Notwithstanding his many
subsequent large-scale grand religious works, Berlinski always considered Avodat
Shabbat--his complete setting of the Reform version of the Friday evening
Sabbath service according to the Union Prayer Book--his magnum opus. In some ways
this work has come to represent a continuation of the path forged by Ernest
Bloch and Darius Milhaud, who had successfully approached the Hebrew liturgy
for the first time not only as specific synagogue music for worship, but also
as universal artistic expression that could transcend practical Judaic and
religious confines. Bloch and Milhaud had written Sabbath morning services,
while Berlinski addressed the evening liturgy. And, whereas Bloch had used
traditional material directly in only one part, and Milhaud had incorporated
significant parts of the rare Provençal liturgical melodic tradition, Berlinski
chose to rely, albeit not slavishly, on Ashkenazi prayer modes and biblical
cantillation motifs.
Although Berlinski was
consciously inspired by those two works--especially Bloch's--his own service was
not begun with such lofty aspirations. It began as synagogue music per se and
developed later into the universal statement that it indeed is. Avodat Shabbat
was born as a commission by Cantor David Putterman for New York's Park Avenue
Synagogue as part of its extraordinary program of encouraging both highly
established and promising composers to experiment with liturgical expression
for its annual "new music" services. The timing in terms of Berlinski's own development
was fortuitous, since he had become increasingly disillusioned with the dearth
of worthy artistic endeavor among many North American Reform synagogues and
what he perceived to be a static, if not fossilized, condition. He was well
aware of much worthy contemporary synagogue music as individual settings, but
he saw little opportunity for a broader and deeper expression of the liturgy as
cultivated art music. Apart from a few isolated incidents, Putterman's annual
commissions were providing the only real incentive for composers to devote
their gifts to the synagogue on that level.
Cantor Putterman, generally
conservative in his risks, and knowing that Berlinski had not yet explored the
liturgy on that artistic level, invited him first to write a single setting for
v'sham'ru, a brief text in the Friday evening service. After its
premiere at the Park Avenue Synagogue, Putterman, now fully satisfied that Berlinski
was a major talent commissioned him to write a complete service. Avodat shabbat
received its premiere in its original form (cantor, choir, and organ) at Park
Avenue in 1958. Following that premiere, Berlinski's friend Rabbi Abraham Klausner
(congregation Emanu-El in Yonkers, New York) became convinced of its higher
possibilities as a work for serious rendition within a symphonic contest. In
1963 Rabbi Klausner showed the score to his friend Leonard Bernstein, who
enthusiastically supported its public concert performance. Bernstein noted that
he was especially impressed by its simplicity and its freshness: "from the
heart ... and a fine compromise between tradition and somewhat contemporary
sounds." He even wrote that he might consider performing the work himself in
the future.
Armed with the Bernstein letter,
Rabbi Klausner was able to persuade the Union of American Hebrew Congregations
(the lay federation of American Reform congregations) to fund Berlinski's
orchestration of the work and the premiere of the new version. His
orchestration was ambitious, perhaps even a bit overly so: double woodwinds
plus English horn, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani,
two harps, strings, and elaborate percussion (cymbals; triangle; gong; tenor,
bass and small drums;
and tambourine)--but, daringly,
without violins. Berlinski also expanded the original solo vocal parts to
include a soprano and mezzo-soprano or contralto, and he added settings for a
few texts. This version was given its premiere that same year (1963) at Lincoln
Center in New York, with the tenor role sung by Cantor Jacob Barkin, and the
chorus and orchestra conducted by Abraham Kaplan. It shared the program with
Leonard Bernstein's Jeremiah Symphony.
Upon his acceptance of the
original Park Avenue commission, Berlinski began by approaching the task
according to his previously worked-out convictions concerning new sacred music:
"There are three different elements that must be combined in the creation of a
liturgical work," he once wrote. "The spontaneous spark, without which a
composer is not truly a composer; a clear understanding of the religious
function of the music, without which a work will lack direction and conviction;
and, finally, a knowledge of the traditional materials that are common
denominators between the composer and the congregation."
