Episode 6: Sacred Masterworks

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The nexus between the synagogue and the concert hall is the focus of Episode six, with sacred masterpieces by some of the 20th century's most influential composers.

Episode Transcript

Leonard Nimoy
In the classical-music repertoire, composers have often turned to liturgical texts and religious services as the basis for concert works. In the twentieth-century, Jewish composers began to turn to their tradition in the same fashion, enriching the concert repertoire in a new way.

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 on the Naxos label. On today’s program: sacred music of Jewish inspiration, but of universal artistic relevance beyond any one religious tradition—including works by Kurt Weill, Darius Milhaud, and Arnold Schoenberg.

Leonard Nimoy
In a conversation recorded for this program, Gerard Schwarz – Music Director of the Seattle Symphony and a member of the Milken Archive’s editorial board – reflected on sacred masterworks that grow out of the Jewish tradition. He spoke with Neil Levin, Artistic Director of the Milken Archive.

Gerard Schwarz
When one thinks of Sacred Masterworks from the Jewish religion, pew pieces, of course, always are cited. The sacred service of Darius Milhaud and the sacred service of Ernest Bloch are, if not often played, at least often talked about. The Kiddush of Kurt Weill and the Kol nidre of Arnold Schoenberg are the other pieces that are quite again well known, if not often performed. When we start delving into this extraordinary area of Jewish American music, we see that there's a tremendous amount of not only music by these composers that's exquisite, but other composers that many of us have never heard of outside of the liturgical area. Neil when we start talking about these sacred masterpieces in general, the obvious question is how come they're not played often when masses or passions by the great composers of the past or even the composers of the 20th century are often played.

Neil Levin
Viewing the Hebrew liturgy as a subject for artistic statement that goes beyond the parochial, in other words, that is universal in the way that we view certain works that were originally intended to be strictly liturgical in Western music, whether it's Bach Passion or Mozart Requiem or whatever it might be. Viewing Hebrew liturgy as a possibility for that is a very recent phenomenon, and it's pretty much an American phenomenon.

Neil Levin
It was first in America that somebody like Bloch wrote a setting of the Sabbath service that he intended for both purposes. We're talking here about composers who were, for the most part important figures in the classical music world or wanted to be. And then treated the Hebrew liturgy the same way they would treat any other great literature with their full artistic gift. So the Bloch work is, of course, the most well known. But Milhaud wrote his work for the same synagogue that commissioned Bloch, and he wrote it very much for worship as well as for concert. That was his intention, and it has to be perceived on that artistic level.

Leonard Nimoy
The first selection on today’s program is a setting of the prayer  recited over wine on the eve of the Sabbath.  Its composer is Kurt Weill.  He is best known for theater works like “Threepenny Opera,” “Knickerbocker Holiday,” and “Lady in the Dark,” but Weill’s first surviving work has a Hebrew text sung at Jewish wedding ceremonies.  His first substantial piece was a song cycle on poems by the medieval Spanish-Hebrew poet Yehuda Halevi.

Gerard Schwarz
Kurt Weill's Kiddush is very traditional sounding, very moving, quite beautiful. Why did he write the Kiddush?

Neil Levin
Well, the most important force in the commissioning of new music along modern lines espousing the gifts of contemporary art was the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York and its cantor, David Putterman, who for over 30 or 35 years annually commissioned the best and the brightest, as it were, Jewish and non-Jewish, to contribute to the liturgy by writing new musical settings. We would be hard pressed to find a single American composer who was not invited by Putterman to contribute to the synagogue that is how Kurt Weill's Kiddush came to be written. Kurt Weil was well Judaically grounded. The first piece he ever wrote was for the synagogue was in Hebrew, and he was very interested in this assignment, so he selected the Kiddush. It's a wonderful mixture of some kind of traditional flavors with blues. It's a wonderful bluesy feeling. It's Kurt Weill not trying to be anyone other than he is musically.

Leonard Nimoy
Neil Levin and Gerard Schwarz.  Here is Kurt Weill’s “Kiddush,” sung by tenor Hans-Peter Blochwitz with the BBC Singers led by Avner Itai.

Kiddush by Kurt Weill

Leonard Nimoy
The soloist was Hans-Peter Blochwitz, tenor, in a setting of the “Kiddush,” or prayer of sanctification, recited over wine, by Kurt Weill. Avner Itai directed the BBC Singers in a Milken Archive recording released on the Naxos label.

Leonard Nimoy
Several of the pieces on this week’s program were composed on commission from one synagogue in New York, and its cantor, David Putterman. Music historian and musicologist Neil Levin and conductor Gerard Schwarz reflected on the importance of those commissions.

