Herman Berlinski
Encyclopedia
Herman Berlinski was a German-born American
composer
, organist
, pianist
, musicologist
and choir
conductor
.
who lived originally in Łódź (then located in the Russian Empire
following the 1815 Congress of Vienna
, and now a city of Poland). With civil and political unrest well underway in Russia by 1905, growing discontent in Poland against the Russian rule led to many uprisings, the largest of which, commonly called the June Days Uprising
or the Łódź insurrection, took place in that same year.
At that point, the Berlinskis fled to Leipzig, where they remained after the end of World War I
, for although Poland was reconstituted in 1918
, turmoil between Poland and the Soviet States of Russia and the Ukraine
continued until early 1921 as Russia attempted to reclaim the territory that had belonged to it in the days of the empire. Furthermore, by contrast with the relative poverty he had experienced working as a factory labourer in Łódź, Boris Berlinski had been able to gain a stable income in Leipzig from haberdasher
y.
In any case, as Poland had regained its independent statehood, the Berlinskis retained their Polish nationality rather than facing the increasingly difficult task foreigners had in gaining German citizenship at that time, and with success made even less likely because they were Jews. In fact there was a strong probability, based on the experience of others, that the German authorities would classify them as "stateless
", thereby stripping them of any citizenship and eliminating any rights they had as foreigners legally resident in the country.
Herman Berlinski, born there on 18 August 1910, was the last of six children. They were brought up in the Ashkenazic tradition
of Orthodox Judaism
and they spoke Yiddish
at home. Their mother arranged piano lessons for each of them, Herman's starting when he was six years old. He was educated at the Ephraim Carlebach School
, Leipzig's only Jewish school at that time.
Deborah Berlinski died in 1920 leaving the children in the care of their father who never remarried. After observing the formal mourning period
called shneim asar chodesh, Herman began private piano lessons with Bronya Gottlieb, a Polish-born woman and a gifted graduate of the Leipzig Conservatory.
scholarship, Herman Berlinski commenced study at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1916 at the age of 17. His first year majors were clarinet and conducting, with piano as his minor. The following year he changed his major to piano, with theory as his minor.
His teachers there included Otto Weinreich (piano), Sigfrid Karg-Elert
(theory
), Günther Raphael (countrepoint
) and Max Hochkofler (conducting
). Fellow students included the Norwegian
composer Geirr Tviett, and it is a sign of Berlinski's skills as a pianist that he gave the premiere performance in 1931 of Tveitt's dynamic First Piano Concerto. He graduated in 1932 with an honours degree. In the context of Leipzig's long involvement with European music, the strongest influences at that time on Berlinski's own composition style were J.S. Bach
, Gustav Mahler
and Max Reger
.
His initial exposure to Lutheran
liturgical music and the organ arose from attending Friday evening concerts at Leipzig's Thomaskirche where he heard repertoire largely centred on the period from J.S. Bach to Reger. Having overheard Berlinski rehearsing Bach's Goldberg Variations
on the piano, Karl Straube
, then cantor at the Thomaskirche and professor of organ at the Institut der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Landeskirche Sachsen, offered him organ lessons at the institute. But because it was a prerequisite that Berlinski become a Christian
to have access to this program, and as he was not prepared to take that step, the idea proceeded no further.
. He was then joined by Sina Goldfein, a former fellow-student both at school and the Leipzig Conservatory, herself a pianist and singer, and they were married in 1934.
Soon after arriving in Paris, Berlinski enrolled at the École Normale de Musique
and studied composition with Nadia Boulanger
and piano with Alfred Cortot
. Although he valued the training he received from Boulanger, Berlinski eventually found some of her musical ideas incompatible with his own, discontinued studies with her after two years and enrolled at the Schola Cantorum of Paris
where he studied Jewish liturgical music
with the Sephardic
synagogue
composer Léon Algazi and composition
with Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur
. Through Daniel-Lesur he met other young composers who were members of the group called La jeune France
. Most influential were Daniel-Lesur himself and Olivier Messiaen
who, although strongly inspired by their Catholic background, encouraged Berlinski to explore and express his Jewish heritage
.
From 1934 onwards, Berlinski became involved with a Jewish art theatre group known as the Paris Yiddish Avant-Garde Theatre (PIAT) and made up largely of immigrants formerly involved with Yiddish theatre
in Vilna
. Their repertoire ranged from works by Jewish playwrights such as Sholem Aleichem and Isaac Leib Peretz to classic Russian plays presented in Yiddish translation. He was soon appointed as music director, a role in which he continued until 1939, and for this group he directed plays or conducted, performed, arranged and composed incidental music.
In this context, Berlinski met many Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian Jews who had been driven out of their own countries. This was highly influential on the development of his own music style and introduced him to many themes and ideas he explored in his later compositions.
in 1939, Berlinski offered to enter military service and joined the French Foreign Legion
. At the end of almost a year, he was one of only 250 survivors out of 1,250 who had been assigned to battle on the Belgian border.
In 1940, after the surrender of France to the Germans
, the newly established Vichy régime
collaborated with the invaders by declaring certain groups including Freemasons
, Communists
and Jews as "undesirables"
. Thus, when Berlinski was demobilized in that same year, he received a certificate which declared him to be a "foreigner who had no right to work in France."
Facing the high risk of internment, Berlinski and his wife obtained visas and finally sailed to the United States, arriving in 1941. With them, they took only fragments of the compositions he had written for the Yiddish theatre which they had been able to save from their ransacked Paris home. He would eventually draw on this material for works he wrote soon after he arrived in New York.
, Berlinski was reunited with his father Boris who had escaped earlier from Germany, and there were also other members of the family who had migrated from Łódź and were living in New Jersey
. Herman and Sina Berlinski set up their home in Manhattan
and their son David
was born there in 1942. Berlinski first earned a living by giving private piano lessons
, and quickly made contact with the city's large Jewish community
.
A significant event in Berlinski's professional development was a meeting with Moshe Rudinow who was at that time cantor
of New York's Temple Emanu-Elhttp://www.emanuelnyc.org/, one of the city's leading Reform
synagogues. Through Rudinow he was introduced to the then-named Jewish Music Forum, a body which was set up to promote the study and analysis of all aspects of Jewish music
and to organize the performance of new music, and he became an invited member in 1944. There he met key musicians, composers and musicologists including Lazar Weiner
http://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=284, Joseph Yasserhttp://www.jtsa.edu/x5817.xml#bn, Abraham Wolfe Binderhttp://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=277 and Lazare Saminsky
.http://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=296 He also heard there the then young and relatively unknown Leonard Bernstein
performing his new works including a piano reduction of his first symphony
. He studied composition with Messiaen at the 1948 Tanglewood Music Centre
and gained from him an understanding of rhythmic and harmonic techniques which would affect his approach to using Jewish melodic forms in his later works.
A change in Berlinski's career occurred in 1951 when Yasser offered him organ lessons. As a result, he quickly demonstrated a high level of skills both as a recitalist and as a liturgical organist, setting the direction for the future both in terms of his professional appointments and the types of works he composed. By 1954 he had been appointed as assistant organist at Emanu-El working with Saminsky as music director. He gave his first public recital the following year. He served there for a total of eight years, during which time he composed many works including choral and other liturgical music as well as pieces for the organ.
In 1953, while continuing his organ studies with Yasser, Berlinski undertook post-graduate studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
(JTSA) where he engaged in a musicological analysis of the origins and practices of ancient Jewish music
. He also studied composition with Hugo Weisgall
http://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=180, an experienced composer who was descended from a long line of cantors and was interested in both sacred
and secular
Jewish music. Working with Weisgall and in the climate of the seminary provided an ideal stimulus for Berlinski to further explore and express his Jewish background, which in turn became more recognizable in his music.
Having completed his masters degree program at JTSA, Berlinski undertook doctoral studies in composition there. A major set-back occurred in 1958 when he had a heart attack from which he made recovery and was able to complete his doctorate in 1960. This made him the first person ever to be awarded a doctorate in sacred music by that institution.
Reform Hebrew Congregation
http://www.whctemple.org/ where he worked under the leadership of Rabbi Norman Gerstenfeld who was enthusiastic about contemporary music and wanted the temple to be presenting the best sacred music in the city. Here he continued composing music for liturgical use as well as many other works, he was called upon widely to lecture and write on the subject of Jewish music, and he gave many organ recitals including appearances at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris
and Leipzig's Thomaskirche.
Rabbi Gerstenfeld died in 1968, ending five years which Berlinski described as being "the most exciting and creative" of his life. Rabbi Gerstenfeld's widow paid tribute to her husband by commissioning Berlinski to write the oratorio, Job
. Berlinski continued as minister of music at the Washington Congregation until his retirement in 1977.
During those last years after Rabbi Gerstenfeld's death, requirements for Berlinski's liturgical music decreased, and he took the opportunity to compose larger vocal works and continued writing his sinfonias for organ with other instruments or singers. He lectured widely in the United States and Europe through his later career. Commitments included sessions at the Mendelssohn Academy in Leipzig under the auspices of the United States Information Agency
, and at the Europäisches Zentrum für jüdische Musik ref>http://www.ezjm.hmt-hannover.de/ in Hannover, Germany.
and other high holiday
music annually in the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts
and the Washington National Cathedral
.
In early 2000 Berlinski was invited by the Milken Archive to Berlin to participate in the first recording of Avodat Shabbat for release on the Naxos label as part of its Milken Archive of American Jewish Music series. Richard Sandler, Executive Vice President of the Milken Family Foundation
http://www.mff.org/ reported:
Later that same year, his Sinfonia No. 12 (Die heiligen Zehn Gebote (These Holy Ten Commandments
)), for organ, choir, soprano, tenor, baritone, two trumpets and percussion, received its world premiere in the Leipzig Thomaskirche, and was then repeated at the Munich
Hochschule
with Berlinski present. Reports say that in Munich the work received a standing ovation, and that Professor Robert Helmschrott who was then President and Rector of the Munich Hochschule and to whom the sinfonia was dedicated, greeted Berlinski in a speech at the conclusion of the concert as "his spiritual father and his music as a link between Judaism and Christianity."
His last visit to Germany was early in 2001 after the Federal Republic of Germany
had awarded him the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit for his artistic achievements and his contribution to interfaith dialogue. (See below under Awards and Tributes for more details.)
Berlinski died at Washington's Sibley Memorial Hospital
on 27 September 2001 after heart attacks and a stroke. His final composition, Psalm 130
(Shir hamaaloth (Out of the Depths)) for solo voice, choir and organ, had been commissioned by the Washington National Cathedral for the dedication of its last stained glass window. He completed the work on 9 September just weeks prior to his death and it was first performed in the cathedral on 30 September, the day of his funeral.
Berlinski was survived by his wife, Sina, and his son, David.
where she said:
A work known to have been composed in Paris was Chazoth
, a theatrical piece for string quartet and ondes Martenot
http://120years.net/machines/martenot/, which he wrote in 1938 and which had its premiere that year in the Salle Erard. Use of the then new and rather novel ondes Martenot probably came about because Daniel-Lesur, whose mother was a virtuoso performer on the instrument, had introduced Berlinski to its inventor Maurice Martenot
whose name it bore. Having heard the work, Daniel-Lesur became a major advocate for Berlinski.
Another work, Allegretto grazioso con variazioni: Hommage à Ravel, for piano, also written in 1938, now exists in a revised version dated 1945 and held in The Herman Berlinski Music Collection (HBMC) at The Library of JTSA.
Apart from the handful of scores Berlinski was able to take with him from Paris, nothing else seems to have survived the destruction of the War.
Under this general title, From the World of My Father, there are several suites for various instrumentations. The first (subtitled Chazoth (or Hatzot)) for chamber orchestra, written in 1941 and revised in 1995, has four movements, Prayer at Midnight, Procession, Legend, and Dance and is, as its subtitle suggests, related to the suite for string quartet and ondes Martenot which he composed in Paris in 1938. It also appeared later after several revisions as an Organ Suite also under the title, From the World of My Father, but with five movements listed in the HBMC catalogue as Prayer at Midnight (Chazoth), Air (Nigun
), Nocturnal Procession, Legend and Ritual Dance.
