Germany Weinberg, Joel Engel, Ilse Weber: Shachar Lavi (mezzo-soprano), Sofia Astakhov (clarinet), Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich / Daniel Grossmann (conductor). Munich Kammerspiele Theatre, 6.12.2022. (RF)
Weinberg – Jewish Songs Op.13; Chamber Symphony No.4, Op.153
Joel Engel – Jewish Folk Songs
Ilse Weber – Songs from Theresienstadt
The Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich, or JCOM, uniquely presents contemporary Jewish culture and features works by Jewish composers. For this special evening, the orchestra under the direction of Daniel Grossmann returned to the Kammerspiele Theatre, a venue where they had presented a Weinberg Festival in 2019 to reach a different audience.
The concert began with Mieczysław Weinberg‘s Jewish Songs, Op.13, from the beginning of his career and are composed to lyrics by Yitskhok Perets and describe the world of a young child. The Israeli mezzo-soprano Shachar Lavi had greater opportunity to display her voice in the following works by Joel Engel, who collected and arranged Yiddish folk songs. The composer Ilse Weber buried her songs at Theresienstadt so that they could be found after she was deported and murdered. Lavi sang the German texts of longing for a home with clarity and expression.
Weinberg’s Chamber Symphony No.4 was his final completed work. The performance featured the versatile clarinettist Sofia Astakhov interacting with strings. Grossmann’s conducting brought drive to the Allegro molto second movement and clarity to the slower ones. The cellist Anikó Zeke’s rich tone resounded splendidly in the Kammerspiele Theatre’s acoustics and was ideal for this music. The Andantino fourth movement started with a rich clarinet folk melody similar to those collected by Engel. It included a search for optimism, ultimately unsuccessful, and ended with fading strings and a triangle stroke, played appropriately by Astakhov.
Although some of the works of Weinberg and other Jewish composers are being rediscovered and gaining visibility, the great work put into this evening by Daniel Grossmann and JCOM shows the richness of the available treasures.
Richard Foster