From Kaddish to Caprice
review
R
Rachel Einarsson4 min read|26. May 2023
Album review
Title: The Essential Hebrew Violin
Artists: Anne Battegay, violin
Francois Robin, cello
Alessandro Tardino, piano
Kurpfälzisches Kammerorchester Mannheim
Marc-Olivier Oetterli, conductor
Label: ARS Produktion
Released November 2022
It begins with death and ends with life – from Kaddish to caprice! ”The Essentiel Hebrew Violin” offers good insight into a Jewish/Hebrew universe of classical music that is somewhat different from the klezmer style. And it is an album that at the same time reflects the Swiss soloist Anne Battegay's own Jewish background.
The Swiss freelance violinist Anne Battegay has a Jewish background. Her latest album is therefore the sound of a personal story that reaches far back in time.
Photo: Cover
Jewish music is not only klezmer music. You get a taste of this on Anne Battegay's release, which contains pieces arranged for violin and chamber orchestra.
All the pieces were written by either Jews or composers who cultivate the Jewish style and the Jewish-religious content, and so the violinist Anne Battegay can cultivate both her violin and her own cultural background. She does so elegantly, with a good rasp and with clarity.
It begins rather sadly with ”Kaddish” by Ravel. A number that was originally conceived for piano and voice, but is now rearranged for solo violin with accompaniment from an orchestra. Kaddish is a Jewish prayer for the deceased, and the mournful and calm character of the piece therefore suits its title well. A fantastic and weighty opening to an album that alternates well between seriousness, melancholy, carefree joy of life and spontaneity.
In the second number we get music by John Williams, who has also written music for, for example, ”Harry Potter” and ”Star Wars”. This is a quite charming orchestral version of the theme from ”Fiddler on the Roof”, in which the violin dances around with a frail accompaniment in the strings. Anne Battegay really makes the violin sputter, rasp and sparkle, and there is generally a pleasant sound in the piece.
Just as you had got into a good mood, the atmosphere shifts to the gloomy music of Joseph Achron (1886-1943). A melancholy mood with a distinctly Jewish sound and harmony dictates devotion and silence; there is wistfulness, but mixed with forward momentum, and there is fine, subdued pizzicato in the light strings and lovely accompaniment in the basses, which move so finely in the piece's shifting landscape and growing drama. And then it all ends in a beautiful haze. Like a kind of last breath.
In the same way, gloom dominates his ”Hebrew Lullaby”, which has, as a beautiful hallmark, a kind of pedal point; an anchor point beneath it all, which holds the piece fast in a gloomy stillness. And it may be added that Joseph Achron belonged to the Jewish folk music milieu in St Petersburg at the beginning of the 1900s and that he had played at a party for the Tsar.
Joel Engel (1886-1927) also belonged to this musical milieu in the same city, and in many ways he shares stylistic traits with Achron. We pick up tempo and the spark of life again with his ”Freilechs”, in which piano and violin in a fine duet create a lively counterweight to the melancholy. The piece is quite simply a dance number, and Anne Battegay again brings out elegant rasps from the violin strings.
When it dawns on the ears, that Max Bruch's ”Kol nidrei” is now coming, one falls reflexively into an almost devout ecstasy. It is a wonderful piece, which we get here with orchestra; weighty and painful, the work places itself in the listener's path, and the listener can enjoy both the violin and the cello in solo. There is a good balance between accompaniment and soloists, and the involvement is just right, being neither swollen nor hurried.
Prokofiev also mastered the Jewish musical tradition, and so he too has a place on the CD with ”Overture on Hebrew themes”, which was composed in 1919, when he was in the USA. Originally written for piano, clarinet and string quartet, before he wrote it for chamber orchestra 15 years later. The piece is ”boiled down” from a couple of well-known melodies, over which Prokofiev has improvised, and he has retained the klezmer style of the clarinet in this orchestration. One can therefore enjoy typical, easily recognisable Jewish motifs that move around between the three instruments. There is lovely rhythm and resilience in the strings and good changes in tempo and temperament. Perhaps one misses a little more drama and exploitation of the tensions and the oom-pah rhythm. Funnily enough, a little blurriness can be heard in the violin's last sequence with quite fast notes.
The album's last number is a salon-like piece by Fritz Kreisler, which forms a festive conclusion to the whole release. But just before it we get a very interesting ”Caprice Hébraïque” by Alexander Krejn (1883-1951). He represented the Hasidic branch of Judaism, which can be described as more charismatic than the more traditional Judaism. A version of Judaism in which purity of heart takes precedence over the intellectual study of the scriptures and in which salvation is personal rather than collective.
But anyway, his piece here becomes a lovely lament with wistfulness and impressionistic colours composed in a free form, which is thoroughly worth listening to. A weighty contribution to the album's journey from Kaddish to caprice.