Max DOEHLEMANN (b.1970)
Jacob’s Dream — New Jewish Songs (2010)
Reflections on the Hebrew Bible – No.1: Pinchas [6:11]
Hashikivenu [5:51]
Psalm 137 [5:49]
Passagen [12:19]
Reflections on the Hebrew Bible – No.2: Echa [5:48]
Uva Letziyon [8:37]
Jacob’s Dream [5:06]
Reflections on the Hebrew Bible – No.3: 1st Book of Samuel 16:23
[5:10]
Andrea Chudak (soprano); Esther Kontarsky (cantillation); Max Doehlemann (piano);
Martin Fonfara (percussion); Stefan Roberto Kelber (viola); Artashes Stamboltsyan
(violin); Sarah Stamboltsyan (piano); Arno Waschk (piano)
rec. no dates given, Studio P2, Greve-Studio, Musikschule Charlottenburg;
Max Doehlemann’s flat, and at various other locations.
ANTES EDITION BM-CD 31.9267 [54:50] 
Max Doehlemann was born in Hamburg in 1970 and has here constructed a disc
that centres on Jewish liturgical music in the context of its development
in nineteenth and twentieth century Germany. He has therefore set examples
of liturgy, as well as a German language setting of Psalm 137. His intention
in some of these works is to ‘discuss and embellish’ and he is not afraid
to evoke Hassidic cantillation, or to mark the Hebrew-Aramaic element. All
this sounds, in cold print, possibly over-scholastic or off-putting, or both,
but in practice it’s not quite so.
There is one singer, a soprano, and a ‘cantillation’, a role taken by Esther
Kontarsky. These two female voices are diametrically opposed; Kontarsky’s
liturgical and Chassidic intensity is balanced in other pieces by the slim-toned
purity and ‘classicism’ of Andrea Chudak. Accompaniment varies in these pieces.
Marimba, vibraphone and piano in Reflections on the Hebrew Bible – No.1:
Pinchas gives the music a strange air at times; it put me in mind of a
Hassidic Modern Jazz Quartet. The slightly boppish air is not pervasive throughout
the disc though.
There’s a good and contrastingly refined element to the more focused pieces
in which two instruments, or voice and accompanying instrument, play off and
against each other. Hashikivenu, for soprano and piano, is clement
and lyric for the most part though there are some obstinately angular passages
too. Doehlemann uses a viola along with Chudak’s soprano and his own piano
in Psalm 137, By the rivers of Babylon. The middle voice offers plangency,
pathos and in its tremolando passages incident too, before the more vehement
outburst by the soprano. Passagen is the longest single piece, written
for violin and piano. It embraces dancing patterns alternating with slower
sections. Hassidic vitality also embraces melancholy, as the writing from
around the eight minute mark shows.
The piano writing is often obviously percussive in many of these works – by
which I mean that it is meant to evoke Aramaic qualities of sound and timbre.
There are also Tintinnabulist moments too, as in Uva Letziyon. I didn’t
know, before listening, that Doehlemann writes film music, but I think one
could infer it from the last piece, Reflections on the Hebrew Bible – No.3:
1st Book of Samuel 16:23. which is an arrestingly
written piece, and vibrant.
It’s quite hard to describe Doehlemann’s music here. It has a Hassidic core,
both vocally and timbrally, but there are other things going on as well. There’s
a jazz trio sensibility to some of the writing, and a colourful, rhythmic
filmic sense of compression and incident. This is certainly not a ‘heritage’
disc which promotes preservation. Rather it offers a dialogue between past
and present, a cross-currency that proves fruitful and inventive.
Jonathan Woolf
A cross-currency that proves fruitful and inventive.