PASC199 - Israel Symphony - Schelomo

Of Bloch's major works, the Israel Symphony is one which has received perhaps the least attention. This recording, which we believe was probably made in early 1952 (the composer was presented with a disc of the recording in April of that year), was the first of four recordings of the work. Writing here in France it's been a frustrating experience trying to hear any other recordings of the work - unavailable to buy here in any download format (apparently the same is true of the UK), the only version listed on our Amazon site is an ASV import CD which is currently out of stock.

When I finally did track down a copy of the ASV disc its performance seemed to come a poor second to this original recording - notably reviews tend to trumpet the merits of the Viola Concerto it's coupled with and play down the Israel Symphony. Yet in the symphony's 1952 outing it's a different matter altogether, and most certainly a recording worth reviving. The second movement, for example, marked Allegro agitato, has an agitated passion completely lacking in the most recent recording, and overall the work is one I'll enjoy getting to know better.

The work is one of the centrepieces of Bloch's major Jewish period, between about 1912 and 1936, and the composer wrote about the Jewish influence on his music in text which appeared on the original LP sleeve:

As for the recording - it's reasonably well made for its day, and has transferred and restored well, though some of the peaks exhibit slight top-end distortion and the frequency range at the very top could have been a little greater. As early 1950s recordings go it probably sits somewhere in the middle, quality-wise - things seemed to pick up technically in the two or three years immediately after this was made, and I would be less forgiving of a 1954 or 1955 recording.

Schelomo, Bloch's rhapsody for cello and orchestra dates from the same period as the Israel Symphony, both in terms of composition (~1916) and in recording. This Philips recording was made perhaps 3 or 4 months before the symphony and is perhaps sonically the more successful of the two. The cello is wonderfully captured along with the orchestra, though again the frequency range tops out somewhere between about 10k and 12k, with little above this, and thus there is perhaps a lack of 'air' that might be heard in a later recording with greater frequency extension.

Ernest Bloch

biographical notes from Wikipedia

Ernest Bloch (July 24, 1880 – July 15, 1959) was a Swiss-born American composer.

Life

Bloch was born in Geneva and began playing the violin at age 9. He began composing soon afterwards. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. He then travelled around Europe, moving to Germany (where he studied composition from 1900-1901 with Iwan Knorr at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt), on to Paris in 1903 and back to Geneva before settling in the United States of America in 1916, taking American citizenship in 1924. He held several teaching appointments in the U.S., with George Antheil, Frederick Jacobi, Bernard Rogers, and Roger Sessions among his pupils. In December 1920 he was appointed the first Musical Director of the newly formed Cleveland Institute of Music, a post he held until 1925. Following this he was director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music until 1930.

In 1941 Bloch moved to the small coastal community of Agate Beach, Oregon and lived there the rest of his life. He died in 1959 in Portland, Oregon, of cancer at the age of 78. The Bloch Memorial has been moved from near his house in Agate Beach to a more prominent location at the Newport Performing Arts Center in Newport, Oregon.

Music

Bloch's early works, including his opera Macbeth (1910) show the influence of both the Germanic school of Richard Strauss and the impressionism of Claude Debussy. Mature works, including his best-known pieces, often draw on Jewish liturgical and folk music. These works include Schelomo (1916) for cello and orchestra, which he dedicated to the cellist Alexandre Barjansky ( Barjansky Stradivarius ) the Israel Symphony (1916), Baal Shem for violin and piano (1923, later version for violin and orchestra), the "Jewish Life" suite for cello and piano, and Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service, 1933) for baritone, choir and orchestra. Other pieces from this period include a violin concerto written for Joseph Szigeti and the rhapsody America for chorus and orchestra.

Leopold Stokowski and the Symphony of the Air made the first stereo recording of America for Vanguard Records, which included a short speech by Bloch that explained why he wrote the piece; years later, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra recorded the work for Delos.

Pieces written after World War II are a little more varied in style, though Bloch's essentially Romantic idiom remains. Some, such as the Suite hébraïque (1950) continue the Jewish theme; others, such as the second concerto grosso (1952), display an interest in neo-classicism (though here too the harmonic language is basically Romantic, even though the form is Baroque); and others, including the late string quartets, include elements of atonality.

Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Bloch

Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.

Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.