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Anyone familiar with the torturous history of Jews struggling in a Gentile world will find many of the slow and sad notes reminescent of their tearful plight. These composers are all top notch and the music is wonderful to have playing lightly in the house as you go about your business. I really enjoy this purchase.
The musicianship is marvelous. This is a wonderful album. The music is beautiful. Ernest Bloch is one of my favorite composers. His piece, Prayer, is a very moving piece of music as is the rest of the album.
I just trusted the previous reviews. I am very disappointed.
I did not find anything about this music "beautiful". Most of it is very dark and depressing.
"Beautiful". The only two songs I found pleasant to listen to were "Zilberts: Reb Dovid'l" and "Meyerowitz: Gelt (Wie Shlecht es is Ohn Gelt)".
A few of the songs sound like something you would hear in a horror movie. Now I know why they do not provide samples to listen to.
Admittedly, I purchased this CD without really knowing what to expect. Try to find samples to listen to before you purchase this CD to see if you like this kind of music.
I love this CD and have bought several for friends. Music is so very beautiful. Toda raba.
Perhaps no other instrument captures the sad-sweet contemplative mood of classical Jewish music like a cello. To hear such a fine old instrument played by a talented, sensitive musician is truly a mechayah. On this CD, cellist Richard Locker, accompanied by Susan Walters on piano, brings together 12 classical Jewish pieces, some well-known and others not so, in an absolutely magnificent performance -- so beautiful, that it literally brought tears to my eyes.
Or did they choose the cello because it sings so beautifully of the Jewish soul. Included is the rarely heard "Meditation Hebraique" by Bloch, which he dedicated to Pable Casals, and a trio of pieces by the lesser-known composer, Zavel Zilberts (1881-1949), who directed the Choral Society of New York and played with the Metropolitan Opera. Is this because so many Jewish composers have written for the cello, that we think of it as a "Jewish" instrument.
The CD starts out with a niggun (Hasidic tune) by Ernest Bloch, then moves into to the dark, somber strains of Max Bruch's "Kol Nidre." From there it rises in mood, to end with a playful Yiddish theater piece, "Wie schecht is ohne Gelt" (How awful it is to be without money). Like the chicken and the egg, this question may never be answered -- but it doesn't really matter. This superb music is an important part of our Jewish legacy in its own right.
All of this is performed on a cello made by Nicolo Gagliano, dated 1780. (pleasure)
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