The second suite, written in 1948, existed first in a version for cello and piano. Subtitled Dialogues, it has four movements, Dialogue, Hasidic
, Nigun, and Wedding Dance. Later Berlinski arranged it for cello and chamber orchestra.
The third suite (subtitled Klezmorim
) is for clarinet and chamber orchestra and has five movements, Lament, (Untitled), Mayouffes Dance, Song, and Finale. The precise year of its composition is not known although the material would have originated from Berlinski's days in Paris. It was finally published in 1995 together with Suites Nos. 1 and 2 under the umbrella title, From the World of My Father: a trilogy
for chamber orchestra, chamber orchestra and cello, chamber orchestra and clarinet.
Confusion may arise because there is another work carrying the title From the World of My Father: Suite No. 3, this one for oboe and organ. The HBMC catalogue shows it as having been written originally in 1938, rewritten in 1942 and revised in 1976, and it carries on the cover the alternate title, Peretz Suite: oboe or flute or clarinet and organ or piano, with an explanatory note from the composer, "From incidental music to stage plays by J.L. Peretz." According to the catalogue, there are four movements, Lament, Pastorale, Allegretto, and Song and finale, reflecting some parallels with the suite for clarinet and chamber orchestra mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Berlinski's next major work was Symphonic Visions, for orchestra, which he started writing in 1949 and completed the following year. It has four movements which he called Sinfonias, each based on a biblical extracts, the first from Psalm 94
, the second and third from the Book of Jeremiah
, and the fourth from the Song of Songs
. The first three movements are centred on the themes of threat, destruction and war, while the final movements declares the blessing of new life.
His choice of themes reveals much of the impact of Berlinski's own experience through the persecution of his fellow Jews and of the War itself, and of his escape to the United States. This is revealed in his own words on the subject:
As he sees it, however, the artist has an important role to play in this:
His first major solo organ composition, The Burning Bush
, illustrates this well, having been commissioned for use on Emanu-El's newly restored and extended Casavant
organ. Robert Baker, an eminent musician and teacher who had succeeded Saminsky as Emanu-El's principal organist, gave the first performance in 1956, approved of the work, played it again the following year at the International Congress of Organists in London, and brought it to the public's attention by including it later in many of his recital programs. Frohbieter said in her doctoral thesis:
In 1958 Berlinski completed another major work, a Friday-evening service entitled Avodat Shabbathttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/reviews/berlinski.html for cantor, choir and organ, which had been commissioned by Cantor David Putterman of New York's Park Avenue Synagogue
who was cantor in its first performance there in that same year.
Some years later the work was being assessed for performance at Emanu-El and was submitted for examination by several musicians including Leonard Bernstein who noted it to be "a fine compromise between tradition and somewhat contemporary sounds." Subsequently Berlinski orchestrated and expanded the work for a concert performance conducted by Bernstein at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
in 1963.
Writing after the first recording of this work recording of this work, critic Max Dudious said in Audiophile Auditions that:
For his doctoral dissertation at JTSA Berlinski composed a large oratorio, Kiddush Ha-Shem
(Sanctification of the Name of God) for choir, soloists and orchestra, in memory of those who had died in the Holocaust. This work is still awaiting public performance.
Then in 1967, he finished a work already begun in 1955-1956 by using some of the material he had incorporated into Kiddush Ha-Shem, and created the Sinfonia No. 1, one of twelve. Subtitled Litanies for the persecuted, it is scored for narrator, contralto soloist and organ with a text drawn from poems by Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron
of Łęczyca, Solomon ibn Gabirol
, the Book of Jeremiah
, and Psalm 94
, and it has nine movements. As Frohbieter says in her analysis of this work:
Sinfonia No. 2, subtitled Holy days and festivals, has an earlier origin in Berlinski's compositions than No. 1, having been commenced in 1954, shortly after he was appointed to the staff of Emanu-El, and completed in 1956. According to Berlinski's explanation to Frohbieter, when he first arrived at Emanu-El, there was no Jewish organ music suitable for use as preludes to worship apart from some pieces by Louis Lewandowski
(which Berlinski described as "...very brave, nice...most conventional...and not typically Jewish."). Principal organist Baker, he said, was filling the gap by drawing upon the output of Bach, Mendelssohn and some French composers; but as these had been written for a Christian context, Berlinski thought they did not relate well to the Jewish calendar, and he saw it as desirable that he write a prelude for each of the holy days and festivals in a way "that a piece dedicated to [a holiday] would use melodies which are part of that holiday celebration."
Hence this sinfonia is made up of five movements, one for each of the holy days, Rosh Hashana (New Year) and Yom Kippur
(the Day of Atonement), and one for each of the festivals, Sukkoth (Tabernacles), Pesach (Passover) and Shavuoth (Pentecost), with melodies drawn from what are called in the Ashkenazic tradition Mis-sinai tunes. Although, in view of the traditional association between each Mis-sinai tune and a specific day in the Jewish calendar, each movement can be performed as an independent prelude on the appropriate day, Frohbieter points out that, because of the way Berlinski has constructed it, the entire sinfonia "coheres as one grand work...a work of concert organ repertoire", the implication being that this work has potential use both as a recital piece and within the synagogue liturgy.
Sinfonia No. 3, subtitled Sounds and Motions for Organ, is a secular work, at least in the sense that it was designed to explore the full range of expressive capabilities of the symphonic organ. It was written in 1961 and dedicated to leading New York organist Claire Cocci, at that time organist of the New York Philharmonic
, who had already heard The Burning Bush. She gave the premiere performance in New York that same year.
The work has six movements entitled Trumpets, Motion and Silence, Contemplation, Light Motion, Pulsation, and Polymodal Sounds and Motions, and Berlinski employs a variety of techniques - changing rhythmic patterns
, chromaticism, contrasting consonance and dissonance
, occasional use of the serialist approach
, dramatic gestures and sudden silences - to express his thoughts and feelings in each.
A question regarding the inspiration of this work, by contrast with the overtly Jewish content of Sinfonias Nos. 1 and 2 as just mentioned, comes into focus, however, when considering Berlinski's own explanation of Movement 1 in which he said:
Likewise, the last movement, with the arresting subtitle Polymodal Sounds and Motions, a set of variations in chaconne
form, derives its thematic material from modes called in Yiddish shtaygers which are used in Ashkenazic cantorial improvisation and take their names from the first words of the prayer with which they are most often used.http://www.liturgica.com/html/litJLitMusDev3.jsp The first is an altered Phrygian mode
which is of widespread use in middle eastern music, and known commonly as Ahava Rabboh (the first line of that prayer in translation begins, "With abounding love hast thou loved us...") or Freygish when used in Jewish liturgical prayer recitation and in Klezmer music. The second is called Mogen ovos or Magein avot, a natural minor mode (the first line of the prayer in translation being, "Our forbears' shield, reviver of the dead, incomparable Lord...")
These two movements provide the parentheses for four others which reflect the breadth of Berlinski's inspiration and musical language, Movement 2, subtitled Motion and Silence, being just 28 bars in which phrase statements are followed by equal measures of silence, while Movement 3, Contemplation, which is in ternary form
begins with a quiet, reflective section followed by a build in energy which is finally resolved as the first section is repeated with some obvious elaborations. Of this movement, Berlisnki said:
The fourth movement, Light Motion, is a playful dance with strong reference to French symphonic organ writing, while the fifth movement, Pulsation, has a hypnotic repeated note pattern in the pedal part. According to Frohbieter, Berlinski drew a parallel between this movement and the heart attack he had experienced four years before writing this work, with the abrupt ending of its first section representing the moment of the cardiac arrest itself.
Composition of Sinfonia No. 4, The Tetragrammaton for Organ and Orchestra, was started in New York, December 1962, and dated at final measure, November 1, 1965 (Washington, DC). The work is dedicated to Bethel Knoche, the organist at the RLDS Auditorium in Independence, Missouri. Knoche was a collaborator and student of Jewish liturgical music interpretation with Berlinksi. The tetragrammaton are the three Hebrew letters used to represent the name of God. Berlinski selected three emotive attributes from the Sefirot for Sinfonia No. 4 and placed them in three parts for the composition: I. Keter (crown), II. Tiferet (beauty), and III. Gevurah (might). The work is written for trumpets I, II, III; horns I, II, III, IV; trombones I, II, III; tuba; harps I, II; piano; celesta; timpani; percussion; organ; violins I, II; viola; violoncello and double bass. Facsimile copies of Sinfonia No. 4 are housed at the Library of Congress and the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Sinfonia No. 5 for organ is a five movement work in which each movement was based on an excerpt from the poetry of Nelly Sachs
.http://www.nelly-sachs.com/ It was composed between 1964 and 1968 and dedicated to organist Bethel Knoche, organist at the RLDS Auditorium in Independence, Missouri. Knoche premiered the work on May 6, 1967, in a performance on The Auditorium Organ. Sinfonia No. 5 remains unpublished as a manuscript score, copyright 1972. The book, "O The Chimneys," was published in 1967, after Nelly Sachs received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966 with S.Y. Agnon. It was her first publication in English. "O The Chimneys," contains the excerpted poetry for each of the five movements of Sinfonia No. 5.
I. Footsteps – Age-old game of hangman and victim, persecutor and persecuted, hunter and hunted.
Auf dass die Verfolgten nicht Verfolger werden, "That the persecuted may not become persecutors."
From: In the Habitations of Death.
II. Here amen must be said, this crowning of words which moves into hiding and peace. You great eyelid closing on all unrest, your heavenly wreath of lashes, you most gentle of all births.
Einer, "Someone." From: Flight and Metamorphosis.
III. The blood’s circulation weeps toward its spiritual sea there where the blue flame of agony bursts through night.
Wan endlich, "When at last." From: Glowing Engimas II.
IV. Only death draws out of them the truth of misery, these recurring rhymes cut out of night’s blackness, these reed exercises at the end of the organ of sounds.
Nur Sterben, "Only death." From: Glowing Enigmas I.
V. Footsteps - Which turn time ravenous emblazing the hour with wolves extinguishing the flight in the fugitive’s blood. Auf dass die Verfolgten nicht Verfolger werden, "That the persecuted may not become persecutors." From: In the Habitations of Death.
The following year Berlinski began his Sinfonia No 10 for cello and organ and completed it in 1976. It has two movements, the second of which is a theme and set of variations based on the traditional memorial prayer melody, Av Ha-rachamim
(Merciful Father).
Works from the earliest stage of his retirement include: a song cycle, Dost thou sleep, my brother Abel? (1979–1980; A Psalm of unity, commissioned in 1980 by Washington's The Chorus of St. Margaret; Ein Musikalischer Spass: theme and variations from W.A. Mozart
’s Dorfmusikanten-Sextett, K. 5 (1983); Adagietto for flute and organ and a Sonata for violin and piano: Le violon de Chagall
, both in 1985.
Major works of this period included two commissions, Shevirath ha-kelim (The Breaking of the Vessels) commissioned by the Library of Congress
for the fiftieth anniversary of Reichskristallnacht
in 1988, and in the same year the Hanukah oratorio, The Trumpets of Freedom, which he wrote for performance by his Chir Chadash Chorale and other forces in the Kennedy Centre. After the premiere of The Trumpets of Freedom, critic Joan Reinthaler wrote in The Washington Post
:
In 1990 Berlinski wrote Maskir Neshamoth (In Remembrance of the Souls) which was originally commissioned by Ann and Donald Brown in memory of Jules C. Winkelman, and its premiere was of excerpts only which were performed in 1998 at the Library of Congress for the sixtieth anniversary of Kristallnacht. He wrote a Cello Concerto between 1992 and 1994, a work which has yet to be performed.
In 1993 the Union Theological Seminary
(UTS) asked him to write Das Gebet Bonhoeffers (The Prayer of Bonhoeffer
), part of a longer work, Bonhoeffer-Triptychon, a tribute to a man who had been executed by the Nazis during the Second World War, for which other sections were co-commissioned from German composers Heinz Werner Zimmermann
, a Protestant, and Robert Helmschrott, a Catholic. The work was premiered that same year at UTS, and has now been performed in many countries including Germany, the United Kingdom
, Israel
and South Africa
.