Gerard Schwarz
Putterman's work at Park Avenue Synagogue was remarkable and it's made a tremendous impact on music in the 20th century.

Neil Levin
There have been lots of synagogues, and still are, that commissioned pieces. But on this level, on the level of not caring whether the people will love it or not, on the level of commissioning art for a greater purpose, to enhance the repertoire, to enhance the liturgy, to see what will happen in terms of artistic expression, no synagogue ever had with Park Avenue had. I mean, that was a special thing. And that was because Putterman got the money for it, he got an endowment, he insisted upon it, and he had the enthusiastic support of the congregation because they were known for that all over the country. I mean, this was an annual event. The Friday night service of new music at Park Avenue Synagogue in New York was packed. You couldn't get a seat and was filled not just with congregants, with critics from all the major papers, with people who wanted to hear the premieres. It was an annual event on New York's musical calendar, plain and simple. And that Park Avenue program never had any equal, really, anywhere around the country.

Leonard Nimoy
Douglas Moore is best known for his many works of Americana, including “The Pageant of P.T. Barnum,” and the operas “The Devil and Daniel Webster” and “The Ballad of Baby Doe.” He is also one of the composers who responded to a synagogue commission with a setting of words recited on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath, Friday night. Here again are Gerard Schwarz and Neil Levin.

Neil Levin
Douglas Moore is one of the non Jewish composers who accepted cantor Putterman's invitation for an individual setting. And Douglas Moore and Roy Harris and William Grant Still and quite a number of non Jews intrigued by the idea of trying to set the Hebrew liturgy. And Douglas Moore was one of them.

Gerard Schwarz
What's so fascinating to me about this work is that it's really full bodied and the choir almost sounds like it's a gospel choir with powerful and touching, with an absolutely remarkable relationship between the choir and the soloist. And I think it's quite an extraordinary work.

Leonard Nimoy
The text in this work by Douglas Moore comes from the book of Genesis, at the end of the Creation story: “The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their host. By the seventh day God completed the work which He had done.” Here are soprano Elaine Close and baritone Patrick Mason, joining the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Chorus, and Christopher Bowers-Broadbent, organ, in Douglas Moore’s “Vay’chulu.”

Vay'khullu by Douglas Moore

Leonard Nimoy
Douglas Moore’s setting of the Hebrew text “Vay’chulu,” which is recited during the Sabbath eve servies. In this Naxos release, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Chorus and organist Christopher Bowers-Broadbent, under the direction of Joseph Cullen, performed with soprano Elaine Close and baritone Patrick Mason.

Leonard Nimoy
Next, the first major work on today’s program of sacred music from the Milken Archive: Arnold Schoenberg’s “Kol Nidre.” Gerard Schwarz spoke with Neil Levin about this complex composer, and the history of this piece.

Gerard Schwarz
Next we're going to hear Arnold Schoenberg's Kol nidre. I find this, of course, especially fascinating because of the dark, introspective mood and Schoenberg's language that works so well with this setting.

Neil Levin
I think this piece works well in a non liturgical setting. Schoenberg has a very complex and complicated story in terms of Judaic connection. He converted to Christianity, then converted back to Judaism. But in the meantime, we don't know how much of a conversion to Christianity it really was, because at the same time he wrote a tract emphasizing the need for a Jewish state. And in the United States he became more and more interested in the nationalist aspect of Jewish concerns in the Zionist enterprise and then the state of Israel. And he wrote Judaically related works in his California years, among which is this Kol nidre setting. He was invited to do this by a synagogue in Los Angeles, which was a very forward looking Reform congregation that actually thought that this would become part of repertoire for services for Yom Kippur. In other words, a completely artistic work that would replace the older liturgical version in synagogue service. Obviously that didn't happen beyond its performance in that synagogue, but it works marvelously as a work of art and as interplay, I think. Don't you think, between dramatic speaking...

Gerard Schwarz
The speaker, it's it's a remarkable work and I quite frankly never think of it ever being part of a service. I always think of it as being a concert work.

Leonard Nimoy
In this performance, Arnold Schoenberg’s “Kol Nidre” is performed by the BBC Singers and organist Hugh Potton under the direction of Avner Itai. The narrator is David Pittman-Jennings.

Kol nidre by Arnold Schoenberg

Leonard Nimoy
“Kol Nidre,” by Arnold Schoenberg. In this Naxos release, Avner Itai led the BBC Singers, with organist Hugh Potton. The narrator was David Pittman-Jennings.

