shemer), Moshe Zorman's pizzazzy arrangement of Matti Caspi's "Noah" and a rendition of "One More Song" (Mordechai Zeira).

 

The evening was, however, as much a literary event as it was musical, with Alex Ansky's dramatic and insightful readings of poetic texts by Natan Zach, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Leah Goldberg, Federico Garcia Lorca (trans: Raphael Eliaz) and Avraham Halfi.

 

Octopus, the Israel Pianists Quartet forges ahead with its exceptional, enterprising programs and unwavering standards of excellence, offering audiences performance that is balanced, scholarly, inspired and exhilarating. 

Actor/journalist Alex Ansky (Courtesy Alex Ansky)

Johann Adolf Hasse's intermezzo "La Contadina" performed in Jerusalem. Stage director: Gabriele Ribis; musical director: Yizhar Karshon

 

Niva Eshed Frenkel (Courtesy Jerusalem Opera)

Gabriele Ribis (Courtesy Jerusalem Opera)

Few 18th century composers enjoyed as much fame across Europe as did German composer Johann Adolf Hasse (1699-1783). Bourgeois opera-goers as well as heads of state doted on his productions. After initially travelling through Venice, Bologna, Florence and Rome, Hasse spent six years in Naples. It was there that he studied with Nicola Porpora, then meeting and studying briefly with Alessandro Scarlatti, at the same time soaking up the city's effervescent, outgoing resonance. He himself had a great lyrical gift as a singer; his marriage to soprano Faustina Bordoni and her appointment as "virtuosa da camera" to the Elector of Saxony saw the creation of one of the 18th century's most powerful musical couples. The intermezzo, an operatic form of two parts inserted between the acts of a full-length opera, was at first associated with Venice, but it was in Naples that it gained its greatest prominence. The female character was typically young, pretty and vivacious, usually a servant or a peasant and a schemer. In addition to the two singing characters, the intermezzi often included one or more non-singing roles. Setting the work to a libretto attributed to Bernardo Saddumene, Johann Adolf Hasse was twenty-nine years old when he wrote "La Contadina" in Naples. The work enjoyed such great success that records show that 38 productions of it took place in major European opera houses between 1728 and 1769, with the emergence of a number of versions. Israeli audiences have enjoyed several performances of Pergolesi's "La serva padrona"; however, Hasse’s "La Contadina" (The Peasant Girl) was new to many of us. This writer attended the performance at the Jerusalem International YMCA on May 31st 2022. The production, using Hasse's original version, was an Israeli-Italian collaboration of the Jerusalem Opera, the Carmel Quartet and the Piccolo Festival, FVG (Italy). With Carmel Quartet players seated on the stage, Yizhar Karshon conducted the musical proceedings from the harpsichord. Stage director was baritone Gabriele Ribis (Italy), who also performed the role of Don Tabarano. Soprano Niva Eshed Frenkel portrayed the flighty Scintilla. The two non-verbal roles were played by Vladimir Trasenko (Scintilla’s lover Lucindo) and Filippo Rotondo (Italy) in the part of Corbo, Don Tabarano’s servant.

 

A wheelbarrow of flowering plants, a sun umbrella, two chairs and a table - a serene, springtime rural setting. "La Contadina" opens with the somewhat effete Lucindo proposing to Scintilla. Niva Eshed Frenkel wastes no time in portraying the wily, crafty ways of the coquettish country girl, Eshed's sparkly, fresh, creamy vocal timbre and fine vocal technique serving her easeful stage manner as she shows how Scintilla wraps all and sundry around her little finger. Enter Don Tabarano (Ribis) with his servant Corbo (Rotondo). Ribis, his fluent, luxuriant voice and stage presence familiar to Israeli audiences, gives a droll portrayal of the dim but wealthy farmer who is madly in love with Scintilla, as the silent Corbo (also enamoured by her) tries to deter him through a gamut of muscular, theatrical gestures. Meanwhile, Scintilla flatters the Don to pressure him into furnishing her with gifts to enable her to elope with Lucindo. 

The second act (or intermezzo) incorporates some comical disguise, a characteristic of the intermezzo genre, as the Don and Corbo appear as Turks (the musicians too, who throw in a phrase of Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca!) to stop the young lovers making off to elope. However, instead of the tumultuous meeting taking place at the quay, as in the original storyline, the location here is a bus stop of the Israeli Egged bus company! The storyline ends with a bizarre twist: Scintilla admits to never having really loved Lucindo: she and her sugar daddy Don Tabarano now become the evening's latest "item", as Rotondo finally breaks his silence to sing the opening of "O Sole Mio" in fine bass voice.

 

A lightweight, farcical scenario? Indeed!  But Hasse matches the libretto's spirited wit and earthy high jinks with an outstanding score of brisk, bubbly tableaux, offering both challenging and memorable arias and delectable instrumental music. Karshon's direction resulted in a precise, clean and vibrant performance of the instrumental score, (adding some attractive keyboard gestures to the action-packed recitatives) bringing singers, actors and instrumentalists together in a mirthful and invigorating evening's music and entertainment. Kudos to Carmel Quartet players Rachel Ringelstein, Tali Goldberg, Yael Patish and Tami Waterman, who meet every new challenge with ardour and excellence.