Also in 1993, when he was commissioned to write a work for the groundbreaking ceremony for the synagogue
about to be rebuilt in Dresden
, he reworked in German his oratorio, Job (under the title, Hiob). In 1995 he revised his unfinished 1983 cantata, The Beadle of Prague, incorporating it into the oratorio Etz Chayim (The Tree of Life).
A work of particular interest is called Celan, for narrator and piano, written in 2001 in memory of the Romania
n-born poet and Holocaust survivor Paul Celan
Celan's prolific output included many works about the Holocaust. After the war he moved to Paris where, following many years of isolation and loneliness, he committed suicide in 1970. Berlinski has constructed the work so poems are narrated between movements written for the solo piano. This dramatic work was first performed at Washington's United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
only a few weeks before Berlinski's death.
The first major award was a MacDowell Fellowshiphttp://www.macdowellcolony.org/ which he received in 1958. This assisted him in undertaking extensive musicological research.
In 1984 the American Academy of Arts and Letters honoured him with the Marjorie Peabody Waite Awardhttp://www.artsandletters.org/awards2_all.php, the citation saying, "Herman Berlinski is among the few 20th-century composers who have produced a significant body of music for the organ..."
In 1992 he was granted the Shenandoah University and Conservatory
Medal of Excellence, followed in 1995 by a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Guild of Organists
.
In the international arena, the then Federal Republic of Germany
awarded him the Order of Merit which he received from the President in 1995, followed by the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit which he received in 2001. The award letter for the Commander's Cross cited Berlinski as having been a builder of "many lasting bridges over the Atlantic", significant recognition from a former enemy against whom Berlinski had fought during the Second World War.
Considering the way Belinski had been treated by French authorities following his demobilization from the French Foreign Legion in 1940, leading to his urgent departure for the United States, it is ironic that he was decorated by the French Government with a Croix du Combattant Volontaire
after this award was created in 1954.http://www.fncv.com/decorations/07_croix_combattant_volontaire.html
Parallels can be drawn between Berlinski and other composers whose reputations have been built so strongly on one part of their output that other equally important aspects have been unduly ignored.
For example, Franz Liszt
's fame as a pianist and his enormous output of virtuosic works for this instrument have distracted attention from his orchestral tone poems and symphonies, choral works and oratorios, chamber music and lieder.
The picture is similar with Max Reger
whose organ works have been in the mainstream of organists' repertoire for a long time while his prolific output of solo piano music, concertos and other orchestral works, chamber music, choral works and lieder, with a small number of exceptions, has largely disappeared from public view.
Even closer to Berlinski's own situation, British composers Sir Charles Villiers Stanford
and Herbert Howells
whose contributions to Anglican church music
have been in frequent use by choirs around the world, also wrote many other types of works - for orchestra, piano, chamber ensemble and so on - which have been all but forgotten.
A quick glance through a catalogue of Berlinski's works, even the selective listing below, quickly reveals that his music covers a broad range of formats - symphonic and chamber works, solo works for the organ, song cycles, numerous liturgical choral works and oratorios. Many of these works have been inspired by ideas related to his Jewish background and experience.
Berlinski himself addressed this subject:
It would be misguiding though to assume that either Berlinski's Jewish identity or his close involvement with writing music for the synagogue would or should limit the appeal of his works in any way. As Frohbieter commented in her thesis, "His music transcends parochial boundaries, to touch the souls of all mankind." In other words, Berlinski's music has something worthwhile to say to everyone.
A quick survey of Berlinski's works may suggest a propensity for him to be dwelling on Jewish suffering in general, and the Holocaust in particular. This drew leading American sociologist Joseph Maier to ask him, "Could you tell me to what extent you are a composer concerned with the Holocaust, and how does it show in your work?" To which Berlinski replied:
Much of Berlinski's music expresses a sense of triumph in the face of affliction. His belief in that principle appears not only in the themes and ideas he explored in his music but also in the way he lived. In view of the tortuous path that led him from his place of birth, Leipzig, via his parents' home country, Poland, to France which was then overtaken by Germany's Nazi forces, and finally to the United States, it is highly memorable that a man could have had the wisdom, insight and strength of purpose that would allow him to do so.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, organist
Organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
, pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
, musicologist
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
and choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
.
Family background; early upbringing
Herman Berlinski's parents, Boris and Deborah Wygodzki Berlinski, were JewsJews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
who lived originally in Łódź (then located in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
following the 1815 Congress of Vienna
Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
, and now a city of Poland). With civil and political unrest well underway in Russia by 1905, growing discontent in Poland against the Russian rule led to many uprisings, the largest of which, commonly called the June Days Uprising
June Days Uprising
The June Days Uprising was a revolution staged by the citizens of France, whose only source of income was the National Workshops, from 23 June to 26 June 1848. The Workshops were created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a source of income for the unemployed, however only...
or the Łódź insurrection, took place in that same year.
At that point, the Berlinskis fled to Leipzig, where they remained after the end of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, for although Poland was reconstituted in 1918
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
, turmoil between Poland and the Soviet States of Russia and the Ukraine
Polish-Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War was an armed conflict between Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine and the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic—four states in post–World War I Europe...
continued until early 1921 as Russia attempted to reclaim the territory that had belonged to it in the days of the empire. Furthermore, by contrast with the relative poverty he had experienced working as a factory labourer in Łódź, Boris Berlinski had been able to gain a stable income in Leipzig from haberdasher
Haberdasher
A haberdasher is a person who sells small articles for sewing, such as buttons, ribbons, zips, and other notions. In American English, haberdasher is another term for a men's outfitter. A haberdasher's shop or the items sold therein are called haberdashery.-Origin and use:The word appears in...
y.
In any case, as Poland had regained its independent statehood, the Berlinskis retained their Polish nationality rather than facing the increasingly difficult task foreigners had in gaining German citizenship at that time, and with success made even less likely because they were Jews. In fact there was a strong probability, based on the experience of others, that the German authorities would classify them as "stateless
Statelessness
Statelessness is a legal concept describing the lack of any nationality. It is the absence of a recognized link between an individual and any state....
", thereby stripping them of any citizenship and eliminating any rights they had as foreigners legally resident in the country.
Herman Berlinski, born there on 18 August 1910, was the last of six children. They were brought up in the Ashkenazic tradition
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
of Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
and they spoke Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
at home. Their mother arranged piano lessons for each of them, Herman's starting when he was six years old. He was educated at the Ephraim Carlebach School
Ephraim Carlebach
Ephraim Carlebach , was a German-born Orthodox rabbi.Carlebach belonged to a well known German rabbi family. His father Salomon Carlebach was rabbi in Lübeck. He had seven brothers and four sisters...
, Leipzig's only Jewish school at that time.
Deborah Berlinski died in 1920 leaving the children in the care of their father who never remarried. After observing the formal mourning period
Bereavement in Judaism
Bereavement in Judaism is a combination of minhag and mitzvah derived from Judaism's classical Torah and rabbinic texts...
called shneim asar chodesh, Herman began private piano lessons with Bronya Gottlieb, a Polish-born woman and a gifted graduate of the Leipzig Conservatory.
Tertiary music studies in Leipzig
Having shown early talent in music and after winning a clarinetClarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
scholarship, Herman Berlinski commenced study at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1916 at the age of 17. His first year majors were clarinet and conducting, with piano as his minor. The following year he changed his major to piano, with theory as his minor.
His teachers there included Otto Weinreich (piano), Sigfrid Karg-Elert
Sigfrid Karg-Elert
Sigfrid Karg-Elert was a German composer of considerable fame in the early twentieth century, best known for his compositions for organ and harmonium.-Biography:...
(theory
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
), Günther Raphael (countrepoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
) and Max Hochkofler (conducting
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
). Fellow students included the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
composer Geirr Tviett, and it is a sign of Berlinski's skills as a pianist that he gave the premiere performance in 1931 of Tveitt's dynamic First Piano Concerto. He graduated in 1932 with an honours degree. In the context of Leipzig's long involvement with European music, the strongest influences at that time on Berlinski's own composition style were J.S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
and Max Reger
Max Reger
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...
.
His initial exposure to Lutheran
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
liturgical music and the organ arose from attending Friday evening concerts at Leipzig's Thomaskirche where he heard repertoire largely centred on the period from J.S. Bach to Reger. Having overheard Berlinski rehearsing Bach's Goldberg Variations
Goldberg Variations
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form...
on the piano, Karl Straube
Karl Straube
Montgomery Rufus Karl/Carl Siegfried Straube was a German church musician , organist, and choral conductor, famous above all for championing the abundant organ music of Max Reger. He studied organ under Heinrich Reimann in Berlin from 1894 to 1897 and became a widely respected concert organist...
, then cantor at the Thomaskirche and professor of organ at the Institut der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Landeskirche Sachsen, offered him organ lessons at the institute. But because it was a prerequisite that Berlinski become a Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
to have access to this program, and as he was not prepared to take that step, the idea proceeded no further.
Emigration to Paris; further music studies; professional involvement
As the National Socialist party gained power in German politics, general restrictions, including their involvement in the arts, were imposed upon the Jews. In 1933, having gained a Polish passport at his father's urging, Berlinski returned to Łódź. However, he found himself disadvantaged by being unable to speak Polish, and he was greatly disheartened by the misery of the Jewish community within which he was living. Finally, when called up for military service, he fled to ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. He was then joined by Sina Goldfein, a former fellow-student both at school and the Leipzig Conservatory, herself a pianist and singer, and they were married in 1934.
Soon after arriving in Paris, Berlinski enrolled at the École Normale de Musique
École Normale de Musique de Paris
The École Normale de Musique de Paris is a leading conservatoire located in Paris, France. The school was founded by Auguste Mangeot and pianist Alfred Cortot in 1919...
and studied composition with Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...
and piano with Alfred Cortot
Alfred Cortot
Alfred Denis Cortot was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor. He is one of the most renowned 20th-century classical musicians, especially valued for his poetic insight in Romantic period piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann.-Early life and education:Born in Nyon, Vaud, in the...
. Although he valued the training he received from Boulanger, Berlinski eventually found some of her musical ideas incompatible with his own, discontinued studies with her after two years and enrolled at the Schola Cantorum of Paris
Schola Cantorum
The Schola Cantorum de Paris is a private music school in Paris. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Bordes, Alexandre Guilmant and Vincent d'Indy as a counterbalance to the Paris Conservatoire's emphasis on opera...
where he studied Jewish liturgical music
Religious Jewish music
This article describes the principal types of religious Jewish music from the days of the Temple to modern times.-History of religious Jewish music:...
with the Sephardic
Sephardi Jews
Sephardi Jews is a general term referring to the descendants of the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula before their expulsion in the Spanish Inquisition. It can also refer to those who use a Sephardic style of liturgy or would otherwise define themselves in terms of the Jewish customs and...
synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
composer Léon Algazi and composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
with Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur
Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur
Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur, known often simply as Daniel-Lesur was a French organist and composer. His mother, Alice Lesur, was an accomplished composer in her own right; some of her music was even published....
. Through Daniel-Lesur he met other young composers who were members of the group called La jeune France
La Jeune France
La jeune France was the name of two related French societies in the 1930s and 1940s.- Musical organization :Jeune France was founded in 1936 by André Jolivet along with composers Olivier Messiaen, Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur, Pierre Schaeffer and Yves Baudrier, who were attempting to re-establish a...
. Most influential were Daniel-Lesur himself and Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
who, although strongly inspired by their Catholic background, encouraged Berlinski to explore and express his Jewish heritage
Jewish art music
Jewish art music is music written using Western classical techniques, but with melodic, rhythmic and textual content taken from traditional Jewish folk or liturgical music...
.
From 1934 onwards, Berlinski became involved with a Jewish art theatre group known as the Paris Yiddish Avant-Garde Theatre (PIAT) and made up largely of immigrants formerly involved with Yiddish theatre
Yiddish theatre
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and...
in Vilna
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
. Their repertoire ranged from works by Jewish playwrights such as Sholem Aleichem and Isaac Leib Peretz to classic Russian plays presented in Yiddish translation. He was soon appointed as music director, a role in which he continued until 1939, and for this group he directed plays or conducted, performed, arranged and composed incidental music.
In this context, Berlinski met many Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian Jews who had been driven out of their own countries. This was highly influential on the development of his own music style and introduced him to many themes and ideas he explored in his later compositions.
