FROM JEWISH LIFE – MUSIC OF ERNEST BLOCH

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

YEVGENY DOKSHANSKY, CLARINET

RICHARD MASTERS, PIANO

HERITAGE RECORDS (HTGCD 158)

www.heritagerecords.com 

From Jewish Life, B. 54 (1924)

Two Pieces, B. 82 (1951)

Suite Hebraique, B. 83 (1951)

Suite, B. 41 (1919)

All works transcribed by Yevgeny Dokshansky

Engineered, recorded, edited, mixed, and mastered by Scott Hannenberg

Producer: Benjamin Wyatt

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959), Swiss-born, naturalized American, fertile composer, scholarly academic and revered teacher, gifted amateur photographer, devoted family man, and fervently faithful Jew is the author of the music selected by Belorussian clarinetist Yevgeny Dokshansky for the album FROM JEWISH LIFE – MUSIC OF ERNEST BLOCH.

Dokshansky, a superb clarinetist has faithfully adapted Bloch’s From Jewish Life; Two Pieces, B. 82; Suite Hebraique; and his Suite, B. 41 to be played on his clarinet with idiomatic success. Bloch’s music in this album ranges from mid-career works dating back to 1919 to fully mature works composed while the composer was in his sixties.

Throughout all four of these compositions one can hear the composer’s fascination with Ashkenazy music both sacred and secular, some clearly modal in its use of exotic scales, some flirting with atonality, some lyrical, some intensely dramatic, all of it uniquely original and compelling.

In collaboration with his pianist, the formidable Richard Masters, Dokshansky summons dulcet sounds from his sympathetic instrument, both artists quickly convincing the listener that this is the best way that this music should be played.

Scott Hannenberg has engineered Benjamin Wyatt’s elegantly produced album with amplitude and clarity.

Rafael de Acha       ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”