By David Amos
SAN DIEGO — One of the most exciting aspects of being an orchestral conductor is to choose the music to be presented for a particular concert, or season. And for me, the upcoming two programs were very satisfying to prepare, because it brought together four works of music that not only strongly identify with Judaism in a single concert, but highlights four of its distinct dimensions: Tradition, history, worship, and spirit.
The Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra will present Hebraic Voices on Sunday, April 1, 3:00 p.m. at Ner Tamid Synagogue in Poway, and on Tuesday, April 3, 7:30 p.m., at the orchestra’s home, Tifereth Israel Synagogue.
Guest soloist will be the brilliant young cellist Julian Schwarz, who will play the familiar and beloved Kol Nidre melody from the Yom Kippur service, as arranged by Max Bruch. He will also interpret a work which has been hailed as the “ultimate expression of Judaism by an orchestra and a soloist”, Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo, Hebraic Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra.
Born in Seattle to a musical family, twenty year old Julian Schwarz is already being recognized as one of the finest cellists now before the public. He has performed as a soloist in several major label commercial recordings, and has played live concerts with the Seattle Symphony, the Moscow State Radio Symphony, the Casals Festival, and several other orchestras in the U.S., including our own Tifereth Israel Orchestra in 2010.
Interestingly, Max Bruch was not Jewish, but was invited by a friend to High Holiday services in Germany in the late 1880’s, and was inspired to compose the masterpiece, Kol Nidre. Personally, one of my musical highlights was to conduct the Israel Philharmonic in Tel-Aviv in the 1980’s recording of this work, but with a French Horn as soloist.
One can never say enough about the musical value of Schelomo. Ernest Bloch, born in Switzerland to a secular Jewish family, “discovered” his Judaism around 1910, and was inspired in his “Jewish Period” of composition to create a series of deeply touching and emotional works on Jewish subjects. Many call Schelomo his crowning achievement from this period, and arguably, the finest work for cello and orchestra of the 20th Century. Although he also composed secular music, some of other nationalities and others that are purely instrumental, he has earned himself the title of “the most celebrated composer of Jewish Music.”
I also had the pleasure of conducting in Glasgow, with the Royal Scottish National Symphony Orchestra, the first modern recording of Bloch’s homage to Switzerland, Helvetia.
The upcoming program will open with music by Serge Prokofiev, the composer’s Overture on Hebrew Themes. It features Klezmer tunes and rhythms, and is also historically fascinating in the fact that Prokofiev, who also was not Jewish, composed the piece in 1934, and lived in Soviet Russia during times when anti-Semitism there was at its worst.
The other work on the concert also brings me strong personal memories. The great American composer, Morton Gould asked me to record his orchestral suite of music which he composed for the television miniseries The Holocaust. The designated record company sent me to Poland, where in 1990 I conducted the Krakow Philharmonic in the touching musical highlights from this epic score. My emotions are hard to describe, when I found myself in Poland, a fifteen minute drive from Auschwitz, during Passover week, conducting music on the subject of the Holocaust, which contained various quotations of Hatikvah!
Ner Tamid Synagogue is located at 15318 Pomerado Road,Poway, Ca., 92064, Tel. (858) 513 8330. Tifereth Israel Synagogue is located at 6660 Cowles Mountain Blvd, San Diego, 92119, Ca.
For this concert, student cellists will receive free admission, when accompanied by a teacher or an adult. For more information, individual or group tickets, reservations, directions, or a season brochure, call (619) 697 6001, or you can buy tickets online at www.tiferethisrael.com/TICO.
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Amos is conductor of the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra (TICO). He may be contacted at david.amos@sdjewishworld.com