Military service in France; Nazi invasion; escape to the United States
With the outbreak of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in 1939, Berlinski offered to enter military service and joined the French Foreign Legion
French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...
. At the end of almost a year, he was one of only 250 survivors out of 1,250 who had been assigned to battle on the Belgian border.
In 1940, after the surrender of France to the Germans
Battle of France
In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...
, the newly established Vichy régime
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
collaborated with the invaders by declaring certain groups including Freemasons
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
, Communists
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
and Jews as "undesirables"
Statute on Jews
The Statute on Jews was discriminatory legislation against French Jews passed on October 3, 1940 by the Vichy Regime, grouping them as a lower class and depriving them of citizenship before rounding them up at Drancy internment camp then taking them to be exterminated in concentration camps...
. Thus, when Berlinski was demobilized in that same year, he received a certificate which declared him to be a "foreigner who had no right to work in France."
Facing the high risk of internment, Berlinski and his wife obtained visas and finally sailed to the United States, arriving in 1941. With them, they took only fragments of the compositions he had written for the Yiddish theatre which they had been able to save from their ransacked Paris home. He would eventually draw on this material for works he wrote soon after he arrived in New York.
New life in New York City; advanced studies; professional development and career change
In New YorkNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Berlinski was reunited with his father Boris who had escaped earlier from Germany, and there were also other members of the family who had migrated from Łódź and were living in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. Herman and Sina Berlinski set up their home in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
and their son David
David Berlinski
David Berlinski is an American educator and author of several books on mathematics. Berlinski is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, the hub of the intelligent design movement. Though he criticizes the theory of evolution, Berlinski who is an agnostic,...
was born there in 1942. Berlinski first earned a living by giving private piano lessons
Piano pedagogy
Piano pedagogy is the study of the teaching of piano playing. Whereas the professional field of music education pertains to the teaching of music in school classrooms or group settings, piano pedagogy focuses on the teaching of musical skills to piano students on the level of the individual...
, and quickly made contact with the city's large Jewish community
American Jews
American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
.
A significant event in Berlinski's professional development was a meeting with Moshe Rudinow who was at that time cantor
Hazzan
A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...
of New York's Temple Emanu-Elhttp://www.emanuelnyc.org/, one of the city's leading Reform
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...
synagogues. Through Rudinow he was introduced to the then-named Jewish Music Forum, a body which was set up to promote the study and analysis of all aspects of Jewish music
Jewish music
Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish People which have evolved over time throughout the long course of Jewish History. In some instances Jewish Music is of a religious nature, spiritual songs and refrains are common in Jewish Services throughout the world, while other times, it is...
and to organize the performance of new music, and he became an invited member in 1944. There he met key musicians, composers and musicologists including Lazar Weiner
Lazar Weiner
Lazar Weiner was a Ukrainian-born, American-naturalized composer of Yiddish song. He emigrated to America at the age of 17 and later became the music director of the Central Synagogue, New York.-Works:...
http://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=284, Joseph Yasserhttp://www.jtsa.edu/x5817.xml#bn, Abraham Wolfe Binderhttp://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=277 and Lazare Saminsky
Lazare Saminsky
Lazare Saminsky, born Lazar Iosifovich Saminsky, was a performer, conductor and composer, especially of Jewish music.-Life:...
.http://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=296 He also heard there the then young and relatively unknown Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
performing his new works including a piano reduction of his first symphony
Symphony No. 1 (Bernstein)
Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 Jeremiah was composed in 1942. Jeremiah is a programmatic work, following the Biblical story of the prophet Jeremiah. It uses texts from the Book of Lamentations in the Hebrew Bible...
. He studied composition with Messiaen at the 1948 Tanglewood Music Centre
Tanglewood Music Center
The Tanglewood Music Center is an annual summer music academy in Lenox, Massachusetts, United States, in which emerging professional musicians participate in performances, master classes and workshops designed to provide an intense training and networking experience...
and gained from him an understanding of rhythmic and harmonic techniques which would affect his approach to using Jewish melodic forms in his later works.
A change in Berlinski's career occurred in 1951 when Yasser offered him organ lessons. As a result, he quickly demonstrated a high level of skills both as a recitalist and as a liturgical organist, setting the direction for the future both in terms of his professional appointments and the types of works he composed. By 1954 he had been appointed as assistant organist at Emanu-El working with Saminsky as music director. He gave his first public recital the following year. He served there for a total of eight years, during which time he composed many works including choral and other liturgical music as well as pieces for the organ.
In 1953, while continuing his organ studies with Yasser, Berlinski undertook post-graduate studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Jewish Theological Seminary of America
The Jewish Theological Seminary of America is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism, and a major center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies.JTS operates five schools: Albert A...
(JTSA) where he engaged in a musicological analysis of the origins and practices of ancient Jewish music
Jewish music
Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish People which have evolved over time throughout the long course of Jewish History. In some instances Jewish Music is of a religious nature, spiritual songs and refrains are common in Jewish Services throughout the world, while other times, it is...
. He also studied composition with Hugo Weisgall
Hugo Weisgall
Hugo David Weisgall was an American composer and conductor, known chiefly for his opera and vocal music compositions...
http://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=180, an experienced composer who was descended from a long line of cantors and was interested in both sacred
Religious Jewish music
This article describes the principal types of religious Jewish music from the days of the Temple to modern times.-History of religious Jewish music:...
and secular
Secular Jewish music
-Israeli music:Modern Israeli music is heavily influenced by its constituents, which include Jewish immigrants from more than 120 countries around the world, which have brought their own musical traditions, making Israel a global melting pot. The Israeli music is very versatile and combines...
Jewish music. Working with Weisgall and in the climate of the seminary provided an ideal stimulus for Berlinski to further explore and express his Jewish background, which in turn became more recognizable in his music.
Having completed his masters degree program at JTSA, Berlinski undertook doctoral studies in composition there. A major set-back occurred in 1958 when he had a heart attack from which he made recovery and was able to complete his doctorate in 1960. This made him the first person ever to be awarded a doctorate in sacred music by that institution.
Move to Washington, D.C.
In 1963 Berlinski was appointed as music director of the Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Reform Hebrew Congregation
Washington Hebrew Congregation
The Washington Hebrew Congregation is a Jewish congregation formed on April 25, 1852, in Washington, D.C., by twenty-one members.Solomon Pribram was elected the first president. By 1854, there were forty-two members...
http://www.whctemple.org/ where he worked under the leadership of Rabbi Norman Gerstenfeld who was enthusiastic about contemporary music and wanted the temple to be presenting the best sacred music in the city. Here he continued composing music for liturgical use as well as many other works, he was called upon widely to lecture and write on the subject of Jewish music, and he gave many organ recitals including appearances at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...
and Leipzig's Thomaskirche.
Rabbi Gerstenfeld died in 1968, ending five years which Berlinski described as being "the most exciting and creative" of his life. Rabbi Gerstenfeld's widow paid tribute to her husband by commissioning Berlinski to write the oratorio, Job
Job (Biblical figure)
Job is the central character of the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible. Job is listed as a prophet of God in the Qur'an.- Book of Job :The Book of Job begins with an introduction to Job's character — he is described as a blessed man who lives righteously...
. Berlinski continued as minister of music at the Washington Congregation until his retirement in 1977.
During those last years after Rabbi Gerstenfeld's death, requirements for Berlinski's liturgical music decreased, and he took the opportunity to compose larger vocal works and continued writing his sinfonias for organ with other instruments or singers. He lectured widely in the United States and Europe through his later career. Commitments included sessions at the Mendelssohn Academy in Leipzig under the auspices of the United States Information Agency
United States Information Agency
The United States Information Agency , which existed from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to "public diplomacy". In 1999, USIA's broadcasting functions were moved to the newly created Broadcasting Board of Governors, and its exchange and non-broadcasting information functions were...
, and at the Europäisches Zentrum für jüdische Musik ref>http://www.ezjm.hmt-hannover.de/ in Hannover, Germany.
Retirement; death
After his retirement in 1977, Berlinski remained in Washington and founded his own performing group, Shir Chadash Chorale, through which he was able to arrange the performance of much Jewish music in the city and the surrounding areas. This thirty-voice choir continued its work for eleven years, giving concerts of HanukkahHanukkah
Hanukkah , also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE...
and other high holiday
High Holy Days
The High Holidays or High Holy Days, in Judaism, more properly known as the Yamim Noraim , may mean:#strictly, the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur ;...
music annually in the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
and the Washington National Cathedral
Washington National Cathedral
The Washington National Cathedral, officially named the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church located in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. Of neogothic design, it is the sixth-largest cathedral in the world, the second-largest in...
.
In early 2000 Berlinski was invited by the Milken Archive to Berlin to participate in the first recording of Avodat Shabbat for release on the Naxos label as part of its Milken Archive of American Jewish Music series. Richard Sandler, Executive Vice President of the Milken Family Foundation
Milken Family Foundation
The Milken Family Foundation is a private foundation established by Lowell Milken and Michael Milken in 1982. Lowell Milken serves as chairman and co-founder of the foundation.-Goals:...
http://www.mff.org/ reported:
"It was very moving to be there. Mr Berlinski was visibly moved by the process. It was obviously one of the highlights of his career. Not only was the music being recorded for the first time, but it was also being recorded for the first time in Germany. Before each piece was recorded, he would explain to the performers in German what the prayer was about. They were fascinated."
Later that same year, his Sinfonia No. 12 (Die heiligen Zehn Gebote (These Holy Ten Commandments
Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...
)), for organ, choir, soprano, tenor, baritone, two trumpets and percussion, received its world premiere in the Leipzig Thomaskirche, and was then repeated at the Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
Hochschule
Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
The Hochschule für Musik und Theater München is one of the most respected traditional vocational universities in Germany specialising in music and the performing arts. The seat of the Hochschule is the former Führerbau of the NSDAP, located at Arcisstraße 12, on the eastern side of the Königsplatz...
with Berlinski present. Reports say that in Munich the work received a standing ovation, and that Professor Robert Helmschrott who was then President and Rector of the Munich Hochschule and to whom the sinfonia was dedicated, greeted Berlinski in a speech at the conclusion of the concert as "his spiritual father and his music as a link between Judaism and Christianity."
His last visit to Germany was early in 2001 after the Federal Republic of Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
had awarded him the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit for his artistic achievements and his contribution to interfaith dialogue. (See below under Awards and Tributes for more details.)
Berlinski died at Washington's Sibley Memorial Hospital
Sibley Memorial Hospital
Sibley Memorial Hospital is a non-profit hospital located in NW Washington D.C.. It is fully accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and is licensed by the District of Columbia Department of Health and Human Services. The hospital specializes in surgery,...
on 27 September 2001 after heart attacks and a stroke. His final composition, Psalm 130
Psalm 130
Psalm 130 , traditionally De profundis from its Latin incipit, is one of the Penitential psalms.-Commentary:...
(Shir hamaaloth (Out of the Depths)) for solo voice, choir and organ, had been commissioned by the Washington National Cathedral for the dedication of its last stained glass window. He completed the work on 9 September just weeks prior to his death and it was first performed in the cathedral on 30 September, the day of his funeral.
Berlinski was survived by his wife, Sina, and his son, David.
Leipzig and Paris
There is no evidence of anything that Berlinski composed in Leipzig except in a comment made by Ann Williams Frohbieter in her doctoral thesis at Rice UniversityRice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
where she said:
"Berlinski was in danger not only because he was a Jew, but also because, in his early college days, he had composed music for a political cabaret...writing music of a satirical nature."
A work known to have been composed in Paris was Chazoth
Tikkun Chatzot
Tikkun Chatzot is a Jewish ritual of lamentation that is recited after midnight in memory of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is a highly praiseworthy observance which is not universally observed. Over the past few years, there have been attempts to revive the custom of Tikkun...
