Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Naomi & Ruth / Sacred Service for Sabbath Eve (Milken Archive of American Jewish Music)

Ted Christopher (Performer), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (Composer), Neil W. Levin (Conductor), Neville Marriner (Conductor), Ronald Corp (Conductor), Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (Orchestra), Barbara Harbach (Performer), Hugh Potton (Performer), McNeil Robinson (Performer), Ana Maria Martinez (Performer), Jem Cohen (Performer), Simon Spiro (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Ted Christopher, Barbara Harbach, Hugh Potton, McNeil Robinson, Ana Maria Martinez, et al.
• Orchestra: Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields
• Conductor: Neil W. Levin, Neville Marriner, Ronald Corp
• Composer: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
• Audio CD (September 23, 2003)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Milken Archive
• ASIN: B0000C508J
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,195 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

American Record Guide

"If you're a sacred music fan - Jewish or not - it is well worth your attention."

Product Description

"This is one of the purest and most touching compositions you have ever written," wrote fellow émigré composer Ernst Toch to his friend Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco after hearing his cantata Naomi and Ruth. For Castelnuovo-Tedesco, America offered new opportunities to deepen and develop his Italian musical heritage and his Jewish spirituality. He dreamed that he might hear his Sacred Service "once in the synagogues of Florence," but instead this major work was premiered at New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue, establishing a long tradition of contemporary sacred Jewish music commissioned from leading composers.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lovely Friday night service and a moving story of Ruth, January 27, 2004

By 

David M. Zajic (Columbia, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Naomi & Ruth / Sacred Service for Sabbath Eve (Milken Archive of American Jewish Music) (Audio CD)

The major work is the Sacred Service for Sabbath Eve. It seems that this work was intended to be performed in a Reform or Conservative synagogue as a Friday night service. Complete Jewish service settings are rare. Few synagogues today would care to use this work as a service: Reform and Conservative congregations generally value participatory services and congregational singing, while Orthodox congregations do not use organ or mixed choirs (among other reasons). There is also a general trend away from communal Friday evening services in the U.S. (unfortunate, IMHO). The details of Jewish services and liturgy are very complex, varying with the season of the year, the branch of Judaism, Ashkenazik vs. Sephardic, and local tradition. These variations make it difficult to compose a large scale work that will be generally compatible with ritual worship. Happily there is a home for such works (also including the Milhaud and Bloch sacred services) on record, and (hopefully more often as a result of the Milken project) in concert.
Orthodox listeners should be warned that in this recording Hashem's names are pronounced as in prayer.
The mood is generally one of reverent awe, with the exceptions of the Mi Chamocha and the Kiddush, which are exuberently joyful. If you are a regular attendee at Friday night services you will enjoy hearing the familiar words in a skillfully arranged and heartfelt musical context.
The short cantata Naomi and Ruth tells the story, in English, of how Ruth came to adopt the faith of her mother-in-law, Naomi. It is generally for two-part women's chorus with a soloist in the role of Naomi. The choral writing is polyphonic, but allows the words to be clearly understood. The music is melodic and emotionally engaging, flowing with the natural cadences of English. The orchestration is exquisite. (Note the use of dry trumpets accenting the word famine, and the deaths of the husbands.) Ravkein's objection that the crucial words "my god" are missing is a typo in the booklet text; the words do appear in the cantata.
The selections from Memorial Service are pleasant, and Mr. Spiro sings them beautifully and delicately.
The essays in the booklet are outstanding. The tracking information and performer credits, the absence of which Ravkein noted, are on the back of the jewel box.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A little bland., February 5, 2004

By 

Steve Schwartz (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Naomi & Ruth / Sacred Service for Sabbath Eve (Milken Archive of American Jewish Music) (Audio CD)

Castelnuovo-Tedesco, best-known probably for his 1939 guitar concerto, wrote music that I don't believe can be called strongly memorable. It's expertly written, at times even beautiful, but it seems to disappear as soon as it's over. Furthermore, he never seemed to find himself, or at least to establish a strong artistic personality. At his best, he resorts to a neoclassic idiom. Most of the time, the music, despite its occasional prettiness, doesn't sound like much of anything.

The works here the composer wrote near or at the top of his game. Naomi and Ruth, a little cantata, tells the familiar story, with the soprano soloist taking the part of Naomi and the chorus taking over the narration and the words of Ruth. It's an almost archetypal example of the composer's unevenness, in that the music for the chorus is much stronger than that for the soprano. The Sacred Service has its moments, but large stretches of it simply go by. My favorite parts of the CD were the excerpts from the organ preludes, Prayers My Grandfather Wrote, and especially from the Memorial Service for the Departed. Here, whatever engagement the composer had with his inspiration manages to cross over to the listener.