Leonard Nimoy
You’re listening to a program of sacred masterworks from the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music Music; I’m Leonard Nimoy. Another major concert composer represented on today’s program is Darius Milhaud. Neil Levin, Artistic Director of the Milken Archive, talked with Gerard Schwarz about Milhaud’s “Sacred Service.”

Gerard Schwarz
What about Darius Milhaud? He was a great composer, and yet the music is at this time in history rarely played. And his sacred service, which I think is absolute masterpiece, is almost never performed. When one thinks about sacred services in the Jewish Liturgy, you think of a Friday night service and a Saturday morning service. Are these sacred services generally Saturday services or Friday in the case of the Milhaud and Bloch?

Neil Levin
It depends what the commission was. Milhaud's, as was Bloch's, was a commission for a Saturday morning service in the reform movement. Friday night was the big service in the reform movement in America at that time.

Neil Levin
At that time, the main opportunity for any serious musical expression was Friday night. He had a big choir in many congregations and so forth. So the commission was for Saturday morning, okay, that was for artistic considerations. And the premiere was a concert anyway on a weeknight in San Francisco with Milhaud conducting. And then Milhaud realized, look, to make this more usable, let me add some of the Friday night liturgy that doesn't occur on Saturday morning, and it will have even greater use both as a concert work and as music for worship alone. So he added the Friday night prayers. So to really do the whole piece, one needs to do it the way we've done it with the Saturday morning liturgy and the Friday evening liturgy. And that was confirmed by his widow.

Leonard Nimoy
Here are highlights from the Saturday-morning Sabbath service, as set by Darius Milhaud, followed by three settings for Friday evening – excerpts from the “Sacred Service” by Darius Milhaud. Gerard Schwarz directs the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Prague Philharmonic Choir, with baritone Yaron Windmueller. The speaker is Rabbi Rodney Mariner.

Sérvice Sacré by Darius Milhaud

Leonard Nimoy
Highlights from Darius Milhaud’s “Sacred Service” for the Jewish Sabbath, including settings of the synagogue liturgy for both Saturday morning and for Friday night. Rabbi Rodney Mariner was the speaker; the baritone soloist was Yaron Windmueller; and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Prague Philharmonic Choir were conducted by Gerard Schwarz in a Naxos release.

Leonard Nimoy
This two-hour program, part of a series from the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, is devoted to 20th-century or contemporary sacred masterworks from the Jewish tradition. In the second half of the program we’ll hear compositions by Herman Berlinski, Judith Lang Zaimont, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. I’m Leonard Nimoy.

Leonard Nimoy
Welcome back to this program from the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music. I’m Leonard Nimoy. Today we’re listening to 20th-century sacred masterworks mostly based on the liturgy of the synagogue.

Leonard Nimoy
The founder of the Milken Archive, Lowell Milken, was present at the recording sessions for the music we’ll hear in just a moment. It was an unforgettable experience, as he recalled in a recent interview.

Lowell Milken
There have been so many memorable events over the past 15 years in working with the archive. One of the really treasured aspects for me is having the ability and having the opportunity to attend some of the recording sessions. And there was one recording session that was really an unforgettable experience for me, and that was when we traveled to Berlin in the year 2000 to record Herman Berlinski's Avodat Shabbat, which was a musical setting for full orchestra and chorus. And he took the prayers of a Friday evening service and wrote an original music for that, really written for the concert hall.

Lowell Milken
Berlinski had been born in Germany in the year 1910, and in 1933, just months after Hitler took power, fled the country, fled to Poland, eventually had to escape Poland, fled to France, ultimately, when France surrendered to Germany, was imprisoned, eventually was able to flee France to Spain and came to the United States. And here we were bringing Berlinski back to Berlin in 2000 to record what he viewed to be one of his finest works. That was an electrifying session. Before we recorded each one of the pieces, he would speak to the chorus and the orchestra in German and explain to them the significance of the individual prayers. It was a very touching event. And when he returned to the United States, he sent me a letter.

Lowell Milken
And this letter I have never forgotten. And in fact, I often will read the letter once every month or so to remind me of the impact of the archive and how important our work is. And in this letter he said, "a score is nothing but paper. It is silent and unlike a painting, does not reveal itself by just looking at it. A recording, however, done with the quality and care of all the recordings of the Milken Archive, bring the work to the attention of those who eventually may want to perform it, or at least will form an opinion about it." This, to a living composer, means the possibility of the survival of his work, and future generations will be thankful for preserving and safeguarding this artistic legacy. That is what we have tried to accomplish with the project of the Milken Archive.