, a theatrical piece for string quartet and ondes Martenot
Ondes Martenot
The ondes Martenot , also known as the ondium Martenot, Martenot and ondes musicales, is an early electronic musical instrument invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. The original design was similar in sound to the theremin...
http://120years.net/machines/martenot/, which he wrote in 1938 and which had its premiere that year in the Salle Erard. Use of the then new and rather novel ondes Martenot probably came about because Daniel-Lesur, whose mother was a virtuoso performer on the instrument, had introduced Berlinski to its inventor Maurice Martenot
Maurice Martenot
Maurice Martenot was a French cellist, a radio telegrapher during the first World War, and an inventor.Born in Paris, he is best known for his invention of the ondes Martenot, an instrument he first realized in 1928 and spent decades improving. He unveiled a microtonal model in 1938...
whose name it bore. Having heard the work, Daniel-Lesur became a major advocate for Berlinski.
Another work, Allegretto grazioso con variazioni: Hommage à Ravel, for piano, also written in 1938, now exists in a revised version dated 1945 and held in The Herman Berlinski Music Collection (HBMC) at The Library of JTSA.
Apart from the handful of scores Berlinski was able to take with him from Paris, nothing else seems to have survived the destruction of the War.
New York
His first major works written in New York were suites all published under the title, From the World of My Father, and drawn in part from material on the fragmentary scores he had been able to rescue from his home in Paris, but mostly from his memory of the melodies he had heard or written in that period before the War. As Berlinski explained:"This was the music of my father's generation, now dedicated to the actors and actresses of the PIAT - almost all of them victims of the HolocaustThe HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. It will remain with me the rest of my life - for every sound in it evokes in me a name, a face, a smile, or a lament. If that is sentimental, so be it!"http://www.milkenarchive.org/articles/articles.taf?function=detail&ID=120
Under this general title, From the World of My Father, there are several suites for various instrumentations. The first (subtitled Chazoth (or Hatzot)) for chamber orchestra, written in 1941 and revised in 1995, has four movements, Prayer at Midnight, Procession, Legend, and Dance and is, as its subtitle suggests, related to the suite for string quartet and ondes Martenot which he composed in Paris in 1938. It also appeared later after several revisions as an Organ Suite also under the title, From the World of My Father, but with five movements listed in the HBMC catalogue as Prayer at Midnight (Chazoth), Air (Nigun
Nigun
A nigun or niggun is a form of Jewish religious song or tune sung by groups. It is vocal music, often with repetitive sounds such as "bim-bim-bam" or "ai-ai-ai!" instead of formal lyrics. Sometimes, Bible verses or quotes from other classical Jewish texts are sung repetitively to form a nigun...
), Nocturnal Procession, Legend and Ritual Dance.
The second suite, written in 1948, existed first in a version for cello and piano. Subtitled Dialogues, it has four movements, Dialogue, Hasidic
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
, Nigun, and Wedding Dance. Later Berlinski arranged it for cello and chamber orchestra.
The third suite (subtitled Klezmorim
Klezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
) is for clarinet and chamber orchestra and has five movements, Lament, (Untitled), Mayouffes Dance, Song, and Finale. The precise year of its composition is not known although the material would have originated from Berlinski's days in Paris. It was finally published in 1995 together with Suites Nos. 1 and 2 under the umbrella title, From the World of My Father: a trilogy
Trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games...
for chamber orchestra, chamber orchestra and cello, chamber orchestra and clarinet.
Confusion may arise because there is another work carrying the title From the World of My Father: Suite No. 3, this one for oboe and organ. The HBMC catalogue shows it as having been written originally in 1938, rewritten in 1942 and revised in 1976, and it carries on the cover the alternate title, Peretz Suite: oboe or flute or clarinet and organ or piano, with an explanatory note from the composer, "From incidental music to stage plays by J.L. Peretz." According to the catalogue, there are four movements, Lament, Pastorale, Allegretto, and Song and finale, reflecting some parallels with the suite for clarinet and chamber orchestra mentioned in the previous paragraph.
Berlinski's next major work was Symphonic Visions, for orchestra, which he started writing in 1949 and completed the following year. It has four movements which he called Sinfonias, each based on a biblical extracts, the first from Psalm 94
Psalm 94
Psalm 94 is one of the psalm in the biblical Book of Psalms. One of the Royal Psalms, Psalm 93-99, praising God as the King of His people.-Judaism:...
, the second and third from the Book of Jeremiah
Book of Jeremiah
The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the book of Isaiah and preceding Ezekiel and the Book of the Twelve....
, and the fourth from the Song of Songs
Song of songs
Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It may also refer to:In music:* Song of songs , the debut album by David and the Giants* A generic term for medleysPlays...
. The first three movements are centred on the themes of threat, destruction and war, while the final movements declares the blessing of new life.
His choice of themes reveals much of the impact of Berlinski's own experience through the persecution of his fellow Jews and of the War itself, and of his escape to the United States. This is revealed in his own words on the subject:
"This is the century of mass destruction, of gas chambers, and the atomic bomb. Fear, sleeplessness, and melancholy have become the trademarks of our “displaced minds.”... The projection of our own fears and worries, displaying and sharing them with those next to us, seems to alleviate our own suffering, making us realize that, although we are individuals, we are also part of a mass of people with similar emotions."
As he sees it, however, the artist has an important role to play in this:
"The inclusion of sorrow and fear in the field of musical expression does not mean that one has to assume a continuously prophetical attitude with its implicit warning of approaching doom. Facing and including in music the realities surrounding us leaves us just at the point where the patient has told the doctor why and what he fears, which in itself will not cure him. In the realistic portrayal of a world in disorder, the artist, at least, must have a vision of order. His art will otherwise become as chaotic as the world around and within himself. But the urge for mental organization and for order cannot be satisfied by any complicated, philosophical equation. The answers must be simple and they must be unsophisticated, because truth and simplicity seem to be closely related in our minds."
His first major solo organ composition, The Burning Bush
Burning bush
The burning bush is an object described by the Book of Exodus as being located on Mount Sinai; according to the narrative, the bush was on fire, but was not consumed by the flames, hence the name...
, illustrates this well, having been commissioned for use on Emanu-El's newly restored and extended Casavant
Casavant Frères
Casavant Frères is a prominent Canadian company in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, which has been building fine pipe organs since 1879. As of 2008, they have produced over 3800 organs.- Company history :...
organ. Robert Baker, an eminent musician and teacher who had succeeded Saminsky as Emanu-El's principal organist, gave the first performance in 1956, approved of the work, played it again the following year at the International Congress of Organists in London, and brought it to the public's attention by including it later in many of his recital programs. Frohbieter said in her doctoral thesis:
"There is no other work like The Burning Bush written for the organ. The piece employed a rhapsodic, fiery, twentieth-century chromaticismChromaticismChromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism...
and was the first serious Jewish work to be composed for the concert organ repertoire."
In 1958 Berlinski completed another major work, a Friday-evening service entitled Avodat Shabbathttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/reviews/berlinski.html for cantor, choir and organ, which had been commissioned by Cantor David Putterman of New York's Park Avenue Synagogue
Park Avenue Synagogue
The Park Avenue Synagogue – Agudat Yesharim- is a Conservative Jewish congregation located at 50 East 87th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City...
who was cantor in its first performance there in that same year.
Some years later the work was being assessed for performance at Emanu-El and was submitted for examination by several musicians including Leonard Bernstein who noted it to be "a fine compromise between tradition and somewhat contemporary sounds." Subsequently Berlinski orchestrated and expanded the work for a concert performance conducted by Bernstein at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...
in 1963.
Writing after the first recording of this work recording of this work, critic Max Dudious said in Audiophile Auditions that:
"...the cantata [sic.] offers a range of musical expression quite unexpected in the usually tradition-laden realm of liturgical writing. As a composition it is free and easy-going...",a statement which could be read as implying that labelling this or many other works by Berlinski as strictly "liturgical" might limit their ability to attract a broader audience.
For his doctoral dissertation at JTSA Berlinski composed a large oratorio, Kiddush Ha-Shem
Kiddush Hashem
The sanctification of the Name The sanctification of the Name The sanctification of the Name (in Hebrew kiddush Hashem is a precept of Judaism. It includes sanctification of the name by being holy.-Hebrew Bible:...
(Sanctification of the Name of God) for choir, soloists and orchestra, in memory of those who had died in the Holocaust. This work is still awaiting public performance.
Then in 1967, he finished a work already begun in 1955-1956 by using some of the material he had incorporated into Kiddush Ha-Shem, and created the Sinfonia No. 1, one of twelve. Subtitled Litanies for the persecuted, it is scored for narrator, contralto soloist and organ with a text drawn from poems by Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron
Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz
Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz was a rabbi, poet and Torah commentator, best known for his Torah commentary Keli Yakar.-Biography:...
of Łęczyca, Solomon ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol, also Solomon ben Judah , was an Andalucian Hebrew poet and Jewish philosopher with a Neoplatonic bent. He was born in Málaga about 1021; died about 1058 in Valencia.-Biography:...
, the Book of Jeremiah
Book of Jeremiah
The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the book of Isaiah and preceding Ezekiel and the Book of the Twelve....
, and Psalm 94
Psalm 94
Psalm 94 is one of the psalm in the biblical Book of Psalms. One of the Royal Psalms, Psalm 93-99, praising God as the King of His people.-Judaism:...
, and it has nine movements. As Frohbieter says in her analysis of this work:
"The organ called for in the work is one of symphonic proportionsShe then continues by quoting Berlsinki himself explaining something of the techniques on which he had drawn:Symphonic organThe symphonic organ is a style of pipe organ which flourished during the first third of the twentieth century in town halls and other secular public venues . It is a variation of the classical pipe organ intended for the performance of orchestral transcriptions, which are serious orchestral...
, capable of expressing both the nuances of subtle shades of organ orchestral color and also the drama of powerful crescendos and decrescendos."
"The music is expressive of the text. Under the influence of the twelve-toneTwelve-tone techniqueTwelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
school of German expressionism, I have expanded my harmonic palette considerably beyond the scope of Max Reger."
Sinfonia No. 2, subtitled Holy days and festivals, has an earlier origin in Berlinski's compositions than No. 1, having been commenced in 1954, shortly after he was appointed to the staff of Emanu-El, and completed in 1956. According to Berlinski's explanation to Frohbieter, when he first arrived at Emanu-El, there was no Jewish organ music suitable for use as preludes to worship apart from some pieces by Louis Lewandowski
Louis Lewandowski
Louis Lewandowski was a German composer of synagogal music.Lewandowski was born at Wreschen, province of Posen, Prussia . At the age of twelve he went to Berlin to study piano and voice, and became solo soprano in the synagogue. Afterward he studied for three years under A. B...
(which Berlinski described as "...very brave, nice...most conventional...and not typically Jewish."). Principal organist Baker, he said, was filling the gap by drawing upon the output of Bach, Mendelssohn and some French composers; but as these had been written for a Christian context, Berlinski thought they did not relate well to the Jewish calendar, and he saw it as desirable that he write a prelude for each of the holy days and festivals in a way "that a piece dedicated to [a holiday] would use melodies which are part of that holiday celebration."
Hence this sinfonia is made up of five movements, one for each of the holy days, Rosh Hashana (New Year) and Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur , also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day of the year for the Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue...
(the Day of Atonement), and one for each of the festivals, Sukkoth (Tabernacles), Pesach (Passover) and Shavuoth (Pentecost), with melodies drawn from what are called in the Ashkenazic tradition Mis-sinai tunes. Although, in view of the traditional association between each Mis-sinai tune and a specific day in the Jewish calendar, each movement can be performed as an independent prelude on the appropriate day, Frohbieter points out that, because of the way Berlinski has constructed it, the entire sinfonia "coheres as one grand work...a work of concert organ repertoire", the implication being that this work has potential use both as a recital piece and within the synagogue liturgy.
Sinfonia No. 3, subtitled Sounds and Motions for Organ, is a secular work, at least in the sense that it was designed to explore the full range of expressive capabilities of the symphonic organ. It was written in 1961 and dedicated to leading New York organist Claire Cocci, at that time organist of the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
, who had already heard The Burning Bush. She gave the premiere performance in New York that same year.
The work has six movements entitled Trumpets, Motion and Silence, Contemplation, Light Motion, Pulsation, and Polymodal Sounds and Motions, and Berlinski employs a variety of techniques - changing rhythmic patterns
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
, chromaticism, contrasting consonance and dissonance
Consonance and dissonance
In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...
, occasional use of the serialist approach
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
, dramatic gestures and sudden silences - to express his thoughts and feelings in each.
