It all depends on what, exactly, happened earlier this week in the Music Recital Hall on the University of Montana campus.
“I am hopeful that what we accomplished will become a point of reference for musicians and people interested in Jewish culture around the world,” said cellist Amit Peled. “But right now, it's still a little too close to the present to really know what we accomplished.”
The SOR, which is based in Missoula, got involved in the CD project thanks to a longtime friendship between Peled, SOR artistic director Johan Jonsson, and the orchestra's principal cellist, Fern Glass Boyd. Those friendships began after Peled performed with the SOR as a guest soloist in 2002 and 2004; he has since become a frequent visitor and guest artist in Montana.
“I've come about once a year for several years,” said Peled. “Johan and Fern are good friends now. So when I told Johan about this project about a year and a half ago, he was very excited to explore the opportunity to collaborate.”
The original inspiration for the CD dates back a little further, to a time when Peled, now 34, was beginning to explore the classical music of his native culture. Though the list of famous Jewish musicians is long - including the violin virtuosos Jascha Heifetz and Itzhak Perlman, conductors James Levine and Eugene Ormandy, and composers Gustav Mahler and Leonard Bernstein - the influence of Jewish musical styles and culture on the currents of classical music has been surprisingly under-explored.
So Peled resolved to document some of the important Jewish music that had gone unrepresented in the recorded catalog of classical music.
“I asked myself, should I record yet another CD of Brahms - whose work has been recorded so many times, over and over - or should I do something I feel affiliated with, that is different from the music that is already available?” said Peled. “The answer came naturally.”
Tall and handsome, with a disarmingly unpretentious personality and a playing technique that has been cheered by critics across America and Europe, Peled is a thoroughly qualified proponent for this music. Though he says he is “not religious at all,” the music on the forthcoming CD reflects the deepest memories and emotions of his life.
“For me, this music truly touches the soul,” he says. “I hear in it my family dinner, my friends, the synagogue scene. The line of connection between all the pieces we recorded is that I am really attached to each one of them emotionally.”
Among the six pieces that Peled recorded this week with the SOR, one in particular stands as a representation of both the musical style and the underlying spirit of his Jewish heritage: the folksong, “Eli, Eli” (which translates “My God, My God”). The music is written to a poem by the World War II heroine Hannah Senesh, a Hungarian Jew who was captured while trying to gain intelligence for the British military, and was later executed.
“She is a big hero in Israel for what she did, and this piece of music is known by everyone there,” said Peled. “Because I love this song so much, I asked a friend to arrange it for cello and string orchestra. It's so beautiful. I am very excited to have this as part of the music on this CD.”
Other music that Peled and the SOR recorded this week includes Ernest Bloch's “From Jewish Life” and “Meditation Hebraic,” Edon Partosh's “Yizkor,” a suite of klezmer-style music and an arrangement of the Jewish “Kol Nidre” prayer.
Peled noted that he and the orchestra haven't fully determined whether all six of the pieces they recorded this week will end up on the CD.
“All of us are really curious to see how it sounds, he said. “When you record something, you sometimes can't tell how it will sound outside of the moment of the performance. I'm looking forward to taking it home at the end of the week, sitting down quietly in a dark room and listening to it as neutrally as I can and see what it does to me. Then we'll see what we'll do with it all.”
As to how the CD will be published, nothing has been finalized. Peled is currently under contract with American classical music label Centaur Records to produce three CDs of cello music under the collective title “The Jewish Soul.” Whether this CD ends up being part of that series, or becomes a stand-alone addendum, remains to be seen.
“It depends if the label likes the CD and we all come to agreement about how it will be handled,” said Peled.
This much he knows: He and the String Orchestra of the Rockies aim to have the recording completely edited and mastered in time to release it during intermission of the SOR's April 20 concert in Missoula, where Peled will appear with the orchestra as a soloist.
Despite the vagueness of exactly what will be on the CD or what company will release it, Peled is confident that the album will be a great testament to the hidden repertoire of Jewish string music.
“This is not a CD that you put on in the background when you sit on the porch in the evening with a glass of scotch and just relax,” he said. “It's very emotional and will move one's soul, I think. It's tragic and humorous and cynical and all that. It's a CD where you want to be with your thoughts and go inside yourself and the music. So I am confident that we will have something that we're all very happy with.”
Reporter Joe Nickell can be reached at 523-5358 or at jnickell@missoulian.com
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)