Episode 3: Bible Stories

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In this episode, two biblical epics are featured. In part one, a collaborative work composed by some of the leading composers of the 20th century. In part two, excerpts from a musical pageant depicting the entire history of the Jewish people.

Episode Transcript

Leonard Nimoy
In 1937, New York City witnessed an extraordinary collaboration among several of the most brilliant Jewish artists who left Germany because of the Nazi regime. This landmark event came just four years after the elections in Germany resulted in the Nazi Party being brought into the government, and Hitler being appointed chancellor. It was a staged musical work unlike any other – a recapitulation of thousands of years of Jewish history lasting some six hours. Its composer was the musician responsible for The Threepenny Opera, Kurt Weill. It was called The Eternal Road.

Leonard Nimoy
Hello, I’m Leonard Nimoy. Welcome to another program in a 13-part series that celebrates three and a half centuries of uninterrupted Jewish life in the United States through music, as documented by the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music and issued on CD by the Naxos label. On today’s program, two world premieres: the first recording of major excerpts from Kurt Weill’s The Eternal Road, and the recreation of a legendary suite of seven movements by seven composers entitled The Genesis Suite.

Leonard Nimoy
The 1930’s saw a major influx of European refugees to Hollywood. The nascent American film industry offered hope and opportunity to actors and directors who were uprooted from their native Europe by the anti-Jewish policies and persecutions of the Third Reich. Billy Wilder and Fritz Lang, Max Reinhardt and Michael Curtiz, Marlene Dietrich and Peter Lorre…their names still reverberate today, 70 years later. Many classical musicians immigrated to Southern California as well, including one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, Arnold Schoenberg.

Leonard Nimoy
A composer/conductor/impresario named Nathaniel Shilkret conceived an idea that would bring together seven disparate émigré composers. In a conversation recorded for this program, conductor Gerard Schwarz asked Neil Levin – Artistic Director of the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music –about this unusual collaboration.

Gerard Schwarz
The Milken Archive for American Jewish Music has done so much for so many of us and taught us so much. Nothing was more fascinating to me than the recreation of this Genesis Suite that was premiered in 1945 and only played that once by some remarkable composers Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Tansman, Shilkret, Milhaud, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Toch. There's a lot to a story. It seems to me, Neil, that a piece by these great masters being written in 1945 and then never played again. What is the story?

Neil Levin
It's not the first case in history of team composing, but this really is a piece of seven movements. Each movement is written by one composer and they're not related musically, except that they all knew they were writing for a single piece that had to do with the Bible and particularly with the Book of Genesis and basically with stories related to the early part of the Book of Genesis. And it is a bridge between high brow and low brow. It represents an American phenomenon of emigrate composers from Germany in the Third Reich and its effects, who many of them got involved in taking advantage of not only the economics, but of the artistic possibilities of Hollywood in terms of writing film music while they were at the same time continuing to write serious classical or highbrow music. This piece was the brainchild of one of the seven composers. His name was Nathaniel Shilkret, the least known of the seven composers today. And he got this idea after the war to commission six other composers and come up with what we have now as the Genesis Suite. He couldn't get anybody to come up with the money to commission Stravinsky or Schoenberg or any of these people.

Neil Levin
So he did it himself with his own money. He paid for it. And that's why, at the end of the day, all the pieces belonged to him, including the originals. And some of them were lost in a fire in his home and we had to reconstruct them. In any case, the only non Jew among the group was Stravinsky. Now, that presented some interesting problems. Apart from Stravinsky's pretty openly professed antisemitism, apart from his personal Jewish friendships with certain people, but he also didn't speak with Schoenberg. Schoenberg didn't speak with him and Shilkret had to organize the rehearsals so that the two would never be in the same venue at the same time. Nonetheless, after all his machinations, to that end, he failed. There was a rehearsal where somebody made a mistake in the scheduling and the two were there and they wouldn't even shake hands.

Gerard Schwarz
There's a famous quote, too, of Schoenberg talking about the bobble work of Stravinsky where, asked how it was, he said, well, the piece never quite ends. It just stops.

Neil Levin
That's right. The composers were interested in this project, I think, for various reasons, not least of which was the remuneration. These were hard times. People could use the money. They wrote film scores. And I think that fact is not to be ignored to the country. I think it's very interesting.

Leonard Nimoy
Musicologist Neil Levin, the Artistic Director of the Milken Archive.

Leonard Nimoy
Each of the six sections of the Genesis Suite refers to a scene in the first book of the Bible, apart from a Prelude to the Suite that was composed by Arnold Schoenberg. After that opening movement, the story of Creation is evoked in music by Nathaniel Shilkret, the musician who commissioned this entire project. The third movement, Adam and Eve, was composed by the Polish-born Alexandre Tansman; the fourth, which depicts Cain and Abel, was contributed by the French-Jewish émigré composer, Darius Milhaud.

