Volume 04: Digital Album 9

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Sabbath Day - Individual Settings

Volume 4, Album 9: Liturgical Settings for the Sabbath Day adds 23 liturgical settings to the already voluminous Volume 4, Cycle of Life in Synagogue and Home: Prayers and Celebrations throughout the Jewish Year. Hebrew liturgy, apart from silently recited devotions, nearly always implies musical delivery. And this, combined with the relative autonomy of American synagogues, has spawned a range of musical styles and orientations in Jewish liturgical music. Liturgical Settings for the Sabbath Day features individual lsettings for the Sabbath day by some of the most notable composers of American Jewish music, including Debbie Friedman, Michael Isaacson, Samuel Adler, Ernest Bloch, and Wiliam Sharlin. Of no less significance are the musical artists who’ve helped give this music its highest expression. Cantor Alberto Mizrahi’s performance on Isadore Freed’s K’dusha and A. W. Binder’s Adoration will remind listeners why he spent a portion of his early career moonlighting as an opera singer.  The dark and woody timbres of Cantor Raphael Frieder’s baritone imbue excerpts from Ernest Bloch’s Avodat Hakodesh with fitting devoutness. And though the settings by Friedman and Sharlin are the stylistic outliers on this otherwise fairly traditional compilation, their provenance is instantly recognizable, serving as a reminder of the why their music so profoundly affected so many people.