Search - Shostakovich, Eva Ben-Zvi, Goubina :: Musiques Juives Russes (Jewish Music from Russia)

Jewish Russian Wonders

03/26/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"JEWISH MUSIC FROM RUSSIARussia's relationship with Jews has in large part been uneasy. But music knows few if any boundaries, and Jewish influences have cropped up in plenty of unlikely spots. In this recording that presence is felt in a treatment of Hebrew themes by Prokofiev, settings of Yiddish poems by Shostakovich and a rhapsody by a Russian-Jewish composer, Sergei Slonimsky. Although best known as a work for orchestra, Prokofiev's "Overture on Hebrew Themes" (1919) is here heard as originally written, for clarinet, string quartet and piano. The difference is startling. Instead of a homogenized homage to Jewish themes, the piece emerges as a klezmer band's spontaneous, sentimental outpouring. And if Prokofiev's pungent harmonies still persevere, plenty of character is evoked in a committed reading by the Glinka Quartet, Anton Dressler, a clarinetist, and Julia Zilberquit, a pianist. Shostakovich's "From Jewish Folk Poetry," an 11-song cycle for soprano, contralto and tenor (1948; orchestrated in 1964), is sung in Yiddish rather than in Russian translation here: a first, it is claimed in the packaging. Eva Ben-Zvi, the soprano (though she sounds at times like a theremin), Elena Goubina, the contralto, and Nikolai Kurpe, the tenor, handle the delicate task with apt poignancy. Andrei Chistiakov and the Bolshoi Orchestra accompany sympathetically. At first, it is hard to tell what is specifically Jewish about Mr. Slo nimsky's "Jewish Rhapsody" (1997), a concerto for piano, flute, strings and percussion in its premiere recording. The first two movements are stark modernist fare, but the Allegro finale contains plenty of klezmer vim. Mr. Chistiakov and the Bolshoi Orchestra present the score winningly, and Ms. Zilberquit provides a glittering account of the piano part.by New York Times"