Jewish Classical Music Finds Advocates in the Northwest

When the Seattle Symphony, David Schiff, Miraim Fried and members of Seattle’s Jewish community gather on May 7, 2008 to celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the founding of Israel, they won’t just be celebrating a country; they will be celebrating the Northwest’s unique connection to Jewish music. It is understandable to expect a city like New York or Baltimore, with established Jewish communities to have connections to Jewish art music. But Seattle? In addition to Israel@60, the Seattle Symphony will perform a series of concerts as part of their regular subscription series where Jewish composers are at the center of the program and Music of Remembrance performs their spring concert. Earlier this year, the Medieval Women’s Choir lifted the curtain on medieval Jewish music. The confluence of events this year offers the curious a unique opportunity to explore Jewish classical music more thoroughly.

The connection to Jewish music comes from the top in Seattle. In recent years, Seattle Symphony music director Gerard Schwarz has shown an irrepressible desire to program and record the little known music of dozens of Jewish composers. Schwarz and the symphony have collaborated on recording projects for the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music ranging from David Diamond’s Ahava to Ernst Toch’s Jephta.

While the focus this season for the Seattle Symphony is émigré composers, it could just as easily be a focus on Jewish, émigré composers. Coming in May, with start of the Coming to America festival, Schwarz and the orchestra will perform the Genesis Suite, a musical adaptation of the sections of the Old Testament/Torah. The piece brings together a who’s who of composers, nearly all Jewish, who fled Europe with the rise of anti-Semitism.

Among the collaborating composers Is Arnold Schoenberg, who composed the suite’s Prelude. Schoenberg is known mostly as the father of Twelve Tone music. Although born Jewish, it wasn’t until much later in his life that his works began to incorporate this experience. One of Schoenberg’s most moving works is A Survivor From Warsaw which sets spoken narration against the backdrop of a men’s chorus and orchestra and tells the story of a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto. Violinist Stephen Jackiw also joins the orchestra as the soloist for Korngold’s rarely heard, but inspired Violin Concerto. Korngold, Jewish himself, found fame outside of traditional orchestral composition with widely hailed film scores for movies like the Sea Hawk.

One of the composers Schwarz and the orchestra have advocated in performance and on disk is Cleveland based composer and pianist Paul Schoenfield. The orchestra has recorded both Schoenfield’s Viola Concerto and Klezmer Rondos, with Scott Goff, the orchestra’s principal flute as soloist. The same recording also showcases the virtuosity of clarinetist David Krakauer, who will also be in Seattle for the Israel@60 concert. Krakauer recorded Abraham Ellstein’s Hassidic Dance for clarinet and orchestra. Only five minutes long, the work fuses a traditionally based Hassidic melody with klezmer effects and the colorful, natural orchestration of a skilled orchestrator.

In early May, Schoenfield is coming to Seattle for the premiere of a new work and to perform. As part of the Israel@60 Celebration, Schoenfield will be joined by cellist Julian Schwarz and violinist Alisa Barston for a performance of the composer’s piano trio Café Music. “The idea to compose Café Music first came to me in 1985 after sitting in one night for the pianist at Murray’s Restaurant in Minneapolis, Minnesota.” Schoenfield recalled in an interview for Art of the States. “The work draws on many of the types of music played by the trio at Murray’s. For example, early 20th century American, Viennese, light classical, gypsy, and Broadway styles are all represented. A paraphrase of a beautiful Chassidic melody is incorporated in the second movement.” A few days later, Music of Remembrance premiere’s Schoenfield’s Ghetto Songs.

For the May 7, 2008 Israel@60 Celebration, Schwarz and the Jewish Federation turned to Oregon based composer David Schiff for a commissioned work titled: Fanfare for Israel. The New York born Schiff isn’t a stranger to composing works informed by Jewish culture and history. His Jewish themed works include an opera in Yiddish, Gimpel the Fool and a setting of the Sacred Service set exclusively for a female cantor.

Schiff says, “Maestro Schwarz asked me to write a fanfare for the event. At first I didn’t know what to do.” Schiff continues, “then I remembered a tune sung by Cantor Lawrence Avery on the High Holidays to the words tiku shofar… My fanfare begins and ends with his melody.”

Perhaps the most famous Jewish composer who settled in the Northwest is Ernst Bloch. The Swiss born Bloch moved to Agate Beach Oregon in 1941. He died in Portland in 1959 of cancer. During the time Bloch spent in Oregon, he composed his Suite Hebraique for Viola and Orchestra and his Concerto Grosso No.2 for strings. For Israel@60, Miriam Fried, highly praised violinist and mother of rising star pianist Jonathan Biss, performs Nigun from Bloch’s Baal Shem for violin and orchestra.

Bloch composed Baal Shem in 1923, the same year he received American citizenship. Baal Shem sits firmly among the composer’s works that are identifiably Jewish. While other composers were motivated by Jewish folk music and traditional sounds, Bloch’s compositions come from what some have called an “inner impulse.” Bloch once remarked about the work, “it is neither my purpose nor desire to attempt a reconstruction of Jewish music, nor to base my work on more or less authentic melodies…I am not an archaeologist; for me the most important thing is to write good and sincere music.” Nigun is the most demonstrative of Baal Shem’s three movements, mimicking chanting with a rising, ornate melody before subsiding into a tender close.

The focus this month on Jewish music and Seattle’s connection to this often overlooked body of work is only possible because groups like Music of Remembrance and people like Gerard Schwarz are committed to the preservation and performance of this sub genre of music.

Dr. Neil Levin, the artistic director for the Milken Archive, believes the vitality of Jewish music depends on musical advocates like Schwarz. Levin remarked, “It’s very important because of the respect someone like Gerard Schwarz brings internationally. There is enormous respect. Obviously a spokesperson that is known is more effective.” For people even moderately interested in Jewish music, Seattle’s concert halls in May will be filled with Hassidic tunes, upbeat klezmer music, and new music from two of America’s leading Jewish composers.