As the Oratorio Society of New York marches into the new season, I have seriously consider pulling myself out or participate in only Handel's The Messiah piece.
In light of the new work we will be singing, Leonard Bernstein's Kaddish Symphony caught my attention. After reading the score, I find it interesting in a naive way. Nonetheless, the whole reason for me to join the oratorio society is solely because of Handel's The Messiah. It was the skilled and experienced conductor, Kent Tritle, that caused me to stay.
Bernstein is no small artist. He's been thought to be the first great American musician by Dr. Stephen Tong. He has written great musics such as the tracks for West Side Story.
Even for this piece, Kaddish Symphony, requires a second critic. From the words of Bernstein himself:
I have very good luck with my colleagues, they are all so wonderful. Miss Hendricks, my soprano in Kaddish, I think was born to sing that note, that line. It is so fine and sensitive. She has all the breaths under control to sing that very difficult lullaby, and Michael Wager who does the speaking which is no small job. It's a much bigger job than Miss Hendricks because he never stops, he never shuts up. He is, I suppose, my voice and he has a tremendous argument with God, which many people find too strong or maybe even blasphemous. But which is in the old Judaistic tradition. I mean all our great Judaistic personalities of the past including Abraham who founded Judaism, and Moses and the prophets all argued with God. They argued with God the way you argue with somebody who's so close to you that you love so much, that you can really fight. You know how the more you love someone the more you can get angry with them and when you have a reconciliation, the more close you become than ever. Something like that happens in the course of this piece and it takes a really extraordinary actor to be able to perform that. [Intv. w/ NHK TV, Hiroshima Peace Journey, 1985 TC. 24:20]
However, theologically, we know that there's something wrong with this. However naive one wishes to be entertained by it. It would appear that Bernstein was struggling to discover the commonality between God-Man and Man-Man relationships. From the reformed principle, we learn that by faith, it is useless for us to defy God in any matter. Perhaps the day for the children of Israel to return to the arms of Christ is near.
An interesting subject, but I find it futile to indulge myself in this performance.
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