Milhaud's "Sacred Service"

Synopsis

Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco is one of America’s foremost reform congregations. For some 50 years its cantor was Reuben Rinder, who, in addition to his liturgical duties, was a composer, impresario, and musical mentor. Cantor Rinder influenced the careers of two of the 20th century’s greatest violinists, Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern, and also commissioned two of the 20th century’s most famous concert versions of the Jewish liturgy, the Evening and Morning Sabbath Service settings of Ernst Bloch and Darius Milhaud.

Milhaud’s Sabbath Morning Service was first heard at Temple Emanu-El on today’s date in 1949, with its composer conducting.

Milhaud was born in Provence and wrote that the Provencal Jewish tradition evoked in his score differs somewhat from the more standard Ashkenazi liturgy prevalent in most American synagogues then and now. The composer’s intention was to create a personal musical statement that could serve as both an actual liturgy for the faithful and as an ecumenical musical experience for any and all who hear the work, whether in temple or concert hall.

In that respect, Milhaud’s Sacred Service was a great success. Alongside Bloch’s setting, written in the early 1930s, shortly before the onset of the Holocaust, Milhaud’s setting, written in the years following the conclusion of World War II, remains a powerful and moving affirmation of religious faith.

Music Played in Today's Program

Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974) — Sabbath Morning Service (Prague Philharmonic Choir; Czech Philharmonic; Gerard Schwarz, cond.) Naxos 8.559409

On This Day

Births

• 1830 - Austro-Hungarian composer Karl Goldmark, in Keszthely, Hungary;

• 1901 - French composer Henri Sauguet, in Bordeaux;

Deaths

• 1733 - German composer and organist Georg Böhm, age 71, in Lüneburg;

• 1909 - Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz, age 48, in Cambo-les-Bains;

• 1910 - French composer and opera singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia, age 88, in Paris;

• 1911 - Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, age 50, in Vienna;

• 1975 - American composer Leroy Anderson, age 66, in Woodburg, Conn.;

Premieres

• 1885 - Bruckner: String Quintet in F (final version), in Vienna, by the Hellmesberger Quartet with guest violist; 24 years earlier, Joseph Hellmesberger had asked Bruckner to write a quartet for his ensemble; A partial performance of this work (minus the Finale, and with its original Scherzo replaced by an Intermezzo movement) was arranged in Vienna on November 27, 1881, by Bruckner's pupil Franz Schalk;

• 1887 - Chabrier: "Le Roi malgre lui" (The King in Spite of Himself), in Paris at the Opera Comique;

• 1897 - Dukas: tone-poem "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," in Paris, with the composer conducting;

• 1917 - Satie: ballet "Parade," in Paris by the Ballet Russe;

• 1922 - Stravinsky: opera, "Renard," at the Paris Opéra, with Ernest Anseremet conducting;

• 1939 - Douglas Moore: opera "The Devil and Daniel Webster," in New York City;

• 1940 - Luigi Dallapiccola: opera "Volo di Notte" (Night Flight), after the novel by Antoine Saint-Exupéry), in Florence;

• 1949 - Milhaud: "Sabbath Morning Service" at Temple Emanu-El, in San Francisco, composer conducting;

• 1950 - Lukas Foss: opera "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (after the short story by Mark Twain) in Bloomington, Ind.;

• 1978 - Cowell: "Quartet Romantic" for 2 flutes, violin and viola, at Alice Tully Hall in New York City, by Paul Dunkel and Susan Palma (flutes), Ralph Schulte (violin) and John Graham (viola); This music was composed in 1917;

• 1981 - Joan Tower: "Sequoia" in New York, with the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies;

• 1988 - Philip Glass: opera "The Fall of the House of Usher" (after Poe) in Cambridge, Mass., at the American Repertory Theater;

• 1990 - John Harbison: Viola Concerto, in Bridgewater, N.J., with soloist Jaime Laredo and the New Jersey Symphony, Hugh Wolff conducting;

• 1996 - Philip Glass: opera "Les Enfants Terrible" (Children of the Game based on the novel by Jean Cocteau), by the Philip Glass Ensemble at the Theatre Casino in Zug (Switzerland), Karen Kamensek conducting.