A question regarding the inspiration of this work, by contrast with the overtly Jewish content of Sinfonias Nos. 1 and 2 as just mentioned, comes into focus, however, when considering Berlinski's own explanation of Movement 1 in which he said:
"It is perhaps of little importance whether this music is, in any sense of the word, Jewish. The work speaks in a contemporary musical language, but I think that I can never divest myself of the shadow of the Holocaust. The signature instrument of Judaism throughout Israel's history has been the trumpet. The trumpets of this first movement are not the trumpets of the High Holidays. They are not trumpets of joy. The trumpets in Sinfonia No. 3 are trumpets of the Holocaust. They spell doom in cataclysmic events."
Likewise, the last movement, with the arresting subtitle Polymodal Sounds and Motions, a set of variations in chaconne
Chaconne
A chaconne ; is a type of musical composition popular in the baroque era when it was much used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line which offered a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and...
form, derives its thematic material from modes called in Yiddish shtaygers which are used in Ashkenazic cantorial improvisation and take their names from the first words of the prayer with which they are most often used.http://www.liturgica.com/html/litJLitMusDev3.jsp The first is an altered Phrygian mode
Phrygian dominant scale
In music, the altered Phrygian scale or Freygish scale , featuring an unusual key signature and a distinctive augmented second interval, is the fifth mode of the harmonic minor scale, the fifth being the dominant...
which is of widespread use in middle eastern music, and known commonly as Ahava Rabboh (the first line of that prayer in translation begins, "With abounding love hast thou loved us...") or Freygish when used in Jewish liturgical prayer recitation and in Klezmer music. The second is called Mogen ovos or Magein avot, a natural minor mode (the first line of the prayer in translation being, "Our forbears' shield, reviver of the dead, incomparable Lord...")
These two movements provide the parentheses for four others which reflect the breadth of Berlinski's inspiration and musical language, Movement 2, subtitled Motion and Silence, being just 28 bars in which phrase statements are followed by equal measures of silence, while Movement 3, Contemplation, which is in ternary form
Ternary form
Ternary form, sometimes called song form, is a three-part musical form, usually schematicized as A-B-A. The first and third parts are musically identical, or very nearly so, while the second part in some way provides a contrast with them...
begins with a quiet, reflective section followed by a build in energy which is finally resolved as the first section is repeated with some obvious elaborations. Of this movement, Berlisnki said:
"In 'Contemplation' I have composed a prayer which cannot be found in any liturgy. The music itself becomes the prayer."
The fourth movement, Light Motion, is a playful dance with strong reference to French symphonic organ writing, while the fifth movement, Pulsation, has a hypnotic repeated note pattern in the pedal part. According to Frohbieter, Berlinski drew a parallel between this movement and the heart attack he had experienced four years before writing this work, with the abrupt ending of its first section representing the moment of the cardiac arrest itself.
Washington
Between his arrival in 1963 and his retirement in 1977, Berlinski concentrated largely on writing liturgical music for use at the Reform Hebrew Congregation. Two notable exceptions are Sinfonia No. 4, The Tetragrammaton, and Sinfonia No. 5.Composition of Sinfonia No. 4, The Tetragrammaton for Organ and Orchestra, was started in New York, December 1962, and dated at final measure, November 1, 1965 (Washington, DC). The work is dedicated to Bethel Knoche, the organist at the RLDS Auditorium in Independence, Missouri. Knoche was a collaborator and student of Jewish liturgical music interpretation with Berlinksi. The tetragrammaton are the three Hebrew letters used to represent the name of God. Berlinski selected three emotive attributes from the Sefirot for Sinfonia No. 4 and placed them in three parts for the composition: I. Keter (crown), II. Tiferet (beauty), and III. Gevurah (might). The work is written for trumpets I, II, III; horns I, II, III, IV; trombones I, II, III; tuba; harps I, II; piano; celesta; timpani; percussion; organ; violins I, II; viola; violoncello and double bass. Facsimile copies of Sinfonia No. 4 are housed at the Library of Congress and the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Sinfonia No. 5 for organ is a five movement work in which each movement was based on an excerpt from the poetry of Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs was a Jewish German poet and playwright whose experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokeswoman for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews...
.http://www.nelly-sachs.com/ It was composed between 1964 and 1968 and dedicated to organist Bethel Knoche, organist at the RLDS Auditorium in Independence, Missouri. Knoche premiered the work on May 6, 1967, in a performance on The Auditorium Organ. Sinfonia No. 5 remains unpublished as a manuscript score, copyright 1972. The book, "O The Chimneys," was published in 1967, after Nelly Sachs received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966 with S.Y. Agnon. It was her first publication in English. "O The Chimneys," contains the excerpted poetry for each of the five movements of Sinfonia No. 5.
I. Footsteps – Age-old game of hangman and victim, persecutor and persecuted, hunter and hunted.
Auf dass die Verfolgten nicht Verfolger werden, "That the persecuted may not become persecutors."
From: In the Habitations of Death.
II. Here amen must be said, this crowning of words which moves into hiding and peace. You great eyelid closing on all unrest, your heavenly wreath of lashes, you most gentle of all births.
Einer, "Someone." From: Flight and Metamorphosis.
III. The blood’s circulation weeps toward its spiritual sea there where the blue flame of agony bursts through night.
Wan endlich, "When at last." From: Glowing Engimas II.
IV. Only death draws out of them the truth of misery, these recurring rhymes cut out of night’s blackness, these reed exercises at the end of the organ of sounds.
Nur Sterben, "Only death." From: Glowing Enigmas I.
V. Footsteps - Which turn time ravenous emblazing the hour with wolves extinguishing the flight in the fugitive’s blood. Auf dass die Verfolgten nicht Verfolger werden, "That the persecuted may not become persecutors." From: In the Habitations of Death.
The following year Berlinski began his Sinfonia No 10 for cello and organ and completed it in 1976. It has two movements, the second of which is a theme and set of variations based on the traditional memorial prayer melody, Av Ha-rachamim
Av HaRachamim
Av Harachamim or Abh Haraḥamim is a Jewish memorial prayer which was written in the late eleventh or early twelfth century, after the destruction of the Ashkenazi communities around the Rhine River by Christian crusaders during the First Crusade...
(Merciful Father).
Works from the earliest stage of his retirement include: a song cycle, Dost thou sleep, my brother Abel? (1979–1980; A Psalm of unity, commissioned in 1980 by Washington's The Chorus of St. Margaret; Ein Musikalischer Spass: theme and variations from W.A. Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
’s Dorfmusikanten-Sextett, K. 5 (1983); Adagietto for flute and organ and a Sonata for violin and piano: Le violon de Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
, both in 1985.
Major works of this period included two commissions, Shevirath ha-kelim (The Breaking of the Vessels) commissioned by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
for the fiftieth anniversary of Reichskristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
in 1988, and in the same year the Hanukah oratorio, The Trumpets of Freedom, which he wrote for performance by his Chir Chadash Chorale and other forces in the Kennedy Centre. After the premiere of The Trumpets of Freedom, critic Joan Reinthaler wrote in The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
:
"With his new Hanukah oratorio ... Herman Berlinski has affirmed his conviction that it is as important to celebrate victories as it is to remember tragedies."
In 1990 Berlinski wrote Maskir Neshamoth (In Remembrance of the Souls) which was originally commissioned by Ann and Donald Brown in memory of Jules C. Winkelman, and its premiere was of excerpts only which were performed in 1998 at the Library of Congress for the sixtieth anniversary of Kristallnacht. He wrote a Cello Concerto between 1992 and 1994, a work which has yet to be performed.
In 1993 the Union Theological Seminary
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a preeminent independent graduate school of theology, located in Manhattan between Claremont Avenue and Broadway, 120th to 122nd Streets. The seminary was founded in 1836 under the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with nearby Columbia...
(UTS) asked him to write Das Gebet Bonhoeffers (The Prayer of Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and martyr. He was a participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the Confessing Church. He was involved in plans by members of the Abwehr to assassinate Adolf Hitler...
), part of a longer work, Bonhoeffer-Triptychon, a tribute to a man who had been executed by the Nazis during the Second World War, for which other sections were co-commissioned from German composers Heinz Werner Zimmermann
Heinz Werner Zimmermann
Heinz Werner Zimmermann is a German composer.Zimmermann had his first composition instruction from 1946 to 1948 with Julius Weismann and studied from 1950 to 1954 in Heidelberg with Wolfgang Fortner as well as at the Institut for Protestant Church Music there...
, a Protestant, and Robert Helmschrott, a Catholic. The work was premiered that same year at UTS, and has now been performed in many countries including Germany, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
.
Also in 1993, when he was commissioned to write a work for the groundbreaking ceremony for the synagogue
New Synagogue (Dresden)
The New Synagogue in Dresden was completed in 2001 and designed by architects Rena Wandel-Hoefer and Wolfgang Lorch. It was built on the same location as the Semper Synagogue designed by Gottfried Semper, which was destroyed in 1938, during the Kristallnacht.The boundary wall of the New Synagogue...
about to be rebuilt in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, he reworked in German his oratorio, Job (under the title, Hiob). In 1995 he revised his unfinished 1983 cantata, The Beadle of Prague, incorporating it into the oratorio Etz Chayim (The Tree of Life).
A work of particular interest is called Celan, for narrator and piano, written in 2001 in memory of the Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n-born poet and Holocaust survivor Paul Celan
Paul Celan
Paul Celan was a poet and translator...
Celan's prolific output included many works about the Holocaust. After the war he moved to Paris where, following many years of isolation and loneliness, he committed suicide in 1970. Berlinski has constructed the work so poems are narrated between movements written for the solo piano. This dramatic work was first performed at Washington's United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...
only a few weeks before Berlinski's death.
Awards and tributes
Berlinski received many awards, honours and fellowships.The first major award was a MacDowell Fellowshiphttp://www.macdowellcolony.org/ which he received in 1958. This assisted him in undertaking extensive musicological research.
In 1984 the American Academy of Arts and Letters honoured him with the Marjorie Peabody Waite Awardhttp://www.artsandletters.org/awards2_all.php, the citation saying, "Herman Berlinski is among the few 20th-century composers who have produced a significant body of music for the organ..."
In 1992 he was granted the Shenandoah University and Conservatory
Shenandoah University
Shenandoah University is a comprehensive private university located in Winchester, Virginia in the United States. It has an enrollment of approximately 3,800 students across more than ninety programs in six schools: College of Arts & Sciences, Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business, Shenandoah...
Medal of Excellence, followed in 1995 by a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Guild of Organists
American Guild of Organists
The American Guild of Organists, or AGO, is a national organization of academic, church, and concert organists in the U.S., headquartered in The Interchurch Center in New York City. It was founded in 1896 as both an educational and service organization...
.
In the international arena, the then Federal Republic of Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
awarded him the Order of Merit which he received from the President in 1995, followed by the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit which he received in 2001. The award letter for the Commander's Cross cited Berlinski as having been a builder of "many lasting bridges over the Atlantic", significant recognition from a former enemy against whom Berlinski had fought during the Second World War.
Considering the way Belinski had been treated by French authorities following his demobilization from the French Foreign Legion in 1940, leading to his urgent departure for the United States, it is ironic that he was decorated by the French Government with a Croix du Combattant Volontaire
Croix du combattant volontaire
The Croix du combattant volontaire may refer to one of three French military decorations rewarding soldiers who spontaneously chose to serve with a fighting unit....
after this award was created in 1954.http://www.fncv.com/decorations/07_croix_combattant_volontaire.html
Summary
The obituary by Martin Anderson published in The Independent began:"Herman Berlinski's deep involvement with Jewish liturgical music meant that his compositions didn't get the attention they deserve on the wider stage of concerts and recordings."
Parallels can be drawn between Berlinski and other composers whose reputations have been built so strongly on one part of their output that other equally important aspects have been unduly ignored.
For example, Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
's fame as a pianist and his enormous output of virtuosic works for this instrument have distracted attention from his orchestral tone poems and symphonies, choral works and oratorios, chamber music and lieder.
The picture is similar with Max Reger
Max Reger
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...
whose organ works have been in the mainstream of organists' repertoire for a long time while his prolific output of solo piano music, concertos and other orchestral works, chamber music, choral works and lieder, with a small number of exceptions, has largely disappeared from public view.
