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Samuel Adler - Symphony No. 5 - Nuptial scene - The Binding (2004) CD 19 tracks, 70:27 Genre Orchestral Label Naxos Cat. Number 559415 Conductor Adler, Samuel Orchestra Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra Index 3055 Collection Status In Collection Track List Five Sephardic Choruses 08:39 01 1. Yom Gila Play 01:43 02 2. Ya Ribbon Olam Play 01:11 03 3. Ein Keloheinu Play 02:16 04 4. Adon Olam Play 02:09 05 5. Zamm'ri Li Play 01:20 06 Nuptial Scene Play 09:05 07 The Binding (excerpt) Play 09:02 Selected Liturgical Works 18:21 08 1. El Melekh Yoshev Play 03:00 09 2. Ahavat Olam Play 01:56 10 3. Sim Shalom Play 02:02 11 4. Bar'khu Play 01:13 12 5. Sh'ma Yisra'el Play 01:34 13 6. V'ahavta and Mi Khamokha Play 03:40 14 7. Hashkivenu Play 04:56 Symphony No. 5 "We are the Echoes" 25:20 15 1. We Go Play 03:41 16 2. Even During the War Play 04:52 17 3. The Future Play 04:57 18 4. We are the Echoes Play 06:39 19 5. God Follows Me Everywhere Play 05:11 Musicians Mezzo-Soprano Margaret Bishop Kohler Personal Details Purchase Date 6/19/2004 Price Rating 0 Location upstairs Other Files _559415.htm Details Packaging Jewel Case UPC (Barcode) 636943941522 Spars DDD Sound Stereo Notes Samuel Adler (b. 1928) has long been prominent in two worlds: mainstream American art music and Judaically inspired music. He continues to play an active role in both spheres as a prolific composer, conductor, faculty member at The Juilliard School of Music, lecturer and author. Born in Mannheim, Germany in 1928 during the waning years of the Weimar Republic, Samuel Adler inherited the rich heritage of the Ashkenazi (Western and central European) synagogue repertoire from his father. The family immigrated to the United States in 1939, and by the age of 13, Adler had become his father’s choir director. He studied composition with Aaron Copland, Paul Hindemith, Walter Piston, among others, as well as conducting with Serge Koussevitzky at the Berkshire Music Center. After serving for 13 years as music director of Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, where he established an outstanding music program, he became professor of composition and later chairman of the composition department at the Eastman School of Music. Adler’s more than 400 works include symphonies, concerti, operas, chamber and vocal works. (Please see enclosed sheet with historical and contemporary photos.) The five compositions on this Milken Archive disc, recorded for the first time, reflect the unique intersection of contemporary musical idioms and Jewish-inspired themes that mark Adler’s oeuvre. The major work is the dramatic five-movement Symphony No. 5, We Are the Echoes, performed here by soprano Phyllis Bryn-Julson and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin led by the composer. It is based on the poems of five writers, among them Muriel Rukeyser and theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, that reflect essential elements of Jewish experience through the centuries, among them the persistence of hope and the quest for peace in the face of unremitting persecution and exile; the willingness to move into the future despite the certainty of struggle; and, as expressed in the fourth movement that gives the symphony its title, that ongoing engagement with the continuum of their history and collective experience that helps define the Jewish people. These compelling texts, with their contrasting moods and conflicts, are underscored by Adler’s expressive vocal writing, use of orchestral effects, and references to traditional Hebrew chant. In his program note for this piece, the composer wrote: The special Jewish experience ... is reflected in the thoughts of the chosen poems: the Jewish idea of a personal relationship between man and his God; the burning conviction or even command that the Jews’ mission on earth is to be “a light unto the nations”; the “nagging conscience” that never lets him rest but calls him to continuous service to all mankind; as well as the ever-present hope and faith that basically man is good and “will overcome,” so that in the end of days all men will be brothers. With these ideas the text was gathered and the symphony fashioned. Another work on this recording is an excerpt from the oratorio The Binding, which is based on the well-known incident in Genesis in which God tests Abraham’s faith by instructing him to prepare his son, Isaac, for ritual sacrifice, and grants a reprieve only at the last moment. This story constitutes one of the central narratives in Judaism and is frequently cited in the liturgy. Adler’s The Binding has special significance for the composer. His father, a noted liturgical composer and cantor in Germany, had also written an oratorio on this subject, but it was never performed. As Samuel Adler explains: “The day before the dress rehearsal, a group of storm troopers entered the hall and confiscated all the scores and parts. We saved one piano score and one full score and brought these with us to the United States.” Adler eventually composed a new oratorio on this subject, using an English libretto derived from his father’s text as well as post-biblical sources. In the second part, heard on this Milken Archive recording, Abraham and Isaac, preparing to fulfill God’s commandment, are taunted by Satan, who challenges Abraham’s commitment and warns Isaac of his fate. The text is set as expressive accompanied recitative; the father’s and son’s parts are more lyrical, and Satan’s, to quote the composer, is “written strictly according to twelve-tone serial technique . . . giving it a jagged and angular contour.” In recognition of the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the first Jews in North America, which is being marked during 2004, the Milken Archive has included on this disc Samuel Adler’s Five Sephardic Choruses. These settings of High Holy Day and Sabbath prayers utilize tunes from the Sephardi traditions of pre-expulsion Spain as well as the Eastern Mediterranean, central Asian and Arab lands to which Jews from the Iberian Peninsula migrated at the end of the 15th century. Those Jews who arrived in this country from Brazil in 1654 brought that Sephardi heritage with them. In addition, the recording includes another Sephardi-inspired work, Nuptial Scene, an atmospheric piece in a contemporary idiom for mezzo-soprano and small instrumental ensemble based on a medieval poem from Catalonia. The composer uses exotic instrumentation, fragments of an actual medieval Spanish-Jewish dance, and expressive, often improvisatory vocal lines to convey both excitement and nostalgia in this setting of a mother’s pre-wedding instructions to her daughter. The soloist on this disc is Margaret Kohler, who recently won the International Opera Singers Competition. Finally, there is a selection of Adler’s liturgical music for the synagogue. These settings of some of the most familiar High Holy Day, Sabbath and daily prayers, scored for cantor, chorus and organ, illustrate how the composer’s contemporary idiom has been inspired by traditional antiphonal and cantorial styles.