The harmonic structure often
reflects the tension between the two basic traditional modes of the Ashkenazi
Sabbath eve liturgy: the so-called adonai malakh mode, based on a scale
akin to western major but with important differences, including a scale that
embraces more than an octave; and the magen avot mode, whose scale is
akin to natural minor In one instance (the l'kha dodi), there is the
direct quotation of a specific traditional tune. Pervading the service is what
the eminent synagogue composer Herbert Fromm called a "personal interpretation
of tradition."
Of the various devices and
techniques that bring formal unity to Avodat shabbat and render it a
cohesive work, none is so forceful and basic as the continuously recurring
principal motive, derived from a fusion of biblical cantillation and
traditional psalmody and introduced in the opening prelude. The prelude's
middle section generates the solo cantorial line in the ma tovu, a
typical (but not liturgically required) introductory text for formal Reform as
well as other nonorthodox Sabbath evening services. That
motive appears throughout the ma
tovu and, at the end, in the orchestra; and it recurs, both in its original
statement and in varied or modified forms, almost in a rondo fashion, in the tov
l'hodot; the bar'khu; the ahavat olam; toward the end of mi
khamokha; near the conclusion of hashkivenu; and in the kiddush,
Adoration, and closing Benediction. There are other, secondary
recurring motives as well.
For his setting of l'kha dodi,
Berlinski selected one of the oldest and most famous traditional western, or "Amsterdam"
Sephardi versions (often referred to as the
Portuguese tradition in European and English sources). It must have been new,
however, to typical American Ashkenazi congregations of that time, who
undoubtedly thought it exotic. The tune has an interesting pedigree. Not only
is its basic identity long established in the Amsterdam Sephardi tradition, but
it is a firmly rooted l'kha dodi version
in the London Portuguese Sephardi community as well--which is basically the same
tradition despite local variances. This is hardly surprising, because many of
the London Sephardi cantors came from Amsterdam over the years and became
importers of such melodies. By the mid- 19th century, this l'kha dodi
was notated in a London compilation that reflected that Sephardi community's
established practice, which itself is a document of its authenticity. There are
also other independently written and recorded confirmations of its long
established use in both London and Amsterdam, including one notation dating as
far back as the late 19th century. There are, of course, local variances
between the Amsterdam and London renditions that became crystallized as the
tune was preserved in each community by oral transmission from one generation
to the next; but it remains essentially the same tune. Moreover, the pioneer
Jewish musicologist Abraham Zvi ldelsohn
notated a variant of this tune in the early 20th century in Jerusalem as he
heard it from a Moroccan Jew. The preeminent authority on Sephardi music Edwin Seroussi,
has therefore suggested Morocco as its origin, positing the thesis that it
might well have been part of the North African Sephardi tradition that was
exported to, and established in, Amsterdam and London in the 17th century.
Berlinski's incorporation of a Sephardi
tune into an otherwise fundamentally Ashkenazi-based service was not without
aesthetic or historical justification. In the 19th century, certain solidly
Ashkenazi German congregations, most notably in Hamburg, adopted a number of
Portuguese Sephardi melodies into their repertoires and even came to consider
them their own. In part, that practice stemmed, consciously or not, from a type
of aristocratic pretension to perceived authenticity and, consequently, status.
There is no evidence that this particular tune was included among those
melodies. However, in 1877 Abraham Baer published his seminal and monumental
compendium of the entire aggregate Ashkenazi synagogue melodic and modal
tradition as he had heard it in numerous synagogues and from numerous
cantors--lay as well as professional-- throughout German-speaking Europe. (We do
not know the extent to which, if any, his documentation reflected any actual
firsthand experiences in eastern Europe.) He identified his entries according
to their established tradition or practice--e.g., German (old or "new" version);
general Ashkenazi; or "Polish" (i.e., eastern European, but probably as heard
in Polish synagogues in Germany or the German cultural realm). For a number of
tune entries in that compilation he also included alternative "Portuguese"
versions--so labeled--that mere generally known in the German Ashkenazi world.
