Search - David Diamond, Morton Gould, Roy Harris :: Diamond - Ahava / Music for Prayer (Milken Archive of American Jewish Music)

This volume of the Milken Archive celebrates universal brotherhood through the universal language of music, which finds its way "into the inward places of the soul." Diamond's "Ahava" was commissioned in 1954 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the "birth of American Jewry"--the arrival in 1654 of 23 Jewish refugees in New Amsterdam. Diamond initially envisaged an orchestral work but, realizing that he needed a "spokesman," added a narration compiled from biblical and historical sources, the poetry of Moses ibn Ezra and Yehuda Halevi, and the words of Rabbi Hillel, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. The result is a paean to ideals universally shared: justice, freedom, equality, civilization, truth, peace and faith. The orchestra supplies both background and interludes for the spoken words, as well as a turbulent Prologue that starts with a timpanum crash, and a serene, celestial Epilogue on shimmering high strings. The music is basically tonal, by turns dissonant, loud and percussion-heavy, and soft, lyrical and calm. Theodore Bikel speaks with great clarity, dignity and just the right mixture of rhetoric and simplicity. The disc's other works were commissioned by David Putterman, Cantor of New York's prestigious Park Avenue Synagogue, who in 1943 began to invite young American composers, both Jews and non-Jews, to write music for the Synagogue liturgy. Written between 1946 and 1951, they are basically tonal, modal, reverent and devout; the scoring includes solo voices, chorus and organ, which Putterman exempted from the prohibition of instruments in the Sabbath service. The four pieces by David Diamond, parts of a larger work, praise God and welcome the Sabbath in call-and-response. Morton Gould and Roy Harris wrote hymns of praise and joy; Gould's bears the stamp of his lighter style, Harris' is triadic and contrasts textures and sonorities. Douglas Moore celebrates the original Sabbath in a majestic, almost operatic style. The performances are all excellent; among the solo singers, tenor Karl Dent and baritone Patrick Mason stand out. --Edith Eisler