April 21, 2009: Voices from the Holocaust

Today is "'Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah'— literally the 'Day of (remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism'" (as described on the Holocaust Memorial Day Web page of the Jewish Virtual Library);  and the Laurel Ensemble arranged their Noontime Concerts™ recital today at Old St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco to honor the occasion.  For this event they were joined by soprano Roselyn Barak, who is the Cantor for Congregation Emanu-El in this city.  Remembering the Holocaust is a delicate matter, particularly for those who are not Jewish;  and an event of this nature needs to be examined in terms of its respect and authenticity.

Barak (whose last name is that of one of the heroes of the Book of Judges) joined the Laurel for a performance of the suite Shema, based on texts by Primo Levi and composed by Simon Sargon in 1988.  In spite of his Assyrian name, Sargon is an Indian-born Jewish composer, currently Professor of Composition at Southern Methodist University, as representative of our Melting Pot as you can get.  Levi was a Jewish-Italian chemist and author, who survived the Holocaust but eventually committed suicide on April 11, 1987.  Thus, to a great extent, this day served to remember not only the Holocaust itself but also the anniversary of its delayed victimization of Levi.  One would be hard pressed to find a gesture of greater authenticity for such a somber day.  The only problem is that the texts were in Italian and neither those texts nor their translations were provided with the program.  Barak read a translation of the first song ("Shema"), which was sufficiently intense to leave me curious about the remaining four songs.  The title comes from Verse 4 of Chapter 6 of Deuteronomy;  and I would not dispute the Wikipedia claim that  it "is considered the most important prayer in Judaism."  Levi's reference to the text of the prayer is both oblique and ironic, to which Sargon responded with only a minimal suggestion of the melody line to which the prayer is usually sung.

Ernest Bloch was born in Geneva in 1885 and settled in the United States in 1916, so he never had to contend directly with the Holocaust.  Nevertheless, he was influenced strongly by both the liturgical and folk music of the Jewish tradition;  and, as I observed about a month ago, his "Schelomo" is one of the most effective interpretations of a Hebrew text, particularly when we recognize that the text is neither sung nor recited!  At this concert he was represented by individual movements from two of his suites.  Krisanthy Desby performed the "Prayer" movement from the 1925 From Jewish Life suite for cello and piano (accompanied by Lori Lack);  and violinist Christina Mok performed the "Nigun" movement from Baal Shem (again accompanied by Lack).  "Prayer" is Bloch's own interpretation of Jewish liturgical music, while the Nigun itself is a particular form of Chassidic melody whose roots are both liturgical and folk.  (The Baal Shem Tov is regarded as the progenitor of Chassidism.)  Thus, Bloch is also a voice of authenticity, if not about the horrors of the Holocaust than about key elements of Jewish culture that were almost lost in that catastrophe.

Indeed, the only question of authenticity arose with Mok's performance of the "Theme" from John Williams' score for the film Schlindler's List.  While I have great respect for the way in which Steven Spielberg made this film, I tend to view Williams primarily as a skilled technician, always ready to provide an "acoustic context" for any screenplay, regardless of whether or not that screenplay has (or even wants to have) any "ring of truth."  To be honest, while I can still remember many of the images from this film, I had entirely forgotten the soundtrack until today's recital!  I suspect that the mood of the day could have been better honored had Mok and Desby joined with Lack to perform the final movement of Dmitri Shostakovich's Opus 67 trio;  but that single movement would have brought the risk of totally overwhelming the work of both Bloch and Sargon, even if Shostakovich was not himself Jewish.  Probably more music from either of the two Bloch suites would have been more appropriate.