Spring 2010 Concert - Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Biava Quartet with mezzo-soprano Margaret Mezzacappa and pianist Konstantin Soukhovetski

The Terrace Theater
The Kennedy Center
Washington, DC
7:30 PM

Pro Musica Hebraica presented the acclaimed Biava String Quartet returning with a new special concert devoted to the world of French Jewish music. Together with special guests mezzo-soprano Margaret Mezzacappa and pianist Konstantin Soukhovetski, they performed rare classics and newly discovered masterpieces, including several American premieres from the elusive 19th-century legend, Charles-Valentin Alkan. These works, recovered from manuscripts in the Geneva Conservatory and arranged for voice and strings, presented a forgotten chapter in the history of Jewish classical music, with stunningly lyrical, Chopinesque settings of Hebrew hymns and the 41st Psalm in the spirit of French Romanticism.

The concert also highlighted the music of Darius Milhaud, drawing on his own Provençale Jewish heritage, including his final string quartet work, the 1973 Études sur des Thèmes Liturgiques du Comtat Venaissin, as well as his stirring Seventh Quartet of 1925 and his jazz-inflected ballet fantasy, La Création du Monde. Other works performed included Maurice Ravel’s own foray into Jewish music, the extraordinary three Jewish songs in a new arrangement for voice, piano and strings, as well as the stirring wartime Fifth Quartet of Alexandre Tansman, the renowned Polish/French Jewish modernist master, composed after he fled to Nice to escape the Nazi Occupation of France

Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986)
Fifth String Quartet (1940)

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)
Études sur des Thèmes Liturgiques du Comtat Venaissin, op. 442 (1973)

Darius Milhaud
Seventh String Quartet, op. 87 (1925)

Intermission

Darius Milhaud
La Création du Monde, op. 81b (1922-1923)

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Chanson Hébraïque (1910), arr. by Robert S. Nelson
Deux Mélodies Hébraïques (1914), arr. by Robert S. Nelson

Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888)
Trois Anciennes Mélodies Juives*(1854), arr. by Robert S. Nelson
Deuxième Verset du 41 Psaume*(1855), arr. by Robert S. Nelson

*American premiere

Fall 2009 Concert - Thursday, November 5, 2009

Pro Musica Hebraica Presents
The Apollo Ensemble from Amsterdam

The Terrace Theater
The Kennedy Center
Washington, DC
7:30 PM

On November 5, 2009, Pro Musica Hebraica presented the Apollo Ensemble from Amsterdam performing rare Jewish musical treasures from Baroque Italy and the Netherlands. The concert included the American premiere of Dio, Clemenza e Rigore (Hoshana Rabbah in Casale Monferrato, 1733), an anonymously composed oratorio for an 18-century Italian Jewish holiday service. The piece was performed by the group's eleven-piece chamber orchestra under the artistic direction of David Rabinovich with mezzo-soprano Hanna Kopra, tenor Immo Schröder, and baritone Ken Gould. The Apollo Ensemble also performed two Trio Sonatas for two violins and basso continuo by Salamone de Rossi, the premier Jewish composer of the Italian Renaissance; Abraham Caceres, "Le-el elim," a cantata for two voices and basso continuo composed for the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam, and eighteenth-century Italian Catholic composer Benedetto Marcello's Salmo Decimoquinto (Intonazione degli Ebrei Tedeschi), a setting of Psalm 15 for voice and instruments that incorporates a rare Italian Jewish melody to the Hanukkah song, Maoz Tzur.

Salamone De Rossi (ca. 1570 - ca. 1630)
Sonata quinta sopra un aria francese (ca. 1620)

Abraham Caceres (late 1600s-mid-1700s)
Le-el elim (To the Mighty God)
Cantata for 2 voices and basso continuo (1738)

Benedetto Giacomo Marcello (1686-1739)
Salmo 15/ Ma’oz Tzur (Intonazione degli Ebrei Tedeschi)
(Psalm 15/ O Mighty Stronghold – a German Jewish Chant) (1724-1727)

Salamone De Rossi (ca. 1570-1630)
Sonata sopra l’aria di ruggiero (ca. 1620)

Intermission

Anonymous
Dio, Clemenza e Rigore (God, Defender, and Accuser)
Hoshana Rabbah in Casale Monferrato, 1733

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