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Tag: Ernest Bloch

Swiss Missed Forgotten Music from Switzerland

Enough with the jokes about alphorns and cuckoo clocks! This week on “The Lost Chord,” it’s forgotten music from Switzerland.

Ernest Bloch, best known for his music on Jewish themes (such as his Hebraic rhapsody “Schelomo”), actually spent most of his life in the United States. He died in Portland, OR, in 1959, at the age of 78.

50 years earlier, while still in Switzerland, he composed his song cycle “Poèmes d’automne.” At the time, he was at work on his opera, “Macbeth,” but he was sidelined when he made the acquaintance of a young poet by the name of Beatrix Rodès. He fell instantly in love with her, and set four of her poems within two months. Rodès would eventually become his mistress, though in the end Bloch chose to remain with his wife. It’s said that the texts, even in the original French, are of dubious literary quality.

The composer arranged them to form a kind of progression, in which a woman passes from sadness and desolation, to peace and love, to lamentation for the passing of her beauty, to an air of serenity as she becomes a priestess.

Okay, so it’s not his strongest work, but it is seasonal and interesting to listen to.

Hans Huber, who lived from 1852 to 1921, was the composer of nine symphonies (of which he acknowledged eight), five operas, and a number of concertos for various instruments. His four concertos for piano are somewhat unusual in that, like Brahms’ experiments in the form, they are made up of four movements, with the addition of a scherzo, as opposed to the customary three.

The Piano Concerto No. 3 first appeared on a concert in Basel, in February of 1899, which also included Beethoven’s “Leonore Overture No. 3” and Berlioz’s “Harold in Italy.”

The concerto is also unusual, for, among other things, anticipating in the first movement the theme from the work’s finale as the underpinnings of a passacaglia.

I hope you’ll join me for an hour of forgotten music from Switzerland – “Swiss Missed” – on The Lost Chord, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

October 4, 2025
Yom Kippur Reflections Music Prayer and Meaning

Yom Kippur began last night at sunset. The holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur concludes a period of ten Days of Awe and Repentance that began on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It is a day of fasting, prayer, and reflection. Yom Kippur is one of four times in a year that Yizkur, a memorial prayer for the dead, is recited. Here’s a musical reflection by David Stock.

Yom Kippur is also the inspiration for the central movement of one of my favorite pieces by Ernest Bloch, the “Israel Symphony” of 1916. The first movement is titled “Prayer in the Desert” and the last “Succoth,” named for the Jewish harvest festival, which begins this year on the evening of October 6th.

May you be inscribed in the Book of Life.

IMAGE: “The Day of the Great Forgiveness of the Jews or Celebration of Yom Kippur in a Synagogue on Rue Saint Louis en l’Ile, Paris,” artist unknown

October 2, 2025
MLSO Shines with Gipps Bloch & Vaughan Williams

The Main Line Symphony Orchestra and conductor Don Liuzzi deserve breakfast in bed – an English breakfast, of course – for last night’s impressive rendering of Ruth Gipps’ Symphony No. 2, a work I never dreamed I would ever get to hear live. Their performance of Ernest Bloch’s “Schelomo,” with the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Yumi Kendall the cello soloist, was also very fine. Of course, I can turn down no opportunity to hear Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5. The program will be repeated at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, PA, this afternoon at 1:00. Thank you, MLSO!

For more information, visit http://www.mlso.org.

November 18, 2023
Main Line Symphony’s Rare Gems

I am looking forward to this ambitious program tomorrow night with the Main Line Symphony Orchestra. Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5, of course, is a longtime favorite, and somehow the stars have aligned so that I’ll have heard it three times within two months! Quite a harvest, considering Vaughan Williams’ music is so rarely done – beyond the “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” and “The Lark Ascending” – by American orchestras. In this instance, however, there is an added incentive in the inclusion, to open the concert, of Ruth Gipps’ Symphony No. 2.

Gipps, who lived from 1921 to 1999, was a Vaughan Williams pupil. At 26, she became the youngest English woman ever to receive a doctorate in music. Her mastery of both the oboe and piano suggested a promising future as soloist in virtuoso concert works. However, a shoulder injury, suffered in her early 30s, caused her to shift her focus primarily to composition. Along the way, she also founded two orchestras and directed a choral ensemble.

Despite early success (her tone poem, “Knight in Armour,” was performed at the Last Night of the Proms in 1942), she encountered resistance in a field dominated by men. No doubt this contributed to her steely resolve. She was tenacious. Some found her off-putting.

In all, she left five symphonies, a respectable number of concertos and concertante works, chamber and instrumental music, and choral pieces. Hopefully, this is a harbinger of more Gipps to come, as her works are being revived and recorded. In fact, I have two recordings of this particular symphony, but I never dreamed I would ever hear it in person!

Also on the program will be Ernest Bloch’s “Schelomo,” with Yumi Kendall, assistant principal cello of the Philadelphia Orchestra, the soloist. Don Liuzzi, Philly’s longtime principal timpanist, is the Main Line Symphony Orchestra’s music director.

The concert will be presented at Valley Forge Middle School in Wayne, PA, tomorrow night, Friday, at 8 p.m. The program will be repeated at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, PA, Saturday at 1 p.m.

For tickets and information, visit http://www.mlso.org.

November 16, 2023
Yom Kippur Music The Lost Chord on KWAX

Yom Kippur begins tomorrow night at sundown. The Day of Atonement marks the culmination of ten days of awe and repentance. Observed with fasting and prayer, it is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

This week on “The Lost Chord,” we offer best wishes for a happy, healthy, and sweet new year with two complementary works inspired by the High Holidays.

Jacob Weinberg’s String Quartet, Op. 55, of 1950, falls into three movements: “Rosh Hashana” (the Jewish New Year), “Yom Kippur,” and “Sukkot.” “Yom Kippur” is based on the cantorial chant “Kol Nidre.” You know, the same melody employed by Max Bruch in his famous cello piece.

Ernest Bloch’s “Israel Symphony,” composed between 1912 and 1917, is more like an orchestral rhapsody in three sections – “Prayer in the Desert,” “Yom Kippur,” and “Succoth” [sic] – played continuously and culminating in parts for four vocal soloists.

Sukkot, which follows Yom Kippur by only five days, is the harvest festival, during which temporary dwellings (or sukkot) are erected to commemorate the Jews’ 40 years wandering in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. In modern times, these are decorated with fruits and vines. In contrast to the austerity and fasting of Yom Kippur, Sukkot is a celebration of life and abundance. But in ancient Israel, it was a solemn affair, with sacrifices offered at the temple.

Welcome the year 5784, with musical reflections of the High Holidays, and then some, on “Totally Awesome,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon.

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)

Stream them here:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

September 23, 2023

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