Siegel: Kaddish World Premier
By WES BLOMSTER, American Record Review
A strong sense of mission contributed to the success of Lawrence Siegel's
Kaddish, an hour-long work for chorus and orchestra given its world premier by Philip Brunelle's VocalEssence on November 15 in Mann Concert hall on University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.
Although
Kaddish is about the Holocaust, the darkest chapter of 20th Century history, Siegel calls the work "a mourner's celebration of life" because the cycle of 15 songs in three parts looks beyond the realm of death to the affirmative posture of those who survived the Nazi camps.
The authenticity of the score, superbly performed by a chorus of 150 and an extended chamber ensemble with full percussion, comes from the texts that Siegel fashioned largely from interviews with people once held prisoner in Auschwitz and other sites of inhuman terror. Through the primacy of text,
Kaddish engages its audience by bringing them face to face with a tragedy all too easily forgotten as the last survivors who bear witness to it are dying off.
Kaddish opens with a gentle, lyric 'World Before', a setting of a Yiddish folksong, while 'Holocaust', the second section, has harshness that borders on dissonance. In 'Auschwitz', the darkest section, males of the choir echo the rhythm of a locomotive as they portray arrival in the camp. Most original is Litany that opens 'Tiklun Olam' (The repair the World), the final third of the score, where choir members speak victims' names from Yad Vashem archives. Their voices grow in volume and then give way to a single speaker.
"I mean to grab you by the heart and shake you up", Siegel says about
Kaddish. The work did precisely that. Founding music director Philip Brunelle and VocalEssence made almost every word understandable without reference to the libretto printed in the program. The ensemble is obviously a shining jewel in the Twin Cities' musical crown.
The premier was made poignant by the presence of Naomi Warren, an 89-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, whose words both open and close
Kaddish. Siegel speaks of his "verbatim" approach to the score, which he defines as "shaping songs out of the actual speech of ordinary people". It brings "you-are-there" immediacy to the story. At the dress rehearsal Warren told the musicians of her 2003 return to Auschwitz, which enabled her to say "
Hineni! I am here!"
'Kaddish' a compelling take on tragedy
A new choral work by Lawrence Siegel, based on accounts of Holocaust survivors, connects with lyrical simplicity.
By WILLIAM RANDALL BEARD, Special to the Star Tribune
The idea of art with a message can frequently be oxymoronic. Too often, the message eclipses the art. That was my fear going into VocalEssence's world premiere of "Kaddish" by Lawrence Siegel.
But "Kaddish" had a gravitas and an emotional immediacy that made even the familiar story of the Holocaust fresh and compelling.
Siegel's texts, based on accounts of Holocaust survivors, were fascinating. In the first section, "The World Before," he set the Holocaust in a social context that made the ensuing tragedy all the more horrifying.
In dealing with the Holocaust itself, Siegel did not overreach himself. He found the universal tragedy in the small details of individual lives. But then, in the third part, he moved beyond those events to explore their consequences for the survivors in the decades since.
This was not intellectually challenging nor demanding music. But in its lyrical simplicity, it created an emotional connection to the story. That said, Siegel's musical vocabulary was not quite able to truly convey the sense of atrocity.
Of the soloists, bass-baritone James Bohn made the strongest impact, with characterful singing that created a number of vivid vignettes. Soprano Maria Jette, in the story of a survivor who returned to Auschwitz with her family, used her soaring soprano to convey the exultation of survival. Tenor Anders Eckman, a member of the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers, was a last-minute replacement, but proved himself to be very much in their league.
The concert opened with excerpts of Bernstein's "Mass," in a new "authorized concert edition." This presented the large-scale work in a more manageable arrangement. It also had the advantage of tempering some of the work's excesses.
Under Philip Brunelle's direction, this became a spiritual journey, an exploration of faith through a character struggling with his own. He molded Bernstein's mélange of musical styles into a coherent whole.
Tenor Paul Garth Pruitt, another late replacement, had a strong, bright instrument and put forth a herculean effort in the difficult role. With more rehearsal, he probably would have developed a more nuanced and effective characterization.
Jette took over some of his music. She was exquisite in "A Simple Song" and ethereal in "The Lord's Prayer." More than just beautifully vocalized, they were deeply felt, as if she were truly praying her songs.
The Minnesota Orchestra will be doing the full-length "Mass" in January, but it will be hard-pressed to exceed the VocalEssence Chorus' sublime performance.
William Randall Beard is a Minneapolis writer.
Holocaust work blends solemnity, resilient joy
By David Hawley, Special to the Pioneer Press
Of all the expectations for a musical work about the Holocaust, triumphant joy may not be one of them. That's especially true when the title is "Kaddish," which refers to the Jewish rituals of mourning.
But joy of a kind born in resiliency emerges like a glow of white light in the final section of Lawrence Siegel's oratorio - starting with a hymnlike choral setting of the words, "Nothing is as whole as a heart which has been broken," and rising to exaltation: "I am here! I survived, and look who is with me." After what has gone before, the impact of the conclusion is thrilling.
"Kaddish," written in oratorio style for chorus, soloists and small orchestra, received its world premiere Saturday in a single concert by VocalEssence, the 40-year-old ensemble founded and conducted by Philip Brunelle that doggedly champions new or less-known vocal music. The performance was recorded and likely will find its way to a compact disc.
The hourlong work is theatrical and accessible. Siegel, a New Hampshire-based composer, is an advocate of "verbatim" librettos. The technique for this work involved taking actual words of survivors and melding them with other sources, both biblical and poetic, including the traditional Kaddish prayer.
Needless to say, the verbatim technique adds dramatic weight. The trade-off, especially in the choral sections, is the necessity of using a lot of thick-textured homophonic singing to project the text. Thankfully, it doesn't get monotonous, thanks to theatrical narrative of contrasting styles.
Divided into three major sections, the piece begins with reflections on life in Jewish communities before the Holocaust, written generally in a style that uses conventional harmonies, lyricism and hints of folk and klezmer melodies.
The harmonies become dissonant and angular in the middle section, which includes accounts of Auschwitz, before moving to the momentous and triumphant conclusion with four-square hymns and a huge, almost Handelian final chorus. The ending is preceded by perhaps the most dramatic moment in the performance: A stark recitative involving the spoken names of Holocaust victims, starting with a single voice and rising to a heart-breaking cacophony of voices.
On Saturday, the soloists – including eternal soprano Maria Jette, mezzo Krista J. Palmquist, tenor Anders Eckman and bass-baritone James Bohn – were all admirable, but the weight of the performance fell to Eckman, whose singing had a majestic quality that also was profoundly direct.
Saturday's performance opened with a concert version of Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" – another salvo in a 90th-birthday celebration that includes a big festival next year by the Minnesota Orchestra. In some ways, "Mass" was an unfortunate billing, because Bernstein's wry, humanistic take on the traditional liturgical vehicle came off as shallow when followed by "Kaddish." It's a better work than that.
Moreover, the performance was a little shaky. Tenor Paul Garth Pruitt was called in at the last minute when the original soloist, Jason Collins, had to withdraw because of a family emergency. (Eckman substituted admirably for Collins in "Kaddish.") Pruitt struggled frequently with the part, though the performance opened with a lovely solo by Jette, and it also was apparent that some of the concert piece had to be jettisoned at the last minute.
In all, however, the concert was a very big moment in the vocal music scene for this year. It's a pity that it was only performed once.
