Chag Sameach!
Join me today on The Classical Network, following the noontime concert (which will conclude around 1:40), to enjoy a complete recording of the Passover oratorio “Haggadah shel Pesach,” by German-Jewish composer Paul Dessau.
Dessau was a successful theatrical musician, who worked both in opera, as an assistant to Otto Klemperer and Bruno Walter, and with cinema orchestras. However, in 1933, with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany, living conditions became intolerable for Dessau, who fled to Paris, and then the United States. He settled in Hollywood in 1943. Later, in 1948, he returned to East Berlin, where he taught at the Staatliche Schauspielschule (Public Drama School) and became vice president of the Academy of Arts.
While in exile in Paris, Dessau composed “Haggadah del Pesach,” on a libretto by Max Brod. Brod is probably best known as the friend and biographer of Franz Kafka. Since neither Dessau nor Brod were fluent in Hebrew, they enlisted the help of Rabbi Mordecai Langer to assist with translation.
Read at the Passover Seder, the Haggadah relates the story of Exodus and explains the Passover rituals. Brod interpolates additional texts from the Torah, Talmud, and Midrash. The oratorio describes “The Feast of Passover,” “Moses Slays the Egyptian,” “The Girls by the Well,” “The Saving of the Girls,” “Chorus,” “The Entrance of Pharoah,” “The Plagues,” “The Slaying of the First-Born,” “Midnight Hymn,” and “Israel’s Departure from Bondage to Freedom.”
Between Parts I & II of “Haggadah shel Pesach” (around 2:30), we’ll chat with Joe Miller, director of choral activities at Westminster Choir College. He’ll drop by to tell us a bit about two performances by the Westminster Choir and New York’s Bang on a Can All-Stars of Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize winning “Anthracite Fields.” The concerts will take place on April 21 & 22 at Roebling Wire Works in Trenton. This is shaping up to be the event of the season, so I hope you’ll listen in for my conversation with Joe.
Of perhaps related interest, the noontime concerts today and Thursday will comprise a retrospective of Victoria Bond’s Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival from Symphony Space, now in its 20th year. Tune in today to hear music by Pauline Oliveros, Brian Ferneyhough, Harold Meltzer, Kyle Gann, Joan Tower, and Bond herself.
Whether your taste runs to maror or charoset, there will be something for everyone, I hope, from 12 to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
UPDATE: I just received notification that Joe Miller is unable to make it for the interview today, so I’ll be starting the oratorio at 2 p.m.