Leonard Nimoy
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, a native of Italy, wrote a movement inspired by The Flood, and Ernst Toch touched on the same story with a shorter movement entitled The Rainbow. The finale to the Genesis Suite was written by the then most famous living composer not only in Hollywood, but probably in the world – Igor Stravinsky. He was also the only one of these seven who was not Jewish. His music in the Genesis Suite evokes the story of the Tower of Babel.

Leonard Nimoy
This suite by seven composers was performed just once, in 1945. After that it was neglected, and then considered lost when the music was largely destroyed in a fire. Through the work of the Milken Archive, the Genesis Suite was painstakingly reconstructed from the single existing obscure live recording of the music, and was given its first modern recording, issued on the Naxos label.

Leonard Nimoy
Here is that complete recording, with speakers David Margulies, Barbara Feldon, Fritz Weaver, Isaiah Sheffer, and Tovah Feldshuh, and the Ernst Senff Chorus and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwarz…in the Genesis Suite.

Genesis Suite

Leonard Nimoy
Gerard Schwarz led that performance by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Ernst Senff Chorus, with speakers David Margulies, Barbara Feldon, Fritz Weaver, Isaiah Sheffer, and Tovah Feldshuh. We’ve heard the complete Genesis Suite: seven movements inspired by scenes and stories in the Biblical Book of Genesis, composed by Arnold Schoenberg, Nathaniel Shilkret, Alexandre Tansman, Darius Milhaud, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Ernest Toch, and Igor Stravinsky. This special recording by the Milken Archive is available on CD from the Naxos label.

Leonard Nimoy
This two-hour program, part of a series from the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, is devoted to music inspired by the Bible. In the second half, a world-premiere recording of music by Kurt Weill. I’m Leonard Nimoy. This is the W-F-M-T Radio Network.

Leonard Nimoy
Welcome back to this program from the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music. I’m Leonard Nimoy. In the second half of our program we’ll be listening to excerpts from a little-known work that is hard to classify: The Eternal Road, by Kurt Weill.

Leonard Nimoy
The Milken Archive is a project of the Milken Family Foundation, created by its chairman, Lowell Milken. In a recent conversation, Lowell Milken reflected on task of reconstructing for this project music that had been considered lost.

Lowell Milken
Tragically, often this music has been lost, and many instances, we've almost had to recreate it. And we've tried to do all this to the exacting standards of what the music was. And I want to compliment both Neil Levin, our artistic director, and Paul Schwendener, our chief operating officer, for really doing an outstanding job in this regard.

Leonard Nimoy
Lowell Milken, founder of the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music.  Neil Levin, Artistic Director of the Milken Archive, is also one of the leading experts on the unusual composition that we’ll hear shortly.  Gerard Schwarz asked him about its origins.

Gerard Schwarz
One of the most interesting projects that we recorded were highlights from The Eternal Road, the great masterpiece by Kurt Weill, Franz Werfel, as directed by Max Reinhardt, three of the greatest names in the theatrical world, the first half of the 20th century. How did this happen?

Neil Levin
First of all, I know more than anyone else, am able to define what The Eternal Road is. Is it an opera? Is it a pageant? But it's in the sense of pageantry that we don't really know today anymore. Is it a passion play, a Jewish passion play? Is it an extravaganza? It's all of those things. It's sui generis in some ways, Kurt Weill aficionados will disagree with me and say, no, it's not his major work. And in some respects, from a musical point, I quite understand what they're saying, and other people will agree with me that it is, in a sense, his greatest work. Certainly there is no corresponding work of his or anyone else's to The Eternal Road. It is really a work that stands on its own as a musical theater, pageantry, artistic stage work. The extraordinary thing and I think we found this together, you and I, is on top of all that, how good the music is. Because that's really the test, I think, in the Milken Archive here. Is the music beautiful? Is it the best quality in that genre? And I have to say, I knew much of the music before, but it was only when I went to select the highlights that I realized how good it really is.

Leonard Nimoy
Neil Levin went on to explain how Kurt Weill came to collaborate with Max Reinhardt and Franz Werfel on The Eternal Road.

Neil Levin
The Eternal Road was the brainchild of Meyer Weisgal. Meyer Weisgal was a flamboyant producer and Zionist leader in America. He was born in Europe. He produced a pageant in 1933 at the World's Fair in Chicago. Called Romance of a People, and he brought in choirs of children and adults from every suburb, even as far up as Milwaukee, from synagogues, across the lines of Orthodox, Conservative, Reform. It didn't matter. And after that was over, it was so successful that he wanted to do something else even bigger and even better. And pretty much around that same time. The Nazi Party came to power by the elections in 1932 and in 1933. And one of the first things that the new German government did was to expel all artists who were Jews or who they perceived to be Jews from performing organizations, institutes, academies, everything. And Max Reinhardt was big in the news around that time as having been expelled from the possibility of any work in Germany outside the Jewish community. You could do whatever you wanted up until 1938 or 39, actually, as long as it was in synagogues or in Jewish venues, but that was it.