Even closer to Berlinski's own situation, British composers Sir Charles Villiers Stanford
Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Irish composer who was particularly notable for his choral music. He was professor at the Royal College of Music and University of Cambridge.- Life :...
and Herbert Howells
Herbert Howells
Herbert Norman Howells CH was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.-Life:...
whose contributions to Anglican church music
Anglican church music
Anglican church music is music that is written for liturgical performance in Anglican church services.Almost all of it is written for choir with or without organ accompaniment...
have been in frequent use by choirs around the world, also wrote many other types of works - for orchestra, piano, chamber ensemble and so on - which have been all but forgotten.
A quick glance through a catalogue of Berlinski's works, even the selective listing below, quickly reveals that his music covers a broad range of formats - symphonic and chamber works, solo works for the organ, song cycles, numerous liturgical choral works and oratorios. Many of these works have been inspired by ideas related to his Jewish background and experience.
Berlinski himself addressed this subject:
"I don't think I can write a piece of music, no matter what I do and what I will try, that does not have the stamp of my Jewish existence."http://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=119
It would be misguiding though to assume that either Berlinski's Jewish identity or his close involvement with writing music for the synagogue would or should limit the appeal of his works in any way. As Frohbieter commented in her thesis, "His music transcends parochial boundaries, to touch the souls of all mankind." In other words, Berlinski's music has something worthwhile to say to everyone.
A quick survey of Berlinski's works may suggest a propensity for him to be dwelling on Jewish suffering in general, and the Holocaust in particular. This drew leading American sociologist Joseph Maier to ask him, "Could you tell me to what extent you are a composer concerned with the Holocaust, and how does it show in your work?" To which Berlinski replied:
"...I cannot suppress a continuous urge to come back to it again and again. I may be haunted by the fear that time will mollify the intensity of our memory, that the event will be forgotten altogether. Elie WieselIt is clear then that Berlinski was not preoccupied with his own tribulations, nor lamenting those of his fellow Jews, or anyone else for that matter, who had suffered at the hands at the hands of others. His argument appears to be that, by remembering the pointless and unjustifiable outcomes of persecution, humankind may be motivated to avoid the same stumbling blocks.Elie WieselSir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
once said, 'Memory is our strongest weapon.' I do not need the Holocaust to create music. Those who have been silenced by it need us."
Much of Berlinski's music expresses a sense of triumph in the face of affliction. His belief in that principle appears not only in the themes and ideas he explored in his music but also in the way he lived. In view of the tortuous path that led him from his place of birth, Leipzig, via his parents' home country, Poland, to France which was then overtaken by Germany's Nazi forces, and finally to the United States, it is highly memorable that a man could have had the wisdom, insight and strength of purpose that would allow him to do so.
Significant Works
- (1938) Chazoth, suite for string quartet and ondes Martenot (rev. 1982 as From the World of My Father: Suite for organ in five movements)
- (1938, rev. 1945) Allegretto grazioso con variazioni: Hommage à RavelMaurice RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
(piano) - (1938–1976) From the World of My Father, suite No. 3 for oboe and organ (Also having the alternate title, Peretz Suite for oboe or flute or clarinet and organ or piano)
- (1941, rev. 1981) Sonata for fluteFluteThe flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
and piano - (1941, rev. 1995) From the World of My Father, for chamber orchestra
- (1944) Sonata brevis for piano
- (1946–1948, 1971. German version 1974) Sinfonia No. 7: DavidDavidDavid was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
and Goliath, for tenor and organ (Text from I SamuelBooks of SamuelThe Books of Samuel in the Jewish bible are part of the Former Prophets, , a theological history of the Israelites affirming and explaining the Torah under the guidance of the prophets.Samuel begins by telling how the prophet Samuel is chosen by...
:17-18) - (1948) The City, four songs for high voice and piano (Poems by James AgeeJames AgeeJames Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...
, Jessie Ward Haywood, Annie Hatch Boornazian, and Jessie Wilmore Murton) - (1948) Hassidic Suite for cello and piano (rev. 1948-1969 as Hassidic Suite for cello and organ. Also published as From the World of My Father, Suite No. 2 for cello and piano, and arranged in 1995 for cello and chamber orchestra)
- (1949–1950) Symphonic Visions, for orchestra
- (1950–1951) Concerto da cameraConcerto grossoThe concerto grosso is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists and full orchestra...
for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoonBassoonThe bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
, piano, timpaniTimpaniTimpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
and string orchestra - (1950–1979) Four "Irreverent" Songs, for soprano and piano (Poems by Ogden NashOgden NashFrederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse. At the time of his death in 1971, the New York Times said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry".-Early life:Nash was born in Rye, New York...
, Samuel HoffensteinSamuel HoffensteinSamuel "Sam" Hoffenstein was a screenwriter and a musical composer. Born in Russia, he immigrated to the United States and began a career in New York City as a newspaper writer and in the entertainment business. In 1931 he moved to Los Angeles where he lived for the rest of his life where he wrote...
, and Anon.) - (1950, rev. 1985) Return, a cycle of four songs for baritone and piano (Poems by Walter de la MareWalter de la MareWalter John de la Mare , OM CH was an English poet, short story writer and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and the poem "The Listeners"....
, Demetrios CapetanakisDemetrios CapetanakisDemetrios Capetanakis or Kapetanakis or Capetanaces was a Greek poet, essayist and critic. For the last five years of his life he lived in Britain, and wrote some poetry in English....
, Karl ShapiroKarl ShapiroKarl Jay Shapiro was an American poet. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946.-Biography:...
, and Conrad AikenConrad AikenConrad Potter Aiken was an American novelist and poet, whose work includes poetry, short stories, novels, a play and an autobiography.-Early years:...
) - (1952) QuadrilleQuadrilleQuadrille is a historic dance performed by four couples in a square formation, a precursor to traditional square dancing. It is also a style of music...
, for flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon - (1953) Lecho dodiLekhah DodiLekhah Dodi is a Hebrew-language Jewish liturgical song recited Friday at dusk, usually at sundown, in synagogue to welcome Shabbat prior to the Maariv...
, for cantor, choir (SATB) and organ (ad libitum) - (1953) String Quartet
- (1954–1956) Sinfonia No. 2: Holy days and festivals, for organ
- (1956–1959) Kiddush Ha-Shem (Sanctification of the Name of God), for cantor (baritone), solo voices, choir (SATB) and orchestra
- (1955–1956, 1967) Sinfonia No. 1: Litanies for the persecuted, for narrator, contralto and organ (Texts from the litany, Eleh eskeroh (This, I will remember) by Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron of Łęczyca, Psalm 94, Jeremiah 4 and poems by Solomon ibn Gabirol)
- (1956) The Burning Bush, for organ
- (1956) Entreat me not, for choir and organ (Text from RuthBook of RuthThe Book of Ruth is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament. In the Jewish canon the Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings . In the Christian canon the Book of Ruth is placed between Judges and 1 Samuel...
1:16) - (1957) V’shomru, for cantor (medium-voice), soprano, contralto, choir (SATB) and organ
- (1958) Avodat Shabbat (Friday Evening Service), for cantor (high or medium voice), choir (SATB) and organ
- (1959) Three Sacred Songs, for high voice and organ or piano (Texts in Hebrew and English from the Hebrew liturgy)
- (1960) Psalm 23Psalm 23In the 23rd Psalm in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the writer describes God as his Shepherd. The text, beloved by Jews and Christians alike, is often alluded to in popular media and has been set to music....
, for high voice and flute - (1961) Litany of Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron, Eleh eskeroh (This, I will remember), for cantor (tenor or baritone), choir (SATB) and piano or organ
- (1962) Sinfonia No. 3 (Sounds and motions), for organ
- (1962) Kol nidre, for cantor, optional mixed choir and organ
- (1962) Kol nidre, for organ
- (1962–1965) Sinfonia No. 4: The TetragrammatonTetragrammatonThe term Tetragrammaton refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible.-Hebrew Bible:...
, for organ and orchestra - (1962, rev. 1983) Kol nidre, for cello and organ (Used in 1968 as the 2nd movement of Un'saneh tokef (Days of Awe))
- (1963) Entreat me not, for contralto, choir (SATB) and organ or piano (Text from Ruth 1:16)
- (1964) Sinfonia No. 5: On poetry by Nelly Sachs, for organ
- (1964) Sing joyfully, for choir (SATB), organ and obligato trumpet (Texts from Psalm 81Psalm 81Psalm 81 is the 81st psalm in the biblical Book of Psalms.-Judaism:*The psalm is recited in its entirety in the Shir Shel Yom of Thursday.*Is recited on Rosh Hashanah in some traditions....
and the High Holiday Prayerbook) - (1964) Shofar Service, for shofarShofarA shofar is a horn, traditionally that of a ram, used for Jewish religious purposes. Shofar-blowing is incorporated in synagogue services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.Shofar come in a variety of sizes.- Bible and rabbinic literature :...
, tenor or baritone, choir (SATB), two trumpets and organ (Used in 1968 as 1st movement of Un'saneh tokef (Days of Awe)) - (1965) Elegy: In memory of Albert EinsteinAlbert EinsteinAlbert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, for organ - (1966) The earth is the Lord's, CharlestonCharleston, South CarolinaCharleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
Festival cantata, for choir (SATB), baritone, soprano, contralto, organ, 2 trumpets and percussion - (1967, rev. 1986) And her children rise up and call her blessed, cantata for soprano, contralto, baritone, tenor, choir (SATB), percussion, timpani, harp, harpsichord and organ (Texts from The Bible, the Union Prayer BookUnion Prayer BookThe Union Prayer Book was a siddur published by the Central Conference of American Rabbis to serve the needs of the Reform Judaism movement in the United States.-History:...
, Chaya Feldman's Last Letter and The diary of a young girlThe Diary of a Young GirlThe Diary of a Young Girl is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944 and Anne Frank ultimately died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen...
by Anne FrankAnne FrankAnnelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
) - (1968, rev. 1985) Un'saneh tokef (Days of Awe), cantata for narrator, tenor or baritone, choir (SATB), clarinet, trumpets, organ, timpani, percussion and shofar (Text by Meshullam ben KalonymusKalonymus Ben MeshullamKalonymus Ben Meshullam was a French Jew of the Kalonymos family.He was head of the Jewish community of Mainz at the time of the German Crusade, 1096. He is said to have sent a messenger to King Henry IV in Italy, in consequence of which the king promulgated an order throughout his realm to the...
) - (1968–1972, rev. 1984–1985) Job, a music drama for two speaking voices, five soloists, choir (SATB) and orchestra (Texts from The Bible (Soncino EditionSoncino Books of the BibleThe Soncino Books of the Bible is a set of Hebrew Bible commentaries, covering the whole Tanakh in fourteen volumes, published by the Soncino Press. The first volume to appear was Psalms in 1945, and the last was Chronicles in 1952. The series was edited by Rev. Dr...
), The Book of Job by Moses Buttenwieser, and the poetry of Nelly Sachs) - (1968, rev. 1979) Sinfonia No. 6: Prayers for the night, for organ, strings and timpani
- (1972) Sinfonia No. 8: Eliyahu (Theme and variations on the traditional PassoverPassoverPassover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
tune Eliyahu ha-nav), for organ ((1995–1996) Scored as a symphonic poem for large orchestra) - (1974) Sinfonia No. 9: After Herman Hesse's Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game), for narrator, contralto, organ, ten instruments, percussion and timpani
- (1975–1976) Sinfonia No. 10, for cello and organ
- (1975) The death of RachelRachelRachel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, is a prophet and the favorite wife of Jacob, one of the three Biblical Patriarchs, and mother of Joseph and Benjamin. She was the daughter of Laban and the younger sister of Leah, Jacob's first wife...
, cantata for narrator, baritone, soprano, organ and bells (Text from Genesis) - (1976) David's harp, cantata for choir (SATB), baritone and organ (Text by Victor E. Reichert)
- (1978) Sinfonia No. 11 for violin and organ
- (1979–80) Dost thou sleep, my brother AbelCain and AbelIn the Hebrew Bible, Cain and Abel are two sons of Adam and Eve. The Qur'an mentions the story, calling them the two sons of Adam only....