Among them is this l'kha dodi, which was Berlinski's own source.
Berlinski used this tune audibly
only for the refrain. His careful harmonization with well-chosen chromatic
elements, far from masking it, actually adds a fresh parameter. He also
demonstrated his solution here to the problem of finding a may to employ polyphony
with an old monodic line while still preserving its character. There is a
delicate counterpoint even in its initial statement, motivically derived from
the spirit of the original tune, with a Milhaud-like countermelody heard in the
orchestral introduction and then again at the conclusion. That refrain is modally
altered for its second appearance to a quasi-minor variation, with a brief
canonic gesture at the end. The third occurrence begins with a bit of canonic
treatment; and the final return of the refrain is heard in its original form,
tying it to the beginning.
In the cantorially sung
strophes, however, Berlinski departed from the traditional version (in which
the strophes would have been variations of the refrain) in favor of newly
composed but modally oriented sustained lines. Here the cantor is given
rhapsodic opportunities that flow nonetheless naturally back to the choral
refrains.
In his setting of sh'ma yisra'el
(including the v'ahavta, which is the continuation of that "credo" test
collectively known as the k'ri'at sh'ma), Bnrlinski clearly relied to
advantage on his studies in biblical cantillation with Rosowski, one of the
most significant authorities on the subject. Here, in the v'ahavta section,
he creatively combines the Hebrew text for the cantor, who follows the
authentic cantillation for that passage, responsorially with the choir in an
unrelated and freer polyphony sung to the English translation in the Union
Prayer Book. Its a cappella rendition reinforces the effect of antiquity,
especially contrasted against the rich orchestration of much of the other music
in the service. That conscious juxtaposition of two unrelated musical elements
produces an arresting dialogue, especially at the end, when the choral part
becomes melodically related to the cantillation--almost as a sort of resolution.
Although bilingual rendition is not entirely unknown in certain Near Eastern
Jewish traditions--for example, among Yemenite and other oriental Jewish
practices (albeit employed sparingly for special tests)--it cannot be considered
part of any Ashkenazi tradition. Eerlinski's fusion of Hebrew and English here
must be viewed as an American innovation.
The hashkivenu is notable
as the most pictorial expression of a dramatic text in this service, It
faithfully represents the prayer's sentiments and its progression from the
opening pastoral mood toward a passionate climactic plea.
The adon olam, the most
common closing hymn text for Sabbath and other holy day services, mirrors the
decidedly Arabic meter of the poem as well as its strophic structure. But the
music goes beyond its simple strophic nature (precise pattern repetition) to a
complex one, where the second line of each two- line stanza is slightly and
subtly varied. This creates an illusion of strophic repetition without
monotony. The scheme is interrupted, however, in the fourth stanza, where the
soprano line slowly approaches its climax chromatically. Although,
unfortunately, the overall sophistication of Avodat shabbat, together
with its difficulty, prevented its entry into the general synagogue repertoire,
this adon olam did gain acceptance on its own in a number of synagogues
during that time and received performances within regular services.
The entire Avodat shabbat
is sung here in the Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation (including even the Sephardi
l'kha dodi since at that time it was still the overwhelmingly
predominant pronunciation in virtually all Ashkenazi American synagogues.
Berlinski therefore set all the
texts to the particular consonant sounds and syllabic stresses of Ashkenazi
Hebrew.
The press reviews of Avodat Shabbat
were largely enthusiastic, apart from one by Yiddish theater composer Sholom Secunda,
who could not relate to its complexity, its dissonant passages, its lack of
more overtly traditional tunes, or even the very concept of it as a transcendent
work of art. The Washington Post's critic, on the other hand, found it
"conservatively romantic" texturally luxuriant, and exotic. Another critic was
particularly struck by the cantorial line, which he interpreted as "flashing
like a silver sword through the massed chorus." Perhaps most telling was the
observation of yet a third Washington critic, who remarked that Berlinski had
not ignored the congregational role, noting that he "keeps it involved without
descending to the trite or the obvious," and that he succeeded in preserving an
essential religious feeling throughout the work.
--Neil W Levin