Violin Suites

Chamber Recording of the Month BBC Music Magazine (March 2007)

"Both composers are served extremely well on this beautifully recorded disc, Hagai Shaham and Arnon Erez in particular giving a totally convincing performance of Bloch's well-known Baal Shem … The overall impact is all the more powerful for the sure sense of pacing both artists demonstrate through the recital"
(BBC Music)

"Insightful, expressive, and thoroughly idiomatic. An articulate and important statement about both composers' work. Reservations concerning actual recordings should be seen in that light"
(MusicWeb March 2007)

'Intoxicating performances guaranteed to set the pulse racing' is how Hagai Shaham's first disc of Bloch's music for violin and piano was received by BBC Music Magazine. With this new release Shaham completes his survey and adds Bloch's best-known work for violin and piano, his Baal Shem Suite. The disc includes other suites by Bloch and music by Israeli-born composer Paul Ben-Haïm, including his popular Berceuse sfaradite.

The Baal Shem Suite, composed in 1923, is unmistakably Bloch, and one of his best-known works for violin and piano. It was inspired by Israel Baal Shem Tov, the eighteenth-century founder of modern Hassidism, a mystical movement that arose in Eastern Europe as a reaction against traditional Jewish Orthodoxy, and which placed great emphasis upon song, dance and ecstasy as channels for direct communication with God. Bloch recreates the feeling of ecstatic religious chanting and spiritual intensity with his use of deeply emotional Jewish-tinged melodies, gutsy rhythms and powerful dynamics. Its second movement, Nigun, is in itself a self-standing solo work: a popular choice in standard violin repertoire and with Grade 8 students.

As the centrepiece of this disc we have Bloch's suites for solo violin. Commissioned by-and dedicated to-Yehudi Menuhin, these short works are latter-day Bach Partitas and elaborate exercises in contrapuntal technique: full of passion, virtuosity and rhythmic dynamism.

Paul Ben-Haïm's most popular work recorded here is the beautiful lullaby Berceuse sfaradite; the violin's sensuous lilting melody is repeated in different registers and you can almost picture a balmy Eastern Mediterranean evening.

Hagai Shaham's thrilling virtuosity and lustrous tone are perfectly suited to these vibrant and passionate works.