October 21, 2004

Genesis Suite [8.559442] & Vienna Choir Boys: A Jewish Celebration in Song [8.559419]

New CD Releases from the MILKEN ARCHIVE OF AMERICAN JEWISH MUSIC and NAXOS AMERICAN CLASSICS

GENESIS SUITE (Naxos ID 8.559442)

Featuring music by Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Darius Milhaud, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Ernst Toch, Alexandre Tansman, Nathaniel Shilkret. Orchestrations reconstructed by Hollywood orchestrator Patrick Russ (Far from Heaven, Gorillas in the Mist).
Narration performed by Tovah Feldshuh (Golda's Balcony), Barbara Feldon ("Get Smart"), David Margulies (Wonderful Town), Fritz Weaver ("Holocaust") and Isaiah Sheffer (Symphony Space). Music performed by the Ernst Senff Choir and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gerard Schwarz.
This Milken Archive disc celebrates the rediscovery and rebirth of an audacious 20th-century work that resulted from a unique collaboration by seven renowned composers, most of them European exiles living in Los Angeles during World War II. Performed only once, in 1945, before most of the score was lost in a fire, the Genesis Suite has been fully restored from recently discovered original manuscripts, and is heard here in its first new recording in 60 years. The work is based on seminal bible stories including the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel, which are narrated on this disc by celebrated actors accompanied by full orchestra and chorus. An important historical document that epitomizes the transplantation of European musical culture to this country during the 1940s, the Genesis Suite also reflects the fascinating interplay between "high" art music and American popular culture—especially Hollywood film—that characterized this period.
§ For details about this CD, go to
http://www.milkenarchive.org/cds/cds.taf?cdid=27
§ To read an article about the Genesis Suite, go to
http://www.milkenarchive.org/articles/articles.taf?function=detail&ID=69

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VIENNA CHOIR BOYS: A Jewish Celebration in Song (Naxos ID 8.559419)

With performances by Vienna Choir Boys, Chorus Viennensis, Cantor Naftali Herstik, Cantor Shimon Craimer, Vienna Chamber Orchestra conducted by Gerald Wirth.
This is the very first recording of American Jewish music by this world-renowned ensemble, which for more than 500 years has been associated with the Roman Catholic Hapsburg Imperial Chapel. Its release will coincide with the Vienna Choir Boys’ October-December 2004 North American tour, during which they will perform selections from the disc. Singing in Hebrew, and joined by the Chorus Viennensis (Choir Boys alumni), the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Chief Cantor of the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem Naftali Herstik, and Cantor Shimon Craimer, they sing late 20th-century, four-part settings of some of the most enduring and powerful of all Jewish texts. Sholom Kalib's The Day of Rest features prayers from the Sabbath liturgy and is written in a style inspired by the stirring eastern European cantorial-choral tradition of the 17th-19th centuries. Psalms of Abraham is a cantata of 12 psalm settings by noted choral director and composer Abraham Kaplan that includes the familiar 23rd, 121st and 150th Psalms and reflects the full range of emotions expressed in this biblical poetry.
For details about this CD, go to
http://www.milkenarchive.org/cds/cds.taf?cdid=28 Posted by jmwc at October 21, 2004 12:04 PM | TrackBack