Classic Ross Amico

Tag: High Holy Days

Jewish Film Music for the High Holy Days

This week on “Picture Perfect,” to coincide with the Jewish High Holy Days, we’ll have music from movies and television series inspired by aspects of the Jewish experience.

We’ll begin with “Exodus” (1960), based on the bestselling novel by Leon Uris, about the founding of the State of Israel. The book is said to have been the biggest seller in the United States since “Gone With the Wind.” The film was directed by Otto Preminger. Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint lead an all-star cast. Ernest Gold’s stirring music was recognized with an Academy Award and is probably his best-known achievement.

Barry Levinson’s semi-autobiographical “Avalon” (1990) explores the immigrant experience and, for better or worse, the assimilation of a Jewish family into American life. Alongside his work on “The Natural,” Randy Newman’s score is probably one of his best-loved.

We’ll round out the hour with music from two acclaimed television scores: for the NBC mini-series “Holocaust” (1978), written by the esteemed concert composer Morton Gould, and Emmy Award-winning music from the PBS series “Heritage: Civilization and the Jews” (1984), by John Duffy.

I hope you’ll join me as we celebrate the Jewish experience this week, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies – this Friday evening at 6 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

September 22, 2017
High Holy Days Music on WPRB

Coming up in the next hour will be “The Chagall Windows,” English composer John McCabe’s luminous, strange and beautiful impressions of the stained glass tableaux located at the synagogue of the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

We’ll also hear Darius Milhaud’s studies for string quartet on themes from the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgies, as he knew them in his native Provence, and David Stock’s “Yizkor.”

It’s all music by Jewish composers or on Jewish themes for the High Holy Days this morning until 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

October 6, 2016
Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur Music for the High Holy Days

L’shana tova! Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins at sunset. The two-day observance commences ten Days of Awe, concluding with Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll have selections for the Jewish High Holy Days. We’ll hear a string quartet by Jacob Weinberg, dating from 1950. The work falls into three movements, which bear the respective subtitles “Rosh Hashanah,” “Yom Kippur” (the Day of Atonement) and “Sukkot” (the harvest festival).

Weinberg’s “Yom Kippur” is based on the familiar declaration of “Kol Nidrei,” best known to gentiles, probably, through the setting for cello by Max Bruch. Bruch, though not Jewish, always had a good ear for characteristic melodies of different cultures (e.g. the “Scottish Fantasy,” the “Swedish Dances,” the “Suite on Russian Themes,” etc.).

Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek – he of “Donna Diana Overture” fame – was likewise moved by the Yom Kippur melody, on which he wrote a large-scale set of orchestral variations, which we’ll also hear. Interestingly, in contrast to the reverential setting by Bruch, Reznicek puts the theme through a befuddling array of permutations, pivoting back and forth from light to serious. It’s not synagogue music, but it is fascinating.

We’ll conclude the hour with a moving arrangement by Patrick Sinozich of ”Avinu Malkeynu” (“Our Father, Our King”) by Max Janowski, performed by Chicago a cappella.

I hope you’ll join me for “Tones of Atonement,” this Sunday night at 10 EDT on WWFM – The Classical Network or at wwfm.org.

PHOTO: The ten Days of Awe are bookended by blasts on the shofar

October 2, 2016
Jewish Music for the High Holy Days on WPRB

If a blast on the shofar sends you into ecstasies, have I got the show for you!

There will be shofars aplenty over the course of my five hours on WPRB this morning, as we listen to music by Jewish composers and/or on Jewish themes, in honor of the High Holy Days.

There will be works by composers such as Paul Ben-Haim, Herman Berlinski, Ernest Bloch, David Diamond, Sril Irving Glick, John McCabe, Sergei Prokofiev, Maurice Ravel, Paul Schoenfield, Dmitri Shostakovich, David Stock, and Philadelphia natives Louis Gesensway and Amanda Harberg.

We’ll also be upholding an annual WPRB tradition, initiated by Teri Noel Towe, of airing a recording of Pablo Casals performing Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei.”

A number of these composers aren’t even Jewish – and a few of the pieces aren’t particularly “Jewish” sounding – but all of them pay tribute to the fecundity and soulfulness of the Jewish experience.

Join me this morning from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or wprb.com, for music for the Days of Awe, the ten days that span Rosh Hashanah (the New Year) to Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). If you need anything, just “give a challah,” to Classic Ross Amico.

September 17, 2015
Jewish Music for the High Holy Days

Coming up in the next hour, it’s “The Chagall Windows,” English composer John McCabe’s luminous, strange and beautiful impressions of the stained glass tableaux located at the synagogue of the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Also, we’ll hear Philadelphia native Amanda Harberg’s “Elegy” for viola and piano, a work dedicated to one of her teachers, Marina Grin.

It’s all music by Jewish composers or on Jewish themes for the High Holy Days this morning until 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com.

September 17, 2015

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