Leonard Nimoy
Lowell Milken, creator of the Milken Archive.

Leonard Nimoy
We’ll begin the second half of this program with that music for the Sabbath created by Herman Berlinski. For many decades, ending with his death in 2001, Berlinski was a major figure in American Jewish musical life, and the leading personality in the Jewish musical scene in Washington, D. C., as music director of its most prestigious Reform congregations. Gerard Schwarz talked with Neil Levin about this composer and his music.

Gerard Schwarz
In some ways the most interesting, because he's the most unknown composer of this group, is Herman Berlinski, born in Leipzig, eventually very well-known as an organist and as a composer.

Neil Levin
That's right. Berlinski to this day is well-known and revered among organists. But it's funny because he really didn't learn to play the organ at all until he was an adult and he only did that at Temple Emmanuel in New York. He was taught by its organist, Zaminsky, because he needed a job. He never intended to be an organist. And he didn't study organ in Germany because organ was not taught. He wanted to study organ at a conservatory, but there was no such thing as studying organ at a conservatory in Europe. Organ, you studied in a church. So it was just when he got to New York as an adult that he had a chance to learn it. Anyway, the Berlinski service started out as a Park Avenue commission, another contribution of David Putterman in the Park Avenue synagogue. But of course, those commissions were always with organ. Then afterwards he realized that what he'd written was really a work of art that transcends and that's the key word here. It transcends the prayer function. It doesn't replace it, it transcends it. That's what's universal about art. So he got a grant to orchestrate it.

Gerard Schwarz
What's interesting about this piece is that it is so imaginative. You feel, as you hear the whole work, like it encompasses the whole world. It's gorgeous, melodically, fascinating harmonically and it does touch on many different facets of concert music. A little more religious at moments, a little more chorale like, and other times very imaginative harmonically interesting, which is true.

Neil Levin
Of the liturgy too. I mean, the liturgy is a spectrum of poetry and prose that says different things and has different degrees of theatricality and drama and spirituality and imagery and so forth. So I mean, he's he's reflecting that. And I think it's also interesting that he even uses a Sephardi tune for L'kha dodi the Kabbalistic Prayer, or poem in the Kabbalah about welcoming the Sabbath service. But he does it in such a creative way, he orchestrates it differently, each of the strophes. But not only that, he even bends the vocal line and he plays with the pitches, he plays with the modality from one strophe to another. And that's really the craft of a good composer.

Leonard Nimoy
Neil Levin, speaking with Gerard Schwarz. Here are several excerpts from Herman Berlinski’s service for welcoming the Sabbath. The soloists are Constance Hauman, soprano; Elizabeth Shammash, mezzo-soprano; and Robert Brubaker, tenor, with the Ernst Senff Choir and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gerard Schwarz.

Avodat Shabbat by Herman Berlinski

Leonard Nimoy
Excerpts from the Friday-evening service for welcoming the Sabbath, by Herman Berlinski. In a Milken Archive recording on Naxos, Gerard Schwarz led this performance by the Ernst Senff Choir and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. The vocal soloists were soprano Constance Hauman, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Shammash, and tenor Robert Brubaker.

Leonard Nimoy
The prolific composer Judith Lang Zaimont, born in 1945, is among the contemporary Americans who have likewise created an artistic and concert-worthy as well as worship-oriented “Sacred Service,” but her texts are classic English translations of the Hebrew liturgy.

Gerard Schwarz
Judith Zaimont is a very different type of sacred service. She's more technically advanced. It's very direct and very emotional and, I think incredibly successful.

Neil Levin
Yeah, you know, what's really interesting about this piece is I can't say it's the only one like this, but it's certainly one of very few and certainly the only one on this level where you have an entire service written in English. It wouldn't have any applicability today in synagogue worship, I don't think. But it really doesn't matter, because, again, this is a work of art. This is a work of universal expression. By universal expression, what we mean what I mean, anyway, is that it doesn't matter whether the listener is Jewish or not. I mean, I hear the St. Matthew passion. It doesn't make any difference that I am not Christian, because the basic ideas—I'm not even talking just about the music—but the basic ideas that are intertwined with artistic expression are universal themes of the human condition and the human relationship to God in a universal, not a particular way. And I think that comes through in this piece, as in all of these artistic works. But the fact that this is in English gives it a kind of refreshing quality to it. It's the English of the Union Prayer Book, which is unsurpassed in quality of English writing.

Leonard Nimoy
That was Neil Levin, the Milken Archive’s Artistic Director, talking with Gerard Schwarz.  Here again are the Ernst Senff Choir and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, this time with baritone James Maddalena, under the direction of Gerard Schwarz, in three movements from the “Sacred Service” of Judith Zaimont.

