Although this Swedish release features four Jewish-themed works that touch upon the idea of remembrance, only one, the final Requiem Ebraico of Erich Zeisl, was specifically shaped by the Holocaust. Zeisl, an Austrian Jew who fled to the U.S. and began to write film scores (among them The Postman Always Rings Twice), suffered the loss of his father and many of his friends in concentration camps in the war's grim final years. Listeners must judge his requiem (a setting of Psalm 92) according to their own experiences; it is ...
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Although this Swedish release features four Jewish-themed works that touch upon the idea of remembrance, only one, the final Requiem Ebraico of Erich Zeisl, was specifically shaped by the Holocaust. Zeisl, an Austrian Jew who fled to the U.S. and began to write film scores (among them The Postman Always Rings Twice), suffered the loss of his father and many of his friends in concentration camps in the war's grim final years. Listeners must judge his requiem (a setting of Psalm 92) according to their own experiences; it is an unusual work with its contrasts among operatic duets, Jewish modal inflections, and rather academic final fugue. Two other works on the program feature soloists of Israeli origin in Jewish works separate from the immediate impulse of the Holocaust; flutist Sharon Bezaly is especially effective in Leonard Bernstein's Halil (1981), dedicated to the memory of a young flutist killed in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. The work is an admirable example of Bernstein's ability to reduce his...
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