Chag Sameach!
For the first day of Passover, here’s a complete performance of the 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.”
Whether your taste runs to maror or charoset, I hope you’ll find something in it to enjoy.
Not your cup of Manischewitz? Try Leopold Koželuch’s “Moisè in Egitto” (“Moses in Egypt”).
Koželuch, a very capable composer, probably would have enjoyed a more respected standing among his peers, if not for a markedly irascible personality. According to legend, he delighted in trash-talking both Haydn and Mozart, which didn’t sit well in certain circles. Is it true? Probably to the extent anything circulated about Salieri is true.
Regardless of what his colleagues may have thought of him, he never seemed to lack for patronage. He was offered the position of court organist in Salzburg, vacated by Mozart, but declined. Later, following Mozart’s death, he assumed the responsibilities of Kammer Kapellmeister (conductor) and Hofmusik Compositor (composer) at the Imperial Court in Vienna, at twice Mozart’s salary.
Yeah, he could be a little rough (Beethoven once described him as “Miserabilis”), but he was also a shrewd political operator.
There’s no questioning his talent. And face it, even Moses had his moments.
