Bringing Jewish music to the concert hall

The Jewish Press recently interviewed PMH co-founder Charles Krauthammer. Krauthammer described the origin and mission of PMH–and why the December cantorial concert is so meaningful to him:

The Jewish Press: What led you to found Pro Musica Hebraica?

Krauthammer: About eight years ago, my wife and I decided there was an area of Jewish culture that had been fairly widely neglected, and that was the presentation of great Jewish music in a classical setting. We wanted to do something to bring it out to the world.
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Some highlights from Stephen Brookes’s review of Between Two Worlds: Jewish Voices in Modern European Music:

[Schulhoff’s] String Quartet No. 1, written in 1924, is a virtual snapshot of the era: taut, explosive modernist gestures burst through the music as if impatient to be born. A fascinating work — and necessary listening for anyone interested in the period — it was brought off with style and wit by the young Ariel players….

[Orion] Weiss has both powerful technique and exceptional insight, and brought an almost sculptural presence and weight to the music….

But the indisputable climax of the program (which marked the opening of Pro Musica Hebraica’s sixth season) was Ernest Bloch’s magnificent 1923 Quintet for Piano and Strings No. 1. It’s an absolute juggernaut of a work, a pull-out-the-stops gallop into the modern world, full of huge and hungry gestures and ferocious intensity. With Weiss at the piano, the Ariel players seemed to come completely into their own for the first time all evening, playing with exceptional boldness and confidence — a blazing, larger-than-life performance that seemed to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit, even from the depths of chaos.

Read the rest here.

From Israel’s Yediot Ahronoth:

“Yiddish intrigues me with its majesty and its enigmatic, refined musical tone. I have no explanation for the fact that I have always felt a connection to this language.”

Contrary to what you might expect, the speaker of these lines is not a Polish poet or German philosopher. He is Yusuf Alakili, 50, from Kfar Kassem, currently investing much effort in his studies for a Master’s degree in literature at Bar Ilan University’s Hebrew. Alakili studies Yiddish on the side for his own enjoyment.

How did this affair start? “In the 1980s, I worked with a Jew of Polish origin who lived in Bnei Brak, and Yiddish was the main language there. I was captivated by its musical tone and decided to study it in earnest. My dream is to read Sholom Aleichem’s Tevye the Dairyman [the inspiration for Fiddler on the Roof] in its original language.”

(Via Tom Gross.)

Following the great success of Pro Musica Hebraica’s Spring 2011 concert, Mark Glanville and Alexander Knapp continue their startlingly original project to retell and reinterpret the great masterworks of Schubert in Yiddish song. They have now made available “Shma Yisroel,” a track from their forthcoming release of “Di Sheyne Milnerin,” a reworking of Schubert’s cycle of unrequited love:

And stay tuned for more details on an upcoming PMH concert with Mark Glanville, Alexander Knapp, and Julia Melinek in a concert of songs dedicated to the idea of love in Jewish culture from biblical times to the modern age. The concert will be performed at the Kennedy Center in November of 2013.

Update (11/5): Their CD, Di Sheyne Milnerin: Schubert’s Cycle of Love, is now available for pre-order in the U.S. on Amazon.

Estelle Deutsch Abraham of New World Radio (WUST 1120) recently interviewed the Ariel Quartet. You can listen here (the interview starts about 26 minutes into the program). To purchase tickets to Pro Musica Hebraica’s November 11 concert, click here.