Hanukkah begins at sunset. A great time to go nuts for David Serkin Ludwig’s “Hanukkah Cantata.”

Ludwig, a student of Richard Danielpour, Jennifer Higdon, and Ned Rorem at the Curtis Institute of Music and John Corigliano at Juilliard, is also the nephew of pianist Peter Serkin, the grandson of Rudolf Serkin, and the great-grandson of Adolf Busch. An enviable lineage!

His “Hanukkah Cantata” was written for Choral Arts Philadelphia in 2007, on texts compiled by Cantor Dan Sklar. It was the composer’s aim to integrate Hanukkah songs in their original Hebrew with the narrative taken from Scripture translated into English. He writes, “It was important for me that the piece be set in the ‘vernacular,’ so to speak, but to also preserve what is to me beautiful folk music.”

The work falls into eight movements, wholly befitting the eight-day Festival of Lights.

I found a recording posted on YouTube, with the separate tracks stacked in a playlist, so you can allow it to play through. But if you’re not careful, it will roll into an unrelated ninth track, a Kaddish, at the end.

Happy Hanukkah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6tc0NZT-aE&list=OLAK5uy_mEpyZG6a9B-niO70bgq76tcM2WDiMGBVE&index=6

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Image lifted from All About Squirrels Facebook page