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VA - A Hanukka Celebration (2003)  Music

Posted by delpotro at Oct. 22, 2017
VA - A Hanukka Celebration (2003)

VA - A Hanukka Celebration (2003)
EAC Rip | FLAC (tracks+log+.cue) | Digital booklet | 01:12:59 | 322 Mb
Classical, Vocal | Label: Milken Family Foundation, Naxos

The musical works on this disc are all quite lovely and moving; yet somehow, they seem oddly incongruent with the festival they are intended to celebrate. The one song most closely associated with Hannuka is Ma 'oz Tzur (aka Rock of Ages and/or O Mighty Fortress, references to the Holy Temple), and it is universally sung to a well-known traditional melody. Here, in a setting by Aaron Miller (1911-2000), arranged by Neil Levin, it is not only the shortest track on the disc, but it is presented in Yiddish rather than Hebrew, and in a Klezmer-like setting that is nothing at all like its familiar tune. Not until the concluding section of Samuel Adler's The Flames of Freedom do we hear the traditional melody, but set against a piano accompaniment that takes a decidedly non-traditional turn in its harmony.