Bloch's Shlomo.

[richardfinegold]

It's a "concerto" that IMO belongs to the canon of the great concertos.
It is one of those Desert Island pieces for me.
It pays off to listen carefully to the Jewish melodies Bloch is using, as the best part are quasi-quotes from or very similar to the chants which one can hear in a Synagogue.

Not sure how often you visit a Synagogue, Roehre, but I don't hear any melodies that stem from any service, Azhkenaz or Sephardic, that I've ever attended. Perhaps you are confusing the work with with Bruch's Kol Nidre, which is essentially a rhapsody on a liturgical theme (the centerpiece prayer on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement). There are no such quotations in the Bloch. Essentially, Bloch uses several scales that commonly employed in ancient Hebrew liturgical music, which gives it the Jewish "feel". To quote Bloch, he made a successful attempt at "reviving the glory of the ancient Hebrew Music, by utilizing it's remnants and ruins as bricks and mortar."
I've had some other recordings in my collection, including the previously mentioned Rostropovich/Bernstein, which is interesting to hear once but overwrought in the extreme. The only one that I currently have features Cellist Andre Navarra and Karel Ancerl conducting the Czech PO.
Bloch wrote many other great works during his "Jewish Period", but if you only want to investigate a little further in this idiom, I recommend his Suite for Violin and Orchestra called "Baal Shem". The middle movement, called Nigun, was frequently performed alone by Jascha Heifetz. My only recording of this at present is a stunningly played disc featuring Violinist Vadim Guzman on the BIS label.

[Bryn]

You might find it worth waiting if you want to do so via the iPlayer.

Wait over. I just checked and "Episode 1" now comprises the whole concert:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/b01qqtbs

[Roehre]

Not sure how often you visit a Synagogue, Roehre, but I don't hear any melodies that stem from any service, Azhkenaz or Sephardic, that I've ever attended. Perhaps you are confusing the work with with Bruch's Kol Nidre, which is essentially a rhapsody on a liturgical theme (the centerpiece prayer on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement). There are no such quotations in the Bloch. Essentially, Bloch uses several scales that commonly employed in ancient Hebrew liturgical music, which gives it the Jewish "feel". To quote Bloch, he made a successful attempt at "reviving the glory of the ancient Hebrew Music, by utilizing it's remnants and ruins as bricks and mortar."
I've had some other recordings in my collection, including the previously mentioned Rostropovich/Bernstein, which is interesting to hear once but overwrought in the extreme. The only one that I currently have features Cellist Andre Navarra and Karel Ancerl conducting the Czech PO.
Bloch wrote many other great works during his "Jewish Period", but if you only want to investigate a little further in this idiom, I recommend his Suite for Violin and Orchestra called "Baal Shem". The middle movement, called Nigun, was frequently performed alone by Jascha Heifetz. My only recording of this at present is a stunningly played disc featuring Violinist Vadim Guzman on the BIS label.

You're right RFG, he doesn't quote any melody straightforwardly. The Bruch doesn't do that much either btw, only the first stanza - as you say, it's a rhapsody on the Kol Nidrei.
I've got most of Bloch's output, from his early works (Symphony in c-sharp e.g.), through his "Jewish" years (i.a. poèmes Juifs, Shelomo, Israël,, from Jewish Life and the IMO impressive Avodath Akodesh, upto his last works (including the Suite hébraique, 2 Last Poems..(May be..), the suites for violin-solo).
What do you think from the Avodath Akodesh service as put to music by Bloch?

[Hornspieler]

You might find it worth waiting if you want to do so via the iPlayer. At the moment it gets cut off in its prime. Hopefully it gets sorted by Monday afternoon. I got to know the work via a flood salvaged Spanish RCA LP in my youth. The cellist on that disc was Piatigorsky and the coupling was his studio recording of the Walton concerto written for him (though he did not much like the way Walton closed that work, and got him to write not one bur two alternative versions which, thankfully, do not get substituted often, or at all in the case of the second).

I gave up on the Prokofiev on Friday night because the quiet passages were inaudible and the loud bits were threatening to burst the cones on my speakers. Not a work that I would rate highly anyway - I remember that we played it under Silvestri at one time.

So I missed out on the Bloch and have not yet got round to listening to it.

But I did listen to the Nielsen 4th symphony yesterday and I thought that the playing by the BBC Symphony Orchestra was magnificent!


I have a mental block (no pun intended) about Carl Nielsen. I can see why he is so admired but his writing just doesn't hit the spot for me. Still, I can recognise accomplished playing of any composer's work and Friday's performance was no exception.

HS

[salymap]

I caught up with Schelomo yesterday but couldn't get 'into' it. I like Kol Nidrei so there is it. You win some, you lose some.....

[Barbirollians]

I have just , to my shame , got round to listening to the Natalie Clein set with the BBCSO/Volkov that ams referred to earlier .

It is a quite terrific record to my ears. The performance of Schelomo is passionate and first rate - the highlight for me though is Christopher Palmer's arrangement of From Jewish Life . That is exquisitely played by Natalie Clein and the accompaniment is immensely sensitive and idiomatic .

I recommend it strongly and saly you get Kol Nidrei thrown in too !

[cloughie]

I'd been thinking of complaining about the spelling on the heading of this thread but fear I'd just be a 'Voice in the wilderness'.

[visualnickmos]

...a recently BaL-rated Dvorak concerto http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dvorak-Cello...1616701&sr=1-2

I'd be absolutely thrilled with it as a version of the concerto if there were no fillers at all, but with the Bloch and the Bruch...

...and it's still available for £3.16 NEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go for it - this is a CD worth its weight in gold - in purely musical terms, of course!