Sacred Service for the Sabbath Evening by Judith Zaimont

Leonard Nimoy
Three sections from the “Sacred Service” by Judith Zaimont, sung by baritone James Maddalena and the Ernst Senff Choir, with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwarz, a performance issued by the Naxos label.

Leonard Nimoy
This week’s program from the Milken Archive is devoted to 20th-century sacred masterworks based on traditional Jewish liturgies. I’m Leonard Nimoy. We’ll conclude with music by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, but before that we’ll listen to two excerpts from a different sort of sacred work by Thomas Beveridge.

Gerard Schwarz
We'll also be listening to Thomas Beveridge's Yizkor Requiem. This is the only requiem among our sacred works. Requiems were so popular, whether it's by Carabini or by Mozart or by Süssmayr or by so many people. Why do you think there's so few written for?

Neil Levin
Well, this is an ecumenical piece.

Neil Levin
That's the best way to describe it. A requiem wouldn't be used normally in Judaic contexts. It's a Christian connotation. And not that there's anything necessarily Christological about the idea or the word of Requiem of resting and so forth. But this is a very special ecumenical type of work because it includes the memorial Liturgy of the Roman Catholic, the Anglican, and the Jewish religions. Thomas Beveridge is not Jewish. His father was the choir master at St. Paul's Church at Columbia University, and.

Neil Levin
He wrote this in memory of his father. And I asked him why did he choose to do something ecumenical using Hebrew as well as Latin and English? He said because he was interested in all three religions, and he was always interested in the comparative aspects and he was interested in Judaism, and it was an artistic challenge as well as an intellectual interest. It comes across terribly well, especially when he juxtaposes the languages.

Leonard Nimoy
Neil Levin, with Gerard Schwarz. Sir Neville Marriner conducts the Academy and Chorus of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; and the soloists are soprano Ana Maria Martinez, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Shammash, and tenor Robert Brubaker, in two movements from the Yizkor Requiem by Thomas Beveridge.

Yizkor Requiem by Thomas Beveridge

Leonard Nimoy
The movements entitled “Remember,” and “Sanctification,” from the Yizkor Requiem by Thomas Beveridge. Soprano Ana Maria Martinez, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Shammash, and tenor Robert Brubaker were the featured soloists, with the Academy and Chorus of St. Martin-in-the-Fields led by Sir Neville Marriner.

Leonard Nimoy
Today’s program concludes with a major if little-known work by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, his “Sacred Service for the Sabbath Eve.”

Gerard Schwarz
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, of course, is a very fascinating character, but he was at MGM from 1940 to 1955, wrote over 200 films, became really famous as a composer because of his friendship with Segovia, and wrote over 100 pieces for the guitar. He cared about three things the most: things Italian, Shakespeare and the Bible. And he wrote an exquisite sacred service for Friday night. How did this work come about?

Neil Levin
Well, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was a refugee from fascist Italy, and he had a very distinguished Jewish lineage, both his mother's and his father's side, mostly Sephardi Italian. This was commissioned by a synagogue of Santa Monica where the rabbi wanted it. He thought this was a very important and worthwhile thing to do, but then the rabbi later died, and then Putterman came to him, cantor David Putterman from the Park Avenue Synagogue and said, look, would like to do something of yours. And basically, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who had already written something for the Park Avenue Synagogue in a previous service, but just one piece or two pieces, two individual prayers. He said to Putterman, look, I have this service, but I'll only let you do it if you do the whole thing, because it was supposed to be done as a unified work, and I never got that chance, and this is what I want. And Putterman agreed, and that became the new tradition at the Park Avenue synagogue from Castelnuovo-Tedesco on the annual commissions were for a whole united complete service rather than individual settings by individual composers. So it was kind of a landmark.

Leonard Nimoy
Neil Levin and Gerard Schwarz. Here are several selections from Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s “Sacred Service for the Sabbath Eve.” Cantor Jeremy Cohen, tenor, and baritone Ted Christopher join organist Hugh Potton and the London Chorus, under Ronald Corp’s direction. The speaker is Rabbi Rodney Mariner.

Sacred Service for Sabbath Eve by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Leonard Nimoy
Music from the “Sacred Service for the Sabbath Eve” by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Ronald Corp led the performance by soloists Jeremy Cohen, tenor, and Ted Christopher, baritone, with the London Chorus, and organist Hugh Potton. Rabbi Rodney Mariner was the speaker, in a recording issued on a Naxos CD.

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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