 

Yizhar Karshon (Yoel Levy)

Cast and musicians (Yoel Levy)

"STARDUST" - VOCES8 (UK) performs sacred and secular a cappella works from the Renaissance to today at the Jerusalem International YMCA

VOCES8 (photo: Andy Staples)

 

 

 

It is eleven years since VOCES8's previous concert tour of Israel. It was time to hear the unique London a-cappella group of five male- and three female singers once again and take flight into "STARDUST" - choral music celebrating regeneration. This writer attended the event at the Jerusalem International YMCA on May 9th 2022.

 

 

 

Introduced by different ensemble members, the works performed at the Jerusalem concert ranged from Renaissance pieces to those of the 19th- and 20th centuries, to jazz standards and to contemporary pieces commissioned by the group...a huge, diverse assortment of pieces that seemed to come together as a cohesive whole. VOCES8's performance of sacred works is convincing, sincere and devotional. Following the "shooting stars" of William Byrd's jubilant, scintillating setting of Psalm 150 "Laudibus in Sanctus'' (Celebrate the Lord most high in holy praises), "O Sacrum Convivium" (O sacred banquet) by US composer Kevin Allen (b.1959), its Renaissance-type purity and vocal writing interwoven with just a few harmonic surprises, ensues with smooth spontaneity. Shifting fluidly and expressively through the contrasts of Heinrich Schütz' antiphonal "Selig sind die Toten" (Blessed are the Dead), the singers highlight its luminous timbres and its message of much-needed consolation. (The motet was written at the end of the Thirty Years’ War, one of the bloodiest conflicts in European history.) In addition to the clean, open sounds of the ensemble's restrained yet exuberant singing of Palestrina's "Magnificat Primi Toni", the almost seamless flow of melodic lines of the Kyrie from Josef Rheinberger's Mass in E-flat (also for double choir, alluding to the late-Renaissance splendour of Venice’s cori spezzati), intuitive and subtle, offered small solos, these crowned by Andrea Haines' mellifluous forays into the upper soprano register. And then there were two homophonic hymns: "Be Still My Soul" from Jean Sibelius' "Finlandia", to a text of Katharina von Schlegel (a notable woman of the Pietism revival), in which Voces8's performance of the mystical piece emerged unmannered, lush and moving; and 20th century Icelandic composer Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson's strophic, modal setting of the 13th-century hymn "Heyr himna smiður" (Hear, Smith of the Heavens) to words by chieftain/poet Kolbeinn Tumason, performed in a refined, devout and uncluttered manner, and with flawless vocal control.

 

 

 

As to the wonders of nature, the ensemble gave expression to the word-painting, tranquility and nocturnal mood  of "The Evening Primrose" (words: John Clare) from Benjamin Britten's "Five Flower Songs", this coupled with Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén's delicate arrangement of  "Aftonen" (Evening), evoking pastoral voices echoing in the mountains (he was also a watercolour painter). In contemporary British composer Jonathan Dove's heavily-anchored yet articulate setting of "Vertue" (words: George Herbert), its text and hues shifted between glimpses of fresh nature scenes and evocatively loaded autumnal harmonies, the latter reminding us that death is never far away, the piece finally rising to triumphant, bright tones representing "a sweet and virtuous soul". US composer Taylor Scott Davis (b.1980) has created a ravishing setting of Clairel Estevez's love poem "Stardust"; its fragility, sensuousness and waves of emotional energy cloaked in Davis's evocative palette of harmonies. "Stardust" was a commission for VOCES8 and it fits the ensemble like a silk glove!

 

 

 

One hallmark of VOCES8 is its enterprising programming, this challenging concert audiences to experience a huge variety of new and seldom-heard repertoire…Take, for example, "Timshel", the vivid and uplifting double-choir setting by the group's arranger-in-residence Jim Clements of a song of Mumford & Sons, the lyrics extolling the greatness and glory that lie in man’s free will and the ability to choose. Or the decidedly conventional writing of "Hope is the thing with feathers", (lyrics: Emily Dickinson) by American composer Christopher Tin (b.1976), a critical statement on man's impact on nature.

 

 

 

VOCES8 signed out with a number of favourites from way back - songs of Nat King Cole, Jerome Kern, Jimmy Van Heusen, Bart Howard and Harold Arlen…of memories of Frank Sinatra's greatest hits. Jim Clements' arrangements are as subtle and delightful as the singers' performances of them, the ensemble's  presentation of these evergreen songs abounding in good humour, the beauty of vocal timbres, jazzy rhythms, gentle percussive effects and some genial solos. Eight outstanding musicians, eight superb voices, Voces8 singers listen, blend, balance  and communicate, their polished performance never overstepping the bounds of good taste.