Composer: Joel Engel
Performer: Rachel Calloway, Musicians of the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0343
Release: 2017
Size: 520 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Air (Jewish Melody)
02. Adagio misterioso, Op. 22
3 Yiddish Songs (Arr. L. Danto)
03. No. 1. Nor nokh dir
04. No. 2. Ritshkele
05. No. 3. Akh! Nit gut!
Dybbuk Suite, Op. 35
06. I. For What Reason? – From Song of Songs
07. II. Beggars’ Dances
08. III. Wedding March
09. IV. The Veiling of the Bride
10. V. Hassidic Melody
11. VI. From Song of Songs – For What Reason? (reprise)
Jewish Folksongs
12. Hen hu hivtiach li
2 Violin Pieces, Op. 20
13. No. 1 (arr. U. Vardi for cello and piano)
14. No. 2
50 Children’s Songs
15. No. 9. In der Suke
16. No. 8. Shavues
17. No. 1. Morgengebet
11 Children’s Songs, Op. 36
18. No. 10. Zumerfeygele
Az ikh volt gehat dem keysers oystres, Op. 4
19. No. 2
The Russian composer Joel Engel (1868–1927) is unofficially considered ‘the father of Jewish music’. He paved the way for a nationalist movement that used Yiddish and Hebrew folk songs as the basis of a serious art-form. Well before Kodály and Bartók in Hungary, Engel went out to the shtetls of eastern Europe, writing down the villagers’ songs and then composed music inspired by his excursions. This first-ever album of his music reveals the melodic immediacy of these songs and instrumental pieces, capturing the soul of a people and a centuries-old vanished culture. The musicians of the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival are the highest-calibre local professionals; players for the orchestral and chamber-music concerts include members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Opera and Ballet Orchestras, and faculty members of the music departments from Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne Universities. The Festival was founded in 2004 by the cellist Aron Zelkowicz. In its eleven seasons, it has programmed over 130 pieces of classical chamber and orchestral music inspired by Jewish traditions. The recordings on this CD series represent a six-year project devoted to the St Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music and its affiliated Russian composers. The Festival website can be found at www.pjmf.net.