Schoenfield - Viola Concerto / Four Motets / The Merchant and the Pauper

Award-winning composer Paul Schoenfield, who was born in Detroit and lives both in this country and in Israel, considers himself essentially a folk musician. His works are inspired by a wide range of musical experience: American and foreign popular idioms, vernacular and folk sources (one writer has stated that his works "do for Hassidic music what Astor Piazzolla did for the Argentine tango"), and the time-honored traditions of cultivated art music, sometimes treated in innovative ways. These seemingly disparate elements are frequently combined in one composition, often to surprising effect. As the composer himself remarked, "this is not the kind of music for relaxation, but the kind that makes people sweat; not only the performer, but the audience." Schoenfield's compositions, which have been performed by such leading ensembles as the New York Philharmonic and the Seattle Symphony, include Klezmer Rondos, a concerto for flute, tenor and orchestra that was included among the Milken Archive's inaugural releases in September, 2003.

The Concerto for Viola and Orchestra was commissioned by and written expressly for the composer's friend, Robert Vernon, principal violist of The Cleveland Orchestra, who premiered it with that ensemble in 1998 and is the soloist on this recording with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin led by Yoel Levi. Written primarily in Israel, the work is built on fragments of melodies the composer heard sung by children in a kindergarten located directly beneath his studio. Some of these were liturgical tunes—several Hassidic in origin—and others were apparently common children's play songs. The first movement is based on a haunting Lubavitcher Hassidic melody that is contrapuntally treated. This is followed by Soliloquy, a lyrical, prayer-like meditation. The third movement, King David Dancing Before the Ark, is drawn from a specific biblical incident: King David, having retrieved the Holy Ark from the Philistines in a military victory, carries it into Jerusalem amidst exuberant public jubilation. Putting aside the viola's customary reflective nature, Schoenfield treats it here as a highly virtuoso instrument, making considerable technical demands. As Milken Archive Artistic Director Neil Levin remarks, this finale is also "rich in generic inflections and gestures associated with so-called klezmer music—the styles and sonorities typical of 19th-century eastern European Jewish wedding and street bands." Many melodic fragments from the preceding two movements figure prominently in this energetic conclusion, unifying the entire composition Four Motets is a deeply felt, a cappella setting of four excerpts from Psalm 86. The verses chosen by the composer center on intense personal supplication to God and conclude on a note of reverence and praise. While deliberately cast in the style of High Renaissance polyphony, with its seamless voice-leading and soaring spirituality, these settings are also marked by subtle, more contemporary chromatic and harmonic inflections. Neil Levin points out that "Schoenfield's motets offer one of the first reconsiderations of Renaissance polyphony in connection with sacred Hebrew texts" since the work of Italian Jewish composer Salomone Rossi, whose collection of Hebrew liturgical settings, published in Venice in 1623 and virtually forgotten until the 19th century, constitutes the only substantial repertoire of synagogue music rooted in late Renaissance style. On this disc, the BBC singers are conducted by Avner Itai.

Schoenfield's two-act opera, The Merchant and the Pauper, was commissioned by the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, which premiered it in 1999. Its libretto is adapted from a tale by one of the most significant personalities in Hassidic philosophy, history and lore—Reb [Rabbi] Nahman of Bratslav (1772-1811), the Ukrainian founder of the Bratslaver Hassidic sect, who was unique among charismatic Hassidic leaders in his use of allegorical and even supernatural folk-like tales to convey his theological, moral and mystical teachings. His famous tales reflect his primary concerns: the kabbalistic doctrines of repair (tikkun), restoration and redemption of what is broken, both in the cosmos and in the individual soul, and the eventual coming of the Messiah. On the surface, Reb Nahman's stories, replete with stock characters, improbable romances, mysterious riddles and evil spells, resemble universal fairy tales more than they do traditional Jewish folklore or religious literature. On a deeper level, they are saturated with mystical allegories, metaphors and symbols.

In searching for an operatic subject, Schoenfield sought an element of serious Jewish literature worthy of probing theatrical treatment that would also embody his personal approach to "Jewish music"—one of joy and spiritual elevation. He built upon the tradition of the medieval European purimspiel, a jocular genre tied to the celebration of the Purim holiday that celebrates the aversion of Jewish genocide in ancient Persia. In the composer's own words, this opera is "some entertainment to 'make the sad happy and bring peace among enemies,' as the Talmud expresses…I haven't had to concern myself with profundity or musicological importance—because such an attitude would be antithetical both to the purimspiel and to the views of Reb Nahman."

The composer's remarks notwithstanding, The Merchant and the Pauper is more than diversionary entertainment. Rich in allegorical references to the Divine Presence (sh'khina) and the hoped-for messianic era, it is marked by lyricism and musical intensity, with echoes of eastern European melodies. Three scenes from the opera, including the joyful finale, are heard on this Milken Archive disc. A narrator, representing Reb Nahman himself, recounts the story and provides allegorical commentary, and the emotional reactions of the characters are expressed in the arias, ensembles and choruses. The plot concerns the Merchant's son and the uncommonly lovely Pauper's daughter, Beauty, who have been promised to each other in marriage. Greed, pride and attempted murder almost destroy this original (i.e. Divine) intention. The young man escapes death and is shipwrecked on the shores of a wild land inhabited only by animals, where Beauty, abducted by an evil pirate, subsequently turns up as well. Eventually, the pirate is devoured by the animals and all is set right; the reunited lovers return to their homeland to rule together in joy. On one level, this story can be viewed as a metaphor for messianic redemption, implying faith in the eventual resolution of conflict and the establishment of permanent harmony in the universe. At the same time, this relatively transparent interpretation does not negate the basic Hassidic tenet that Reb Nahman's tales contain indecipherable, deeply embedded secrets. Heard on this recording are soloists, chorus and orchestra from the University of Michigan Opera, led by Kenneth Kiesler.