The extensive CD booklet
for this two disc set opens with the
following information: In the Ashkenazi
rite, the formal First S’lihot service
takes place at midnight on the Saturday
prior to Rosh Hashana. There are
twelve closely printed pages of information
about the music on the disc and if you
continue reading you eventually find
out that Ashkenazi refers to the Eastern
European Jewish tradition and that S’lihot
refers to an order of service consisting
primarily of poetic texts whose central
theme concerns supplication for forgiveness
from sin and transgression.
Like this opening,
the remainder of the CD booklet and
the discs themselves only yield up their
secrets gradually. The discs record
a complete First S’lihot service
as it might be conducted and heard in
American orthodox synagogues whose orientation
derives from eastern European tradition.
The cantor, Benzion Miller, is an American
whose family comes from an orthodox
Polish tradition; Miller continues to
perform (if that is the correct word)
in the tradition of the virtuoso styles
of the early 19th and 20th
century Eastern European cantors. Many
of the Eastern European cantors were
composers as well, writing their own
material and transmitting it orally
to pupils. This is a tradition, which
until quite recently, was mainly oral,
with a heavy admixture of improvisation.
This emphasis on a
virtuoso, improvisatory cantor means
that this sung service differs significantly,
in its musical values, to the traditional
sung Christian service in the Roman
Catholic tradition. Here the chorus’s
role is mainly to support the cantor;
it rarely sings music in its own right.
This role is reflected in the fact that
the cantor composers frequently did
not write the choral parts, relying
on arrangers to craft suitable choral
accompaniments - this results in choral
singing which is heavily late-romantic,
varying in style from Rachmaninov’s
Vespers to barbershop quartet, with
Welsh Male Voice choir never far away.
It would be easy to
be dismissive about this, but that is
to forget the role of the choir in this
liturgy, to support Cantor Benzion Miller.
And Miller’s contribution to this disc
is nothing short of astounding. Not
everyone will warm to the tone of his
voice, it is very throaty and nasal,
longer notes in his upper register are
heavily prone to a disturbing vibrator;
but his virtuosity in the elaborate
ornamentation is remarkable. Miller’s
declamation preserves something which
goes far beyond the Romanticism of the
choral accompaniment to far earlier
times. In fact the distinctive, eastern
Mediterranean cast of the vocal part
links up with recent experiments in
early Christian chant.
The music used on the
disc is very much a patchwork. Some
composers seem to have written complete
S’lihot services but here not
only are different pieces by different
hands, but some sections such as B’motza’ei
m’nuha have different stanzas by
different composers
The set concludes with
three more liturgical pieces from other
parts of the Jewish year. Chosen, I
think, as cantorial showpieces these
are, if anything, more astonishing than
the complete S’lihot service.
The CD booklet comes
with an essay which covers the background
to the Liturgy, an extensive examination
of the Liturgy with information on the
composers of the various pieces, a translation
of the text (in English only, there
is not transliteration of the Hebrew)
and an essay on the religious meaning
of s’lihot entitled ‘Does God
Pray’.
Cantor Benzion Miller
is well supported by the New York-based
male voice Schola Hebraica under their
conductor Neil Levin. They are the world’s
only fully professional male-voice chorus
devoted to Jewish and Judaically related
music. The recordings were made in London’s
New West End Synagogue, one of London’s
oldest orthodox Ashkenazi synagogues.
These are not discs
to be listened to lightly and it is
probably not a set which will come down
from the library shelves with any frequency.
I would imagine it will be welcomed
by anyone with a Jewish background,
but I would urge anyone with an interest
in religion and religious history to
listen.
Robert Hugill
Cantor Benzion Miller 
