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Sunday, April 17th, 2005 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lethargic_manI just went to a concert at the New North London Synagogue. It was the NNLS choir conducted by Joseph Finlay (okay, out-of-date link but it was the best I could find :o)), and I thought I'd go support a friend, being under the misapprehension that (a) I would know people in the choir, and (b) I would know people in the audience (well, I knew one, who turned up after me), but it was good anyway. There was classical music, liturgical music, Israeli music (arranged in the classical tradition) and compositions of Joseph's; there were also pieces performed by the Jubal String Quartet.
The classical music included psalms set to music by Mendelssohn and Purcell; in the latter case Finlay's arrangement involved replacing the addendum to the psalm written by Purcell with the last line in Purcell, which I thought was a good way of bringing this Christian piece back to its Jewish roots (though goodness knows what Purcell (or, for that matter,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darcydodo) would have thought).
The liturgical music included Lewandowski's setting of Psalm 92 ("A song for the Sabbath day"), which, as I discovered, is where the tune sung in synagogues to this day for the conclusion of it comes from.
There was also a piece by Salomone di Rossi, the seventeenth-century contemporary of Monteverdi, whose liturgical compositions (in a mind-bogglingly Baroque setting) constitute the only Jewish liturgical settings written down before the nineteenth century. Di Rossi managed, in an age in which Jews were still confined to ghettos, to flourish in both the Jewish and secular worlds, and was a patron of the Gozaga dukes of Mantua (who excused him from the necessity of wearing an identifying yellow star). He claimed to be the first Jewish composer since King David, "and who are we to argue with him?" I've been meaning for a while to get a CD of his music out of the library; I really must get around to this some time.
The programme also included David Zahavi's setting of "Eli Eli" by Hannah Szenes, the Hungarian oleh [immigrant to (in this case pre-state) Israel] who volunteered to be parachuted behind enemy lines during the War, and was captured, tortured and killed.
After the interval, the Jubal quartet entertained us with Borodin's String Quartet no. 2, which I found surprisingly good. Surprising, because I have a double CD of Borodin's orchestral music, and found all of it uninspiring with the sole exception of "In The Steppes of Central Asia" (the reason why I bought the CD in the first place).
Right, I'll stop wibbling now. :o)
The classical music included psalms set to music by Mendelssohn and Purcell; in the latter case Finlay's arrangement involved replacing the addendum to the psalm written by Purcell with the last line in Purcell, which I thought was a good way of bringing this Christian piece back to its Jewish roots (though goodness knows what Purcell (or, for that matter,
darcydodo) would have thought).The liturgical music included Lewandowski's setting of Psalm 92 ("A song for the Sabbath day"), which, as I discovered, is where the tune sung in synagogues to this day for the conclusion of it comes from.
There was also a piece by Salomone di Rossi, the seventeenth-century contemporary of Monteverdi, whose liturgical compositions (in a mind-bogglingly Baroque setting) constitute the only Jewish liturgical settings written down before the nineteenth century. Di Rossi managed, in an age in which Jews were still confined to ghettos, to flourish in both the Jewish and secular worlds, and was a patron of the Gozaga dukes of Mantua (who excused him from the necessity of wearing an identifying yellow star). He claimed to be the first Jewish composer since King David, "and who are we to argue with him?" I've been meaning for a while to get a CD of his music out of the library; I really must get around to this some time.
The programme also included David Zahavi's setting of "Eli Eli" by Hannah Szenes, the Hungarian oleh [immigrant to (in this case pre-state) Israel] who volunteered to be parachuted behind enemy lines during the War, and was captured, tortured and killed.
After the interval, the Jubal quartet entertained us with Borodin's String Quartet no. 2, which I found surprisingly good. Surprising, because I have a double CD of Borodin's orchestral music, and found all of it uninspiring with the sole exception of "In The Steppes of Central Asia" (the reason why I bought the CD in the first place).
Right, I'll stop wibbling now. :o)
