Bloch: Baal Shem Suite, Hebrew Suite & Violin Suites 1-2 | Ben-Haim: G Major Sonata, Sephardic Lullaby & Dance Improvisation - Classical Violin Music for Concerts, Study & Relaxation

Product Description ‘Mix Bartok, Debussy and a dash of Lisztian bravado and you’ll get something very close to Bloch’s folksong-inflected, post-Romantic sound-world. Intoxicating performances guaranteed to set the pulse racing’ is what BBC Music Magazine said in its review of Hagai Shaham’s first disc of Bloch’s music for violin and piano on CDA67439. With this new release Hagai completes his survey and adds further delights such as Bloch’s suites for solo violin and music by Israeli-born composer, Paul Ben-Haïm. The Baal Shem Suite, composed in 1923, is unmistakably Bloch, and is his best-known work for violin and piano. It was inspired by Israel Baal Shem Tov, the eighteenth-century founder of modern Hassidism, a mystical movement that arose in Eastern Europe as a reaction against traditional Jewish Orthodoxy, and which placed great emphasis upon song, dance and ecstasy as channels for direct communication with God. Bloch recreates the feeling of ecstatic religious chanting and spiritual intensity with his use of deeply emotional Jewish-tinged melodies, gutsy rhythms and powerful dynamics. Its second movement, Nigun, is in itself a self-standing solo work: a popular choice in standard violin repertoire and with Grade 8 students. As the centrepiece of this disc we have Bloch’s suites for solo violin. Commissioned by—and dedicated to—Yehudi Menuhin, these short works are latter-day Bach Partitas and elaborate exercises in contrapuntal technique: full of passion, virtuosity and rhythmic dynamism. Paul Ben-Haïm’s most popular work recorded here is the beautiful lullaby Berceuse sfaradite; the violin’s sensuous lilting melody is repeated in different registers and you can almost picture a balmy Eastern Mediterranean evening. Hagai Shaham’s thrilling virtuosity and lustrous tone are perfectly suited to these vibrant and passionate works. Amazon.com Hagai Shaham follows his disc of Bloch's Violin Sonatas with an equally splendid release of the composer's other violin music, crowned by his late Suites for solo violin, two works informed by the spirit of Bach with touches of serialism and Hebraic resonances. They're full of passion, virtuoso passages, and abrupt tempo shifts that can derail the performer. But Shaham sails through them with brilliance, capturing the rhapsodic opening of the first movement of Suite No. 1 along with its vigorous final movement, as well as the Second Suite's soaring, lyrical Andante and its virtuoso finale. Erez joins Shaham in Bloch's Baal Shem Suite and Suite hébraïque, played with colorful zest. The substantial fillers are works by Paul Ben-Haïm, a key figure in Israel's musical life. His Sonata in G minor for solo violin blends Bachian counterpart with impressionist gestures and folk song. Shaham lends an improvisatory feel to the rhythmically powerful first movement, recalls the lyricism of shepherd's pipes in the pastoral second, and revels in a stomping, virtuosic finale based on the Hora. A pair of attractive folk-based works close the recital, played by Shaham and Erez.with tonal beauty and idiomatic flair. An irresistible disc! -Dan Davis