Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch and performers of his 1923 work Baal Shem—violinist Yehudi Menuhin in particular—collaborated in constructing Bloch’s reputation as a Jewish composer through the evocation of Hasidic song. Each of the three movements of Baal Shem: Three Pictures of Chassidic Life for violin and piano is titled after a Hasidic ritual and the work as a whole draws from the Hasidic song tradition of nigun and its embodiment of religious expression. In the second movement, titled “Nigun,” Bloch evokes the structure of nigun and employs the shteyger (modal scale) Ahavah rabbah, which is associated with Ashkenazi synagogue music and later Yiddish popular song. Bloch also borrows existing melodies in the movement, loosely adapting a preexisting freylekhs tune (a Hasidic dance genre) as well as the concluding notes to a “Sabbath introit,” Shoken Ad. The Jewish musical identity of Baal Shem and the “Nigun” movement in particular is further complicated by Jewish violinists interpreting the work through their own identities, histories, and styles, enacting the concept of the personal spiritual “voice” inherent to the nigun genre. For example, Menuhin’s interpretation incorporates violin techniques of the Jewish and Romany Diasporas, articulating a Jewish identity distinct from Bloch’s. This interplay between composers, performers, and listeners demonstrates the complex ways that Jewish identity is expressed in Western art music.

Works: Ernest Bloch: Baal Shem: Three Pictures of Chassidic Life (799-805)

Sources: Moshe Beregovsky (editor): Freylekhs (799-800, 804); Mark Warshawski: Di Mezinke Oysgegeben (800); Francis L. Cohen (editor): Introit (Sabbath) (802-5)

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet