Born in 1905, Eric Zeisl fled Austria in 1938, coming to the United States, and committing himself to applying his mastery of classical compositional technique to commemorating the destroyed Jewish European heritage. He met Benjamin Zemach at the then new Brandeis-Bardin Institute, where Zemach headed the dance and theater department. The two men set out to create two biblical ballets, one of which, Jacob and Rachel, is performed on this recording. Zemach expertly distilled the dramatic elements of the old stories into scenes, and Zeisl composed the music -- his forte was exactly that, depicting characters, actions and emotions in music. The second work on this recording, Variations on a Slovakian Folk Song, derives its theme from a book of folksongs called Slowakisch. The translation of the text is: Lord God mine, Father mine, give the world your light and justice. Every day your poor servant suffers terribly. The mission of the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony is to perform orchestral works of well-known as well as not widely recognized Jewish composers. The LAJS is the only orchestra in America dedicated to the performance and preservation of orchestral works of distinction that explore Jewish culture, heritage, and experience. Led by artistic director Noreen Green, who founded the orchestra in 1994, the LAJS celebrates the richness of Jewish music, sharing it with diverse audiences. Dr. Green is known worldwide for her knowledge and skill in presenting music with Jewish themes. She has served as guest conductor in the United States, Israel, South Africa, Australia, and Canada. In 2017, Musical America recognized her as one of its Movers & Shapers the Top 30 Musical America Professionals of the Year.
The Biblical story of Jacob and Rachel is one of deception, bait-and-switch,
wife-swapping, jealous rivalries, and sex, sex, and more sex. It’s like a whole
season of Marriage Boot Camp rolled into a single chapter.
Jacob meets and falls hopelessly in love with Rachel, so much so that he agrees
to indenture himself for seven years to Laban, Rachel’s father, in exchange for
being allowed to marry her. But Laban is a double-dealer. On the day of the
nuptials, he substitutes his elder daughter, Leah, Rachel’s sister, under the
wedding canopy. Jacob, unable to see the bride’s veiled face, ends up marrying
Leah instead of his beloved Rachel. Laban’s excuse is that according to custom,
it’s the right of the older daughter to wed first. But conniving Laban makes
Jacob a deal he can’t refuse. If he agrees to work for Laban for another seven
years, he can have Rachel’s hand in marriage as well.
What could possibly go wrong? Well, for starters, Jacob doesn’t love Leah; he
never did. But Rachel is unable to conceive and bear him children, and that’s a
very bad thing in a culture that places the value of progeny above all else.
Leah, on the other hand has no problem in that department, and while Jacob may
not love her as he loves Rachel, she nonetheless pops out four sons for him.
Rachel isn’t happy with that situation at all. So, she gives her handmaid Bilhah
to Jacob to serve as a surrogate birth mother on her behalf. Bilhah bears Jacob
two more sons, Dan and Naphtali. Well, now Leah isn’t having any of that. Two
can play the same game. So, she now gives her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob to serve
as surrogate mother on her behalf. Seems rather ungracious of her, doesn’t it?
She already gave birth to four sons of her own. Why should she begrudge her
sister? Anyway, Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid, now bears Jacob yet another two sons,
Gad and Asher. After all of this begetting, and Leah herself becoming pregnant
again, lo and behold, Rachel miraculously becomes fertile and bears Jacob a son,
Joseph, who, being the sole fruit of Rachel’s womb, will be Jacob’s favorite
son.
All in all, Jacob fathered 12 sons, each of whom became the leader of one of the
12 Tribes of Israel. I’m sure there’s more than one takeaway from this story,
which begins in Genesis, Chapter 29, but here’s what I find curious. What are
the odds of fathering 12 sons and only one daughter, Dinah? That must have been
some very special sperm!
American danseur and choreographer Benjamin Zemach (1901–1997) recast this
narrative in a libretto of his own making, choreographed it in 20 short tableaux
or vignettes, and then collaborated with Eric Zeisl in 1954 to compose the music
for the ballet Jacob and Rachel. An unusual feature, for a ballet, is that six
numbers of Zemach’s libretto are spoken by a narrator over an orchestral
accompaniment, and a seventh, “The Promise,” is sung in a manner that straddles
the divide between recitativo stromentato and aria. All vocal sections are
performed by baritone Michael Sokol.
As Noreen Green noted in our interview, “Zeisl’s music is richly tonal, steering
clear of the more Modernistic tendencies of his contemporaries.” It does,
however, employ all of the trappings of a good cinematic score: colorful
orchestration produced by unusual and unexpected combinations of instruments;
irregular, nervous rhythms, where called, for to heighten suspense and tension;
applied dissonance, as appropriate, to intensify dramatic confrontation and
strife; and a number of soothing, lyrical interludes intended to portray Rachel
and Jacob’s attraction to her on first meeting.
It should be noted, though, that Zemach’s chronicling of the Biblical narrative
tells only the first half of the story. It ends with Laban’s duping Jacob into
marrying Leah instead of Rachel, and Jacob’s agreeing to work seven more years
for Rachel’s hand. The curtain falls, now as God intones “The Promise” to Jacob,
“I will bless thee and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens and
as the sands upon the seashore, and in they seed shall all the nations of the
earth be blessed.”
I suspect that seeing Zeisl’s Jacob and Rachel staged live with its choreography
would make for an even more moving experience than simply listening to it on
disc. There is some wonderful and very beautiful music here, and Noreen Green
leads the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony in a memorable performance that captures
all of the score’s wide-ranging emotional dimensions, from discord and conflict
to loving tenderness and even awe in the presence of God.
If you didn’t know that the Variations on a Slovakian Folk Song was based on a
Slovakian tune, and that the piece was composed by Eric Zeisl, originally in
1930 as the fourth movement of his First String Quartet, and subsequently
expanded for string orchestra in 1937, you might think you were listening to
something by Tchaikovsky, up to a point anyway. At least one of the variations,
namely the fourth, finds itself in 20th-century territory—Hindemith perhaps—but
for the most part, Zeisl’s Variations have their roots in late 19th-century
Romantic soil.
The Fifth Variation, for example, with its pizzicato accompaniment and lilting
waltz-like melody (though it’s not technically a waltz) is again a bit
reminiscent of Tchaikovsky, with a few “sour” harmonic twists thrown in to
season the broth that are more lighthearted and amusing than sad or bitter. The
violin solo in the final variation, beautifully played by concertmaster Mark
Kashper, could come right out of a 19th-century, Eastern European shtetl.
Well done all around, and a strong recommendation well deserved.
Jerry Dubins, Fanfare Magazine
What a magnificent discovery! Eric Zeisl (1905–1959) was born in Vienna, leaving
for Paris in 1938 to find refuge and finally finding his way to America in
September 1939. He died at the early age of 53, suffering a heart attack after
teaching an evening class at Los Angeles City College. As a teacher, one of his
students was Jerry Goldsmith. Readers are most likely to have encountered his
Requiem Ebraico, recorded by Decca as part of its Entartete Musik series, and
also by BIS on a disc entitled Remembrance.
Charm, skill, and Zeisl’s obvious aptitude for musical depiction characterize
Jacob and Rachel. My colleague Jerry Dubins provides a fine and sometimes
humorous précis of the story in his review accompanying his interview around
this disc. Despite the singing (one movement) and narrations (times six), there
is no doubt about the dance credentials of the score: The movement “Rachel
Appears” could only be from a ballet. There is a hint of the dynamic of
Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale in the overlapping of voice and instrumental
ensemble at “Slaves at Work,” an echo perhaps underscored by Zeisl’s expert
writing for, and clear liking of, the winds. A splendidly imaginative theme and
four variations nestles within this work; one wonders how many treasures would
be unearthed by close study of the score itself.
Conductor Noreen Green, the artistic director, conductor, and founder of the Los
Angeles Jewish Symphony (LAJS), clearly loves this score. She finds the darkness
(“Leah’s Dance of Jealousy,” the third variation of that set mentioned above) as
well as the power in it, a power sustained by an unflagging concentration. The
performance is remarkably alive (try the infectious rhythms of “The Wedding
Ceremony”) and captured in vivid sound. Michael Sokol is superb as the narrator,
and likewise as a full-throated baritone in the one sung number, “The Promise,”
where the long lines of “I am the God, the God of Abraham, thy Father” shine out
resplendently. The movement “Morning, Discovery of the Betrayal” is astonishing:
descriptive of the dramatic scenario, certainly, but scored with such
imagination, garlanding the lower instruments with high woodwinds like shards of
shattered glass.
The sheer weight of string sound that opens the Variations on a Slovakian Folk
Song (the theme is marked Lento, Grave) gives the impression of an Atlas with
the world on his shoulders. An explanation for this comes with a translation of
the words for the theme, as follows: “Lord God mine, Father mine, give the world
your light and justice. Every day your servant suffers terribly.” Originally the
fourth movement of Zeisl’s First String Quartet, the piece covers a great deal
of ground. The marcato fourth variation, with its unstoppable rhythm, is
particularly powerful, the performance here unstoppable, as if powered by
gritted-teeth determination; the balletic Allegretto, quasi Serenade which
follows could hardly be more different, and how charmingly it is done. Mark
Kashper’s eloquent violin graces the work’s final variation; the close is far
from restful, however, with the brightness of the LAJS’s upper strings only
emphasizing its angst.
Documentation is incredibly generous, with a conductor’s note, notes by E.
Randol Schoenberg, and a reproduction of “Realization of the Ballet,” an
historical document by choreographer Benjamin Zemach.
Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine
The Music of Eric Zeisl