The performances are mostly top-drawer, with Neville Marriner leading an outstanding Naomi and Ruth. The choir and orchestra knock you out with their precision and tone. By comparison, Ronald Corp's Sacred Service sounds muddy, and the baritone soloist, Ted Christopher, suffers from what sounds like occasional vocal tiredness. Organist Barbara Harbach gives an intense account of the Prayers, and canto Simon Spiro (though of modest voice) nevertheless sings beautifully and with wonderful communication in the Memorial Service. Indeed, the composer gets such strong performances, it may be difficult to separate one's pleasure in the singers and players from the pleasure in the work.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jewish Music by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, October 21, 2003

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J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Naomi & Ruth / Sacred Service for Sabbath Eve (Milken Archive of American Jewish Music) (Audio CD)

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) was an Italian-born Sephardic Jew who, like many other European Jews, emigrated to the United States in the 1930s. He was helped by Jascha Heifetz to get settled into Hollywood where he wrote numerous film scores. (The name 'Tedesco,' which means 'German' in Italian and which implies Ashkenazi heritage, was actually tacked onto the family name 'Castelnuovo' [originally, in Spanish, 'Castilla Nueva'] to incorporate the name of a wealthy Ashkenazi paternal uncle by marriage who had no children and wanted his family name perpetuated.) Before his emigration Castelnuovo-Tedesco had been a student of Ildebrando Pizzetti (now there's a composer whose music is due some attention) and was an emerging composer whose music, at the rise of Mussolini and Hitler, could no longer be played in Italy and the Germanic countries. Although not himself particularly observant in his early adult years, he became more interested after his emigration in providing music for religious purposes. All the music here reflects some aspect of that interest.

The 11-minute cantata 'Naomi and Ruth,' set to an English text from the Book of Ruth (1:1-17) tells the well-loved story of Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth. It tells how, after both their husbands had died, when Naomi was moving from Ruth's native Moab back to her own homeland, Judah, Ruth refused to abandon Naomi. It is set for soprano solo, women's chorus and orchestra. The words of Naomi are sung by the soprano; in this recording the lovely-voiced and impressive Ana Maria Martínez is the soloist. She is sensitively accompanied by Sir Neville Marriner conducting the Academy and Chorus of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Aptly dramatic, the music is tonal, somber, mildly contrapuntal and entirely accessible.

'Prayers My Grandfather Wrote' (excerpts) is a set a organ variations based on a theme written by Castelnuovo-Tedesco's maternal grandfather, Bruto Senigaglia. The theme is a nine-note motto that, in the two variations excerpted here, is worked out contrapuntally by the composer. It is, on the present evidence, a fairly negligible piece, played nicely by organist Barbara Harbach. Apparently it meant a great deal to Castelnuovo-Tedesco as it was played at a memorial service after his death.

Three pieces are excerpted from the composer's 'Memorial Service fo the Departed,' here sung by Cantor Simon Spiro, the New York Cantorial Choir, and McNeil Robertson, organ, conducted by Neil Levin. These pieces are intensely moving--not particularly Jewish-sounding except for the Hebrew words--and quite beautiful. Cantor Spiro has a beautiful tenor voice capable of declaiming dramatically or singing as in a hushed lullaby. Levin is the artistic director of the project of which this CD is a part: the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, being issued on Naxos. There have been four earlier issues in this series but I have not heard them.

The longest and most ambitious piece on the CD is the 40-minute 'Sacred Service for the Sabbath Eve, Op. 122.' The participating musicians are Ted Christopher, baritone; Jeremy Cohen, tenor; Rabbi Rodney Mariner, narrator; Hugh Potton, organ; The London Chorus; all conducted by Ronald Corp. It was composed in 1943 for a Reform congregation and thus the texts are from the reform Union Prayer Book. He separately set other prayers that were later added to the composition. The première of the full Sacred Service was given in 1950. Castelnuovo-Tedesco considered trying to write a monodic piece, in keeping with what was thought to be ancient custom, but gave up that idea and wrote it in his accustomed style, which could be described as polyphonic, tonal, with some chromatic excursions and melismatic decoration. Particularly moving are the opening movement, 'Ma Tovu,' ('How lovely are your dwellings, O House of Israel') which is choral with interjections by the baritone soloist, and 'Kiddush,' ('Praised be You, O Lord') which features the strong tenor of Jeremy Cohen (the only one of the soloists who for some reason did not merit a blurb about his background and career). The final, canonic and ultimately triumphant 'Adon Olam' ('Lord of the world, who reigned before form was created') ends with the reassuring 'The Lord is with me: I fear not.'

Heretofore I had only known some of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's lighter music and I have to say I was impressed with his skills here. He certainly was capable of writing memorable melodies and limning emotional states musically. All the performances here are more than adequate and in some instances (particularly the excerpts from the Memorial Service, and the cantata 'Ruth and Naomi') transcendent.

TT=69:40

Scott Morrison