Release Date: 01 October 2004
Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 636943940921
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: MILHAUD
Description
DARIUS MILHAUD SERVICE SACR?ëSabbath Morning Service with additional prayers for Friday eveningDarius Milhaud's Service Sacre is considered one of only two compositions in which the Hebrew liturgy of an entire prayer service forms the basis of a large scale work of universal spiritual experience by an internationally renowned classical composer.?á (The other is Ernest Bloch's earlier Avodath Hakodesh.)?á As Milken Archive Artistic Director Neil Levin points out, the Service SacrJ is a work intended for use in Jewish worship that can also speak on a spiritual and artistic level to people of all faiths, just as the masterful musical settings of the Roman Catholic Mass can be meaningful to non-Christians.Commissioned in 1947 byone of America's foremost Reform congregations, Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco, Milhaud's Service Sacre was originallyconceived as setting of the Sabbath morning service, using the text and formatof the American Reform Movement's Union Prayer Book.?á To broaden thework's potential usage in worship services, the composer later addedsettings of five portions of the Sabbath eve (Friday evening) liturgy(1947-50).?á The score calls for full chorus and orchestra, a baritone soloistin the cantor's role, singing in Hebrew, and a recitant, or dramatic speaker for the Englishreadings and spoken prayers, which are rendered against atmospheric orchestralinterludes.?á The chorus plays a central role, independently and as an equalpartner in responsorial passages with the cantor.?á Consistent with Frenchstyle, the instrumental textures are transparent, dominated by winds and brass.What makes the ServiceSacre particularly distinctive andpersonal is that in formulating its musical language, Milhaud turned to theFrench-Jewish heritage of his ancestors - the Proven?ºal rite, known as the minhagCarpentras, -- the unique liturgical tradition of the Jews of the ComtatVenaissin region that was nearly extinct in practice and little knownelsewhere. Born in Marseilles and raised in Aix-en-Provence, Milhaud wasdescended from a long-established Jewish family of this secluded area of Provence, with roots traceable at least to the 15th century.?á Throughout the ServiceSacre, elements of the Proven?ºal riteserve as a unifying aesthetic force, not only structurally in the form ofthematic leitmotifs, but emotionally as well.?á The solo cantorial lines arealternately declamatory or quite melismatic and chromatic, but they are muchless florid than the more familiar, virtuoso cantorial idioms of the Ashkenazi tradition.?áIn all, there is a pervasive sonic aura about the work that suggests an oldunderlying tradition, developed with 20th-century techniques and refractedthrough polytonal and polyrhythmic prisms.?á On this recording, Gerard Schwarzconducts the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Prague Philharmonic Choir,with baritone Yaron Windmueller and Rabbi Rodney Mariner.As a member of theloosely associated group of French musical thinke
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
