Ernest Bloch

* Sacred Service (Avodath Hakodesh)*
* Schelomo**
* Baal Shem (exerpts)^

* Marko Rothmuller (baritone), London Philharmonic Orchestra and
Choir/Ernest Bloch
** Zara Nelsova (cello), London Philharmonic Orchestra/Ernest Bloch
^ Zara Nelsova (cello), Ernest Bloch (piano).
Pearl GEM 0164 MONO TT: 69:03

Summary for the Busy Executive: Three masterpieces led by the composer and
featuring his favorite interpreter.

I must admit I love Bloch's music, despite its patent lack of fashion.
In an age which values irony and limits, Bloch takes big strides toward the
epic and the heroic.  There are those who can't quite forgive his passion
or his willingness to take large expressive risks.  There is, of course,
such a thing as an acceptable daring which has to do with technical means
and idiom.  But the less safe form of courage cuts across style, and that's
the neighborhood Bloch's art frequents.  I know of no composer -- other
than Beethoven, Berlioz, and Mahler -- as willing as Bloch to go right up
to the edge of what he can get away with.  Indeed, Bloch never fails for
the negative virtue of Good Taste.  He does at times step across the line
from genuine power to empty portentousness, from real ecstasy to corny
sentimentality, but these occasions are relatively rare.  His best tells us
that art is indeed a calling, rather than a career.

Right now, he survives in concert halls solely on the basis of one work,
Schelomo, but his catalogue is filled with terrific stuff.  His pupil,
Roger Sessions, considered Bloch's string quartets among the finest of
the century (and I'd agree with that judgment for four of the five), right
up there with Bartok, Schoenberg, and Shostakovich.  The prominence of
Schelomo, however, has given rise to the idea of Bloch as a Jewish Composer
-- that is, a composer who wants to express his own Jewishness in music.
In fact, however, the number of Bloch's works inspired by Judaism is pretty
small.  Often works regarded as "Jewish" took off from other sources,
including music of the American Indian, Mussorgsky, and Bloch's imaginary
construction of Bali.  Above all, Bloch strove to express himself, rather
than a predetermined agenda.  Notice that very few people talk about, say,
Brahms's chamber music as the expression of a Christian composer, but many
writers do this for Bloch.  In many ways, it's as ridiculous as talking
about a white actor as such winning an Oscar.

Perhaps because I grew up Jewish myself, I have great affection for
the Sacred Service.  I happen now to be preparing for a performance
of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, and parallels between the two works at
this point seem to leap out at me: the quick mood changes amid a solidly
coherent motific structure, the encyclopedic attempt to express several
religious traditions at once, the near obsession with wringing every
philosophic implication from each word.  Although he includes a couple
of traditional cantorial chants, the bulk of the music is Bloch's own,
and the idiom is a curious amalgam indeed.  One hears Mussorgsky, Debussy,
Palestrina, and Beethoven at various points in the work.  Bloch, with years
of composing and teaching experience with major recognition, decided to
return to the study of counterpoint.  In fact, the major motif in the work
derives from a traditional counterpoint exercise, sometimes known as the
"Dresden Amen," a theme also developed (and famously) by Mozart.  It paid
off.  Bloch produced a work of close to an hour's length from four main
musical ideas, three of which, incidentally, you hear in the opening.
Other than the body of cantorial chant, don't forget, there really was
no such thing before Bloch began as "Jewish music," merely music written
by Jewish composers.  I can say that in my formal religious experience
(such as it was) I have heard nothing like the opening to Bloch's Avodath
Hakodesh.  Bloch's idiom is a largely conscious construction, which draws
ecumenically from many sources.  This music for a Jewish service by a
Jewish composer now stands in many minds as "Jewish music," such is
the power of Bloch to convince us.  However, given the breadth of the
composer's sources, it strikes me as equally clear that limiting Bloch's
music to such a narrow viewpoint would have displeased him no end.

There is really, in my opinion, only one other recording to refer to:
Bernstein's with Robert Merrill and the New York Philharmonic.  I have
recordings by Abravanel and Geoffrey Simon as well, but I find them mainly
adequate.  I prefer the Bernstein for several good and bad reasons.  First,
it's in stereo.  Second, I love Merrill's voice.  Third, the recorded sound
is superior.  The primary minus in the Bernstein version is the use of a
spoken voice, rather than the singing baritone and contrary to Bloch's
preference, in the last movement.  However, the Bloch has its minuses as
well.  First, it's sung almost entirely in English, and the translation is
the usual Union Prayer Book horrible.  The liner notes tell us that Bloch
decided on the English to make the performance more "universal." On the
other hand, to compose the work, he actually learned Hebrew, and his
journals and letters are filled with anxieties over the meaning of each
phrase in the service.  The rhythms of the music fit the Hebrew better
than the English.  Second, the baritone soloist, Marko Rothmuller, who must
assume a major role in the work (arguably, his part is more important than
that of the chorus), sings through his nose.  I don't care for the quality
of his voice, and his place in the recording texture -- way forward --
emphasizes the quack.  That aside, however, he sings very well, with great
variety and sensitivity of phrasing -- more indeed than Merrill.  However,
Merrill convinces equally well, with a "Va'anachnu" that melts your heart.
Indeed, when I think of great moments in singing, that's at least one from
Merrill.  Rothmuller does well, but not as gloriously.  Merrill sings like
a mensch.

Nevertheless, Bloch's performance is well worth having.  If you know
the Bernstein, this version may very well surprise you.  Bloch's account
is more direct, more "objective," more willing to let the music speak
for itself.  To give you some idea, it runs about 8 minutes quicker than
Bernstein's reading.  It's all business, and it lets you know that the
sentimentality that sometimes comes through in Bloch's work doesn't belong
to the man himself.  Bernstein, on the other hand, lingers, caresses one
phrase after another.  It's a performance that takes great risks, that
steps right up to the line of over-indulgence.  For me, it never goes over,
but I certainly understand the disagreement of others.  The liner notes,
by Harris Goldsmith, tell us that Toscanini influenced Bloch's conducting
At this time, and I take the point.  The reading is that dry, without
always conveying Toscanini's rhythmic dynamism.  Again, I prefer Bernstein.

However, the Toscanini approach works much better in Schelomo.
I add this to my list of favorite performances: Rose/Ormandy (the
one I imprinted on), Starker/Mehta, Navarra/Ancerl, Berger/Wit,
Fournier/Wallenstein.  I prefer these to the Rostropovich/Bernstein and
the Nelsova/Abravanel.  Rostropovich and Bernstein chew the scenery, and
Abravanel seems asleep.  Bloch, who really wasn't a conductor, nevertheless
draws electric playing from the London Philharmonic.  Or perhaps they make
him look really good.  Nelsova and Bloch play as one mind, with Nelsova
uniquely sensitive to the shape and subtleties of each phrase.  Although
there's power enough, in this performance, the great climaxes of the work
count for less than the meditative singing.  This ain't DeMille Technicolor
-- rather a Rembrandt etching.

Bloch loved Nelsova's playing.  I like to think after the recording
of Schelomo that he simply couldn't let her go and kept her for a bit
of lagniappe: arrangements of two movements from the suite Baal Shem
with Nelsova at the cello and Bloch on the piano. Nelsova's virtues
in the Schelomo transfer here, transforming essentially miniatures into
profound musical statements.  Despite Bloch's decidedly non-virtuoso piano
technique, you can't say he didn't know what he wanted.  These performances
go like an arrow for the heart.

Steve Schwartz