Neil Levin
Franz Werfel, the playwright, was expelled from the Prussian Academy of the Arts. I think Kurt Weill left more because of the misperception that he was involved with Communist things. But in any case, Meyer Weisgal read about this and he sent a telegram to Max Reinhardt, and he said, quote, if Hitler doesn't want you, I'll take you. And he said to him, look, I don't know exactly what I want. I know I want two things somehow I want to show in one evening the whole Bible, insofar as it relates to Jewish suffering and Jewish expulsions and so forth. That's all I want to know. And I want to do it right now because I want in particular it to be connected with what's happening in Germany. So Reinhardt said to him, look, I'm Jewish. I'm not particularly religious, but I do have a very strong Jewish feeling and Jewish connection, so forth. Yes, I will direct this for you. And for the playwright I'm going to suggest Franz Werfel, who is also a victim of the new German antisemitism and persecution. Then he said, sure, fine. And he said, what the music? Reinhardt said, look, there's a young composer living in Paris now as a self exiled composer from Germany, and his name is Kurt Weil.

Neil Levin
I suggest that he be the composer of this thing. Meyer Weisgal simply said, look, whatever you say, fine. And that was the birth of the thing.

Leonard Nimoy
Musicologist Neil Levin.

Leonard Nimoy 
The Eternal Road extends over more than 40 scenes and four acts. It takes on no less a task than to recount the history of the Jewish people. It begins with the stories of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through the leadership of Moses and the Revelation on Sinai. It goes on to Ruth and Naomi, the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem, and the Babylonian captivity. And it recalls the ensuing centuries of persecution and suffering of Jews as outcast wanderers on an eternal road of rejection and expulsion, until at last the Zionist ideal offers an alternative path.

Leonard Nimoy
The Milken Archive has recorded substantial excerpts of this little-heard score for the first time, issued on a Naxos CD. Gerard Schwarz conducts the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and Children’s Chorus, with the Ernst Senff Chorus. The soloists are soprano Constance Hauman; mezzo-sopranos Barbara Rearick and Hanna Wollschläger; tenors Karl Dent, Ian DeNolfo, and Vale Rideout; and baritones Ted Christopher and James Maddalena.

Leonard Nimoy
Here are excerpts from Kurt Weill’s score The Eternal Road.

The Eternal Road by Kurt Weill

Leonard Nimoy
Scenes from Jewish history as told through music by Kurt Weill in…The Eternal Road. Gerard Schwarz led that performance by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Children’s Chorus, and the Ernst Senff Chorus. The soloists were soprano Constance Hauman; mezzo-sopranos Barbara Rearick and Hanna Wollschläger; tenors Karl Dent, Ian DeNolfo, and Vale Rideout; and baritones Ted Christopher and James Maddalena.

Leonard Nimoy
In the original staging, these stories from the Bible are recalled and retold to a trapped and shocked audience of Jews who have taken refuge in a synagogue for the night, from a raging pogrom in their town. Their fate, and by extension the fate of the Jewish people, is represented by the title The Eternal Road. But for the first time in two millennia, it suggests, it may be possible to end that eternal road of wandering as strangers.

Leonard Nimoy
Here again, the Artistic Director of the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, Neil W. Levin, speaking with maestro Gerard Schwarz.

Neil Levin
The Eternal Road ends with yet another Jewish expulsion from an unnamed town. But it's clearly in the modern era, somewhere in the 19th or 20th century in Europe, and it's yet one more expulsion as a result of a pogrom.

Gerard Schwarz
Do you think Weisgal was trying to educate the public as to what was going on at this particular moment in Germany?

Neil Levin
Yes and no. I mean, to a certain extent, what was going on in Germany was already unusual, even though no one could have predicted the Holocaust. I think that did probably cross his mind, but I think that he loved theater, he was passionate about Jewish history. And let's remember, Meyer Weisgal was a major Zionist leader.

Gerard Schwarz
So it seems to me that this work really depicted the suffering and the wandering of the Jews clearly. And at the same time there was a sense of hope, a sense of hope for the future, which really wasn't Zionism.

Neil Levin
That's right. That was the Zionist answer. One of the characters identified as the adversary in the synagogue scene where they're taking refuge from this raging pogrom all night, he's the Zionist. What he is saying in the synagogue scenes over and over during The Eternal Road is look where your religion got you these past 2000 years. Look where this got you. Look where trying to be friends with the rest of the world got you. Look where playing down your Judaism got you. There is only one answer, and that's this new Jewish enterprise in Palestine. And at the end of the pageant, when they're expelled, when all the Jews are expelled from this town, and you have seen biblical reenactments throughout the evening of many, many parts of the Bible, and the Jews once again are on the eternal road. They go up from stage one, stage two, stage three, stage four, stage five, and as they reach each stage, the biblical characters join them. Now, what does up mean? That means making aliyah. Aliyah is the Hebrew word for going to settle permanently in Israel or at that time in Palestine. And it means going up because one ascends to Israel to live there.

Leonard Nimoy
Neil Levin, of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Leonard Nimoy
You’ve been listening to another program in a 13-part series devoted to the recordings of the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, currently being issued on CD by the Naxos label. The Milken Archive was created by Lowell Milken, chairman of the Milken Family Foundation. Neil W. Levin is Artistic Director.

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