Track Listing

1. Hatikva - Karl Anton Rickenbacher
2. Old Jerusalem - Ana Maria Martinez
3. Pioneers (Halutzim) - Samuel Adler
4. Hamisha - Vienna Boys Choir
5. Laila Had'Mama - Vienna Boys Choir
6. B'Yom Kayitz - Vienna Boys Choir
7. Laila Pele - Vienna Boys Choir
8. Ma Yafim Halleilot - Vienna Boys Choir
9. Sisu V'Simhu - Vienna Boys Choir
10. Prayer - Karl Anton Rickenbacher
11. Walls Of Zion - Karl Anton Rickenbacher
12. Hora - Karl Anton Rickenbacher
13. Benzion Miller - Jorge Mester
14. River Jordan - Karl Anton Rickenbacher
15. Andante - Karl Anton Rickenbacher
16. Celebration - Karl Anton Rickenbacher
17. Introduction - Samuel Adler
18. Yom Ze L'Ysira'el - Samuel Adler
19. Bammidbar - Samuel Adler
20. Zamm'ri Li - Samuel Adler
21. Shalom L'vo Shabbat - Samuel Adler
22. Yom B'Kibbutz - Gerard Schwarz

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #199966 in Music
• Released on: 2006-04-18
• Number of discs: 1
• Original language: Spanish
• Dimensions: .25 pounds

From Amazon.com
This record celebrates not only Israel but six excellent 20th-century Jewish composers - all émigrés except the American-born Scharf - whose work should be better known: the music is skillfully composed, varied, constantly interesting and appealing. Strangely enough, it is the most-familiar composer's contribution that strikes the only false note: Weill's arrangement of the "Hatikva," now Israel's national anthem. Though its composition has been debated for decades, it is essentially a simple folk-tune which Weill's noisy, overblown orchestration obliterates with "modern" harmonies, brass and percussion. Given the basically mournful, minor-mode-oriented nature of Jewish music, this "celebration" is tinged with yearning, melancholy and nostalgia, though there are some buoyant dances along the way. Highlights include the Austrian pianist-composer Chajes' vocal and orchestral music; in the latter, the oboe becomes a shepherd's pipe, the clarinet a klezmer-player. Fromm's "Yemenite Cycle," scored for voice, flute, harp, and bells, sounds bright, cheerful and simple, like children's songs. Scharf, a film composer, and Secunda, the most-renowned composer of Yiddish popular songs, naturally reveal their stylistic "roots" with music straight out of Hollywood and the musical theater and aimed straight at the heart. The performances are all admirable; the Vienna Boys Choir, of all participants surely the most incongruous, is terrific.     -- Edith Eisler