COMPOSERS’ BIOGRAPHIES & PROGRAM NOTES

When Zimro, a New York-based ensemble made up of Petersburg Conservatory graduates, asked Prokofiev to write a work based on Jewish folk themes (which they gave to him in a notebook), Prokofiev initially refused. According to his biographer, Israel Nestyev, “at the time he considered it ‘bad form’ to compose music on borrowed themes.” After spending more time with the folk tunes, he eventually came around, sketching the entire Overture on Hebrew Themes in a couple of days. The unusual instrumentation was also the doing of the Zimro ensemble, who requested that Prokofiev write for their full compliment. (Prokofiev later orchestrated the work.)

The work’s two themes, a playful dance tune and a more lyrical, sustained melody, occupy separate spaces for most of the work. The piece is in a three part form of ABA — dance tune, lyrical melody, dance tune — until near the end of the piece, when the lyrical music unexpectedly returns, bring the two ideas together for the first time.

Prokofiev may have been reluctant to write using Jewish themes, but that was certainly never the case for Ernest Bloch, who made his name as a composer of Jewish-themed music with pieces such as Schelomo (for cello and orchestra) and the Sacred Service (Avodath hakodesh), even to the point that some vilified him for it. His epic orchestral work America, for example, was attacked by those who saw American music as Anglo-Saxon in temperament, and there were arguments among other scholars over whether his music was really Jewish, or whether his Jewish-ness was more a matter of the spirit than of the letter. Bloch himself said, “It is neither my purpose nor my desire to attempt a reconstruction of Jewish music nor to base my works on more or less authentic melodies. I am not an archaeologist; for me the important thing is to write good and sincere music. What interests me is the Jewish soul.” Few considered him just a one trick composer, however, and it is important to note that even in his non-Jewish influenced works, Bloch still wrote highly dramatic music, often influenced by philosophical or poetic ideas.

Nigun (Improvisation) is the center movement of the suite Baal Shem (Three Pieces of Chassidic Life), composed in 1923, and it is probably performed more often without the outer movements than with them. According to Mina Miller, the entire suite “depicts spiritual and religious elements of orthodox Jewish life. The first movement, Contrition, addresses the act of atonement for one’s sins; Nigun… reflects on the deep emotional and religious feeling of this act. Rejoicing speaks to a fundamental aspect of Judaism. In this work, however, it specifically relates to the annual festival of Simchas Torah (which celebrates the completion of the reading of the Book of Law).”

The three scenes From Jewish Life could be termed Bloch’s Baal Shem for cello, so similar is the intent of these two works. Not only do both have three movements about Jewish life, but even the subject matter of the movements (atonement and reflection) is similar. But whereas Nigun is an extroverted work, From Jewish Life is contemplative and melancholy, avoiding virtuosity. In both works, Bloch uses shofar-like calls, augmented intervals (often as a crying motif), and quarter tones in the strings to evoke Jewish music.

The Kaddisch is the first of Maurice Ravel’s Deux mélodies hébraïques, written in 1914 on a commission from Madame Alvina-Alvi, a soprano in the St. Petersburg opera company. Ravel used folk melodies in a number of works, but these would be last time he would set a folk tune. Besides Ravel’s orchestration of the accompaniment to the songs, done a number of years later, there is also this arrangement, by Lucien Garben, for violin and piano, written for Ravel’s friend, the violinist Zino Francescatti. Ravel gives the haunting melody a sparse accompaniment which stays out of the way of the tune as much as it supports it. The Aramaic text of the Kaddisch is one of the masterpieces of the Jewish liturgy. In English translation it is: “May His great name be magnified and hallowed throughout the world that He created according to His will; and may He reign over His kingdom in your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of the entire house of Israel, speedily in our day. Amen. May the holy name be blessed and lauded, glorified and uplifted, extolled, honored, magnified, and praised. Blessed is He, higher than all blessing and hymn, praise and consolation that are spoken in this world. Ah! Let us say Amen.”

Karen Stiles, born in Rochester, New York, began studying the violin at age 5. She received a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College where she studied with Stephen Clapp and Gregory Fulkerson. She went on to pursue a Master of Music degree from Indiana University and New England Conservatory where she studied violin with James Buswell and baroque violin with Stanley Ritchie. As a member of the New American Chamber Orchestra — an eleven-member string ensemble — she toured throughout Europe and Scandanavia, performing at many of the major European music festivals including the Korsholm Music Festival in Vassa, Finland and the Uppsala Festival in Uppsala, Sweden. Karen then became the Principal Second Violinist of the Knoxville Symphony and Chamber Orchestra for two seasons. Karen is currently the Assistant Principal Second Violinist of the San Antonio Symphony. She has appeared as soloist with the Knoxville Chamber Orchestra and the San Antonio Symphony. She is a member of the Sierra Grande String Quartet and is a founding member of the Sierra Grande Chamber Music Festival in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

Jeannine “Dee Dee” Fancher, violist, is currently in her twelfth season as a member of the San Antonio Symphony. She spends her summers as the Assistant Principal Violist of the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra in Cooperstown, New York, and is the former Assistant Principal Violist of the Jacksonville Symphony. She also maintains an active schedule as a performer with numerous chamber music groups throughout Texas. Ms. Fancher originally hails from Chicago, and was a student of Roland Vamos at Western Illinois University.