The Classic Month: Bloch Ernest
with Roberto Roganti
(Geneva, July 24, 1880 — Portland, July 15, 1959)
A pupil of Jacques Dalcroze, he revealed very precocious musical gifts and later perfected himself in Brussels, Frankfurt, and Munich. He was in Paris, then taught at the Geneva Conservatory, and in 1916 he moved to the United States, where he remained all his life (except for a stay in Switzerland from 1930 t ’38) as a sought-after teacher and composer of international fame.
A Jew, he deeply felt his belonging to his race and gradually moved towards a musical style that adhered to his people’s spirit, history, and religion. For this reason, many of his compositions have a direct reference to the world of Israel, even in the title. At the same time, from the musical point of view, they are often characterized by an intentional archaism, which refers to the sources of the most ancient popular and sacred song of the Jews. A specific oriental and exotic color also derives from this, which greatly impressed his time’s European and American auditors. If today a large part of his production has fallen into oblivion, some pieces remain alive in the repertoire as evidence of first-rate musical talent. Bloch also cultivated vocal music with an opera (Macbeth, from 1910), various sacred choral compositions (such as the Israel symphony and more), and many of except of many lyrics. He is also the author of valuable chamber music (mainly for string quartet), various violin, piano, and solo piano pieces.
The Israel symphony is the first of two parts of a vast composition that was to be titled Jewish Holidays: but it stands perfectly on its own, primarily as the second part was never written.
The term “symphony” must not lead one to think of the classical form. It is a rather large composition consisting of an introduction and two episodes, connected without interruption. The introduction evokes, one would say, a prayer in the desert, interrupted in the middle by barbaric calls, hoarse blasts of fantastic brasses, convulsive cries, and desperate invocations: then, little by little, everything calms down, calms down, goes out in the silence. The first episode (Allegro agitato) follows without interruption, inspired by the festival of Yom Kippur, the great fast. Accents of anguish and despair echo; a calm occurs from which it rises like the murmur of a prayer that started as a murmur rises, is exalted to an intensity almost of fanaticism; then this too subsides in a mysterious silence from which subdued calls and appeals arise. Again like a wave of despair, of anguish, then everything goes out. A short transition period leads to the second episode, inspired by the feast of Succoth, the feast of autumn as it took place millennia in Palestine. Discrete and expressive voices are grafted onto the instrumental fabric in a dreamy murmur. An ardent plea still echoes: then pastoral songs, the atmosphere of an Eastern vespers: the voices move away, are lost in the imminent night — and it is in these last pages that the music truly offers the image of peace and serenity to the which every believing soul aspires to.
