The huge American
Classics series from Naxos continues
to expand apace and the more it does
so the more the term classic becomes
irrelevant as the criterion for inclusion
of works. A "classic" would normally
be interpreted as a work of established
and "acknowledged excellence" (Oxford
dictionary). One of the great things
about the Naxos series is that, conversely,
it has included within it recordings
of American works that have hitherto
barely seen the light of day and might
well have been forgotten without the
Naxos patronage. This may sound like
nit-picking but I mention it because
this major choral work by Berlinski
might never have been recorded if it
were not for the fruitful partnership
between Naxos and the the Milken Archive.
The Archive is dedicated to the preservation,
cataloguing and recording of American
Jewish music. With its support Naxos
has been able to further expand the
American Classics series with
many first-time recordings. Berlinski’s
Avodat Shabbat is an important
addition.
The composer said,
"I don't think I can write a piece of
music ... that does not have the stamp
of my Jewish experience". In Avodat
Shabbat he produced a Jewish liturgical
piece, regarding it as his magnum opus.
The setting is of the reform version
of the Friday evening Sabbath service
according to the Union Prayer Book.
Although Berlinski first approached
the task with specific synagogue use
in mind his ambition expanded it into
an artwork that, in its revised version,
was premiered at the Lincoln Centre.
In the extensive, somewhat dense but
informative notes in the booklet by
Neil W. Levin of the Milken Archive,
it is stated that Berlinski was partly
motivated by a view that liturgical
music in North American synagogues was
in "a static, if not fossilized,
condition". I am not competent
to comment on these matters so can only
approach the work as music per se
but bearing in mind it is a choral setting
of a sacred text.
The style of the music
in the context of mid-twentieth century,
post-war classical music is conservative
with a European eclecticism that betrays
the composer’s upbringing. Berlinski
was born of Polish parents in Leipzig
where he first studied. As a Jew he
wisely left Germany in 1933 and furthered
his studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger
and the great pianist Alfred Cortot.
Probably more influential was his sympathetic
relationship with Messiaen. Although
Messiaen was a Christian, Berlinski
tuned in to his spiritual, religious
approach to composition. After the German
occupation of France, Berlinski fled
to the US.
Some of the musical
influences are easily detectable in
Avodat Shabbat and can often
be identified in separate passages rather
than blended into a style of the composer’s
own. I sometimes found this disconcerting.
For example, the opening orchestral
prelude opens with a pretty woodwind,
nature-alluding, cleanly textured passage
of weaving counterpoint; the sort of
thing at which Berlinski excels. But
the music then switches into a highly
contrasting, string section in a style
that could be labelled post-war popular
Polish. Panufnik comes to mind but its
sentimentality means that it could be
straight out of Gorecki’s Third Symphony,
a work that busted the classical
charts a few years ago. Berlinski’s
composition does pre-date Gorecki’s
I admit. All three men had studied in
Paris.
After the prelude,
the tenor, Robert Brubaker sings the
opening lines of the Ma Tovu text
cantor fashion. Then shortly after the
choir enters we are plunged into what
sounds like The Dream of Gerontius,
a choral masterpiece by another
Leipzig-trained man – Sir Edward Elgar.
These jolts of style
are analogous to the high contrast in
texture and mood between the sections
of the work. For example, the following
l’kha dodi is mostly a jaunty
dance number followed by a setting of
psalm 92 with music that could well
be out of one of those huge, Hollywood
biblical epics from the time Berlinski
was writing. The main reason for it
sounding so is the use of modal harmonies
as well as the bare intervals of fourths
and fifths, presumably employed to conjure
up an idea of an ancient Middle East,
but the source is the same as Berlinski’s:
traditional Jewish liturgical music.
After psalm 92, Part II starts with
a setting of the famous 23rd
psalm, sung in English rather than Hebrew.
The music here could not be of greater
contrast to the previous "epic"
style, being an imaginatively sparse
dialogue between female voice and solo
flute. The music works up to a passionate
climax half way through which I thought,
not for the only time in this work,
was at odds with the text. I am prepared
to admit though that this may be as
much to do with me as Berlinski. The
Anglican settings of the same text that
I was brought up with were more restrained.
Once I got used to
the lurches of style and to accept them
as a feature of Berlinski’s own style,
then the listening became much easier.
The blurb on the back
of the disc refers to Avodat Shabbat
as a "masterpiece". I think that
an exaggeration. There is certainly
much to enjoy and the music should appeal
to a wide audience but I felt that as
the different contrasting sections proceeded,
the work was not adding up to the sum
of its parts, in spite of the melodic
and harmonic devices Berlinski uses
to try and integrate the whole.
It is heartening to
know that Berlinski lived to be able
to attend the recording sessions in
Germany in 2000 - not long before he
died - and to be able to hear the soloists,
choir and orchestra give such a convincing
and loving rendering under Gerard Schwarz.
Committing this work to disc is a major
achievement for Naxos and the Milken
Archive.
John Leeman
Robert Brubaker, ten; Constance Hauman, sop;
Elizabeth Shammash, mezzo 
