Classical Music | Violin Music

Recorded on 04/11/2013, uploaded on 04/11/2013

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Bloch composed his Baal Shem Suite: Three Pictures of Chassidic Life in 1923. The work, dedicated to the memory of his mother Sophie who had died two years earlier, was inspired by two charismatic personalities: Israel ben Eliezer of Miedziboz, Poland, better known as Israel Baal Shem Tov, the founder of modern Hassidism and Swiss violinist André de Ribaupierre. The first movement, entitled Vidui (“Contrition”), is a wordless prayer of repentance. The second movement, Nigun (“Improvisation”), draws upon traditional Yiddish and Hassidic melodies with a spiritual quality. The last movement, Simchas Torah (“Rejoicing in the Law”), is named after the Jewish festival of the same name and is celebratory in nature. All three movements reveal traits typical of Bloch’s music of the 1920s: extremes of melancholy and ecstasy; alternations - either gradual or abrupt - of acute intensity and deep serenity; an enormous spectrum of pitch and dynamics; powerful rhythms contrasting with passages of fluid recitative; and fusions of tonality and modality. 

Taken from: http://www.ernestblochsociety.org

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.