?, song cycle for soprano, flute and cello (Texts by Peretz Hirschbein, Itzik MangerItzik MangerItzik Manger was a prominent Yiddish poet and playwright, a self-proclaimed folk bard, visionary, and ‘master tailor’ of the written word...
, Isaac Leib Peretz, Kadya Molodowskyhttp://jhom.com/personalities/kadya_molodowsky/index.htm, A. Lutzky, Rachel H. Korn, Jacob Isaac Segal, Karl WolfskehlKarl WolfskehlKarl Wolfskehl was a German Jewish author who wrote poetry, prose and drama in German. He also translated from French, English, Italian, Hebrew, Latin and Middle High German into German....
, Eliyahu Rudiakow, and Lottie Rudiakow) - (1980) A Psalm of unity, for mixed choir, organ, soprano, two contraltos and mezzo-soprano (Text from Psalm 140Psalm 140Psalm 140 is the 140th psalm from the Book of Psalms. It describes putting one's trust in God while threatened with evil....
and Psalm 133Psalm 133Psalm 133 is the 133rd psalm from the Book of Psalms. It is one of 15 psalms that begins with the words "A song of ascents" .-Judaism:...
) - (1980–1995) Etz Chayyim (Tree of Life), oratorio for two actors, narrator, dancers, soprano, contralto, baritone, choir (SATB) and chamber orchestra (Text included poetry by Paul Celan, Kadya Molodowsky, Nelly Sachs, Karl Wolfskehl, and Jules Wein, and excerpts from the Kaballah and the High Holiday Prayerbook) (In the 1995 revision, Berlinski included sections from The Beadle of Prague (1983))
- (1983) Ein Musikalischer Spass, theme and variations from W.A. Mozart’s Dorfmusikanten-Sextett, K. 5
- (1983) The Beadle of Prague (Later adapted to become part of the 1995 revision of Etz Chayyim (see 1980–1995))
- (1983) Adagietto for flute and organ
- (1985) Sonata for violin and piano: Le violon de Chagall
- (1988) Shevirath ha-kelim (The Breaking of the Vessels), a piyyutPiyyutA piyyut or piyut is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during religious services. Piyyutim have been written since Temple times...
for organ, soprano, vibraphoneVibraphoneThe vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
, drum, cymbals and gong - (1988) The Trumpets of Freedom, oratorio for narrator, soprano, contralto, tenor, bass, choir (SATB), children’s choir; orchestra, organ and harpsichord (Text from the Book of Maccabees and the High Holiday Prayerbook)
- (1990) Maskir Neshamot (In Remembrance of the Soul), memorial cantata for soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone, flute, percussion, string quartet and organ
- (1993) Das Gebet Bonhoeffers (The Prayer of Bonhoeffer) (Part of Bonhoeffer-Triptychon), cantata for soprano, baritone, choir (SATB), flute, cello, organ, celesta, vibraphone, crotalesCrotalesthumb|right|Crotales are often used with other mallet percussionCrotales , sometimes called antique cymbals, are percussion instruments consisting of small, tuned bronze or brass disks. Each is about 4 inches in diameter with a flat top surface and a nipple on the base. They are commonly...
and gongs (Text from the Song of SongsSong of songsSong of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It may also refer to:In music:* Song of songs , the debut album by David and the Giants* A generic term for medleysPlays...
(Buber-Rosenzweig translation); Psalm 103Psalm 103Psalm 103 is the 103rd psalm from the Book of Psalms . The first verse attributes it to King David, the author of many Psalms. J.A...
(Buber-Rosenzweig translation) and Widerstand und Ergebung by Dietrich Bonhoeffer) - (1992–1994) Concerto for cello and orchestra
- (1993) Hiob, oratorio (Version in German of Job (1968–1972))
- (1997) Variations on the Song "Allnächtlich im Traume", Op. 86 No. 4 by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, for violin, cello and piano
- (2000) Sinfonia No. 12: Die heiligen Zehn Gebote (These Holy Ten Commandments), for tenor, baritone, narrator, chorus, two trumpets, percussion, celeste and organ (Text from the Ten Commandments, the High Holiday Prayerbook and the History of the three good acts by Isaac Leib Peretz)
- (2001) Celan, for piano and narrator (Poetry by Paul Celan is read by the narrator between each of the work's 13 movements)
- (2001) Quintet for clarinet and string quartet
- (2001) Psalm 130Psalm 130Psalm 130 , traditionally De profundis from its Latin incipit, is one of the Penitential psalms.-Commentary:...
(Shir hamaaloth), for choir (SATB, mezzo-soprano, narrator, trumpet solo and organ
Recorded Works
- Adagietto for flute and organ
- Frances Shelly, flute; Steven Egler, organ (Summit RecordsSummit RecordsSummit Records, Inc. is an internationally distributed record label that evolved out of the dynamic large brass ensemble, Summit Brass in the late 1980s...
http://www.summitrecords.com/ CD-174)
- Frances Shelly, flute; Steven Egler, organ (Summit Records
- Avodat Shabbat (Friday Evening Service)
- Robert BrubakerRobert Brubaker (tenor)Robert Brubaker is an American operatic tenor. Born in Manheim, Pennsylvania, he is an alumnus of the Hartt College of Music. He began his career at the New York City Opera as a baritone in the opera chorus...
, tenor; Constance HaumanConstance HaumanConstance Hauman is a soprano. She attended Northwestern University. Constance Hauman is credited with having the only live recording of Alban Berg's Lulu in the title role; recorded in Copenhagen 1996 at the Queen of Denmark's Castle...
, soprano; Elizabeth Shammashhttp://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=48, mezzo-soprano; Ernst Senff Choirhttp://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/artists.taf?artistid=47; Berlin Radio Symphony OrchestraBerlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (East Berlin)The Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Berlin, Germany. In Berlin, the orchestra gives concerts at theKonzerthaus Berlin and at the Berliner Philharmonie...
; Gerard SchwarzGerard SchwarzGerard Schwarz is an American conductor. He was music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 2011.In 2007 Schwarz was named music director of the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina, having served as principal conductor since 2005...
, conductor (NaxosNaxos RecordsNaxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...
http://www.naxos.com/ 8.559430)
- Robert Brubaker
- Das Gebet Bonhoeffers (The Prayer of Bonhoeffer)
- Nancy Gibsonhttp://www.nancygibson.de/, soprano; Matthias Weicherthttp://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Weichert-Matthias.htm, bass; Olaf Georgi, flute; Bernhardt Hentrichhttp://www.celloallein.de/, cello; Holger Mierschhttp://www.holger-miersch.de/, celesta; Hermann Berlinski, organ; Martin Homann, percussion; Dresden Chamber Choirhttp://www.dresdner-kammerchor.de/; Hans-Christoph Rademann:de:Hans-Christoph Rademann, conductor (Vienna Modern Mastershttp://www.xs4all.nl/~gdv/vmm/VMM 3027)
- From the World of my Father: Suite No 1 (Chazoth)
- Seattle SymphonySeattle SymphonyThe Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra's season runs from September through July, and serves as the pit orchestra for most productions of the Seattle Opera in addition to its own concerts...
; Gerard Schwarz, conductor (Naxos 8.559446)
- Seattle Symphony
- From the World of My Father: Suite No 2 (Dialogues)
- Steven HonigbergSteven HonigbergSteven Honigberg is an American cellist. He is a member of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Potomac String Quartet, and solos frequently; he is also known as a well-reviewed performer from David Ott's premier of Concerto for Two Cellos. From 1994-2002, Honigberg served as chamber music...
, cello; Carol Honigberghttp://www.eroica.com/honigberg-artists.html, piano (Albany TROY157)
- Steven Honigberg
- Shevirath Ha-kelim (The Breaking of the Vessels)
- Steven C. Berkehttp://www.tbespringfield.org/bethel/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=114&Itemid=199, hazzan; Elizabeth S. Berkehttp://www.tbespringfield.org/bethel/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=114&Itemid=199, cantor; Kathinka Lorger, organ; Fabio Romano:de:Fabio Romano, piano (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 05472 77388 2 1)
- Return, a song cycle for baritone & piano
- Donald Boothman, baritone; Herman Berlinski, piano (CRI NWCR839)
- Shofar Service
- BBC SingersBBC SingersThe BBC Singers are the professional chamber choir of the BBC. As one of six BBC Performing Groups, the 24-voiced choir has been in existence for more than 80 years. The BBC Singers have commissioned and premiered works by the leading composers of the past century, including Benjamin Britten, Sir...
; Ted ChristopherTed ChristopherTed Christopher , from Plainville, CT is an American racing driver who has raced and won in many different types of race cars, including Modifieds, SK Modifieds, Camping World East Series, Late Models, Pro Stocks, Midgets, and Supermodifieds. He has also raced in NASCAR's Sprint Cup, Nationwide...
, baritone; James Ghigi, trumpet; Stephen Keavy, trumpet; Tim Roseman, shofar; Christopher Bowers-BroadbentChristopher Bowers-Broadbent-Biography:He was a chorister in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, and went on to study organ and composition at the Royal Academy of Music, where he was taught by Arnold Richardson and Richard Rodney Bennett. His made his debut at the Camden Festival in 1966; his first major recitals were at...
, organ; Avner Itaihttp://www.naxos.com/person/Avner_Itai/30670.htm, conductor (Naxos 8.559446)
- BBC Singers
- Sinfonia No. 10 for cello & organ
- Lori Barnett, cello; Herman Berlinski, organ (CRIComposers Recordings, Inc.Composers Recordings, Inc. was an American record label dedicated to the recording of contemporary classical music by American composers. It was founded in 1954 by Otto Luening, Douglas Moore, and Oliver Daniel, and based in New York City....
http://www.newworldrecords.org/ NWCR839)
- Lori Barnett, cello; Herman Berlinski, organ (CRI
- Sonata for flute and piano
- Jody Schwarzhttp://www.musicofremembrance.org/jody-schwarz, flute; Mina Millerhttp://www.musicofremembrance.org/mina-miller, piano (Innova Recordings IN578)
- The Burning Bush
- Catharine Crozierhttp://pipedreams.publicradio.org/articles/crozier/catharine_crozier.shtml, organ (Fleur de Lis CD-FL-0601-2)
- Barbara HarbachBarbara HarbachBarbara Harbach is a composer, harpsichordist, organist and teacher. Since 2004, she has been Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis...
, organ (Naxos 8.559446) - Herndon Spillmanhttp://www.music.lsu.edu/Faculty/spillman.html, organ (Titanic RecordsTitanic RecordsTitanic Records is a record label founded in 1973 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It was one of the pioneers in the recording of early music on period instruments...
Ti-205)
- Symphonic Visions for Orchestra
- Barcelona Symphony and Catalonia National Orchestra; Gerard Schwarz, conductor (Naxos 8.559446)
- Asahi Orchestra of Tokyo; Richard Korn, conductor (CRI NWCRL115)
External links
- Berlsinski, Herman (Interview by Neil W. Levin and Barry Serota). Herman Berlinski, Pt. 1: Family Backgroud and Early Years. Recorded archive held by the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music (MAAJM).http://www.milkenarchive.org/people/view/all/525/Berlinski,+Herman#/voices/view/6
- Berlinski, Herman (Interview by Neil W. Levin and Barry Serota). Herman Berlinski, Pt. 2: The French Years. Recorded archive held by the MAAJM.http://www.milkenarchive.org/people/view/all/525/Berlinski,+Herman#/voices/view/7
- Frohbieter, Ann Williams. The early organ sinfonias of Herman Berlinski. DMA Thesis, Rice University, 2001http://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/17964/3021122.PDF?sequence=1
- Milken Archive of American Jewish Music (MAAJM)http://www.milkenarchive.org/people/view/all/525/Herman+Berlinski
- Naxos biographical noteshttp://www.naxos.com/person/Herman_Berlinski/21889.htm
- The Herman Berlinski Music Collection (HBMC) at The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York (JTSA)http://www.jtsa.edu/The_Library/Collections/Archives/Music_Archives/Berlinski.xml
- The Library of Congress (TLC), A Life in Music: Herman Berlinski Donates Collection to Libraryhttp://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0109/berlinski.html