I have heard all too
little of the music of Judith Lang Zaimont.
I can only remember hearing – and enjoying
– some music for piano solo. This included
a striking Piano Sonata and a modern
Nocturne as well as the fascinating
Jupiter’s Moons, complex and
allusive, yet very individual keyboard
writing. She has also written three
symphonies, many choral settings, a
chamber opera for children, music for
wind ensembles and a number of chamber
works (see her website http://www.jzaimont.com/).
This CD from Naxos concentrates on only
one strand in her work, music explicitly
written in response to Jewish traditions.
There is much fine
music here. The excerpts from her Sacred
Service for the Sabbath Evening
are impressive and powerful, but
a little frustrating. The Milken Archive
series often seems to present works
through excerpts; this hasn’t normally
troubled me, but here I was very much
left wanting to hear the whole, to see
how everything cohered. The work was
commissioned in 1976 by the Great Neck
Choral Society and was designed as a
concert work, rather than for liturgical
use. Its idiom is essentially tonal,
with some telling dissonances at several
key points. The choral writing is sophisticated
and quite demanding, though complexity
is never allowed to obscure the texts.
Neil W. Levin’s booklet notes tell us
that "the sixteen movements [six
are presented here] ... appear in three
large sections of five pieces each,
with an epilogue following Part three.
Parts one and two exhibit a dramatic
approach, each concluding with an impressive
choral movement. Part three (not represented
in the recorded excerpts here) has a
more sustained, meditative character".
The comments are tantalising and begin
to suggest something of the extra significance
these extracts might take on if heard
in their proper context. The whole work
would surely have fitted on one CD?
I am tempted to think that I would have
sacrificed the other works on the CD
(not that they are other than interesting)
to hear this entire. The German choir
cope pretty well and James Maddalena
is a convincing soloist.
A Woman of Valor
is a beautifully lyrical piece, in which
the music is closely responsive to the
text (the famous passage in Proverbs
31 which begins "Who can find a
virtuous woman? For her price is above
rubies"). The writing for string
quartet is both elegant and forceful,
and Margaret Kohler is a fresh-voiced
soloist.
Zaimont’s Parable
sets a text created from an adaptation
of the Mystery play ‘Abraham and Isaac’,
Wilfred Owen’s ‘The Parable of the Old
Man and the Young’ and (sung in Hebrew)
the Mourner’s Kaddish. It is a compelling
piece, urgently dramatic; despite one’s
familiarity with Britten’s settings
of some of the same material there is
enough that is distinctive and persuasive
in Zaimont’s work to make one temporarily
forget it. The choral passages drive
the narrative forward, the solo voices
of Abraham and Isaac are more static.
All the soloists are excellent and the
whole is thoroughly impressive. It has
apparently been performed with some
frequency in the USA. This recording
was made in London – has it ever had
a concert performance in the UK? It
deserves one.
Initially, the two
Meditations at the Time of the New
Year seemed to me the weakest pieces
on the CD, but they have grown on me
with later hearings. In the first, ‘Dawn’,
we have a musical meditation on sunrise;
the second ‘Hope’ is both blessing and
prayer. Both make much use of percussion
and the juxtaposition of glockenspiel
and bells with choral voices produces
some unusual effects. The Choral Society
of North America handle some difficult
music very well.
This is one of the
most consistently rewarding of the fascinating
Milken Archive series. So much so that
it leaves one wanting to hear more.
Glyn Pursglove
1 James Maddalena (baritone), Ernst Senff
Choir, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Gerard
Schwarz; 2 Margaret Kohler (soprano),
Everest String Quartet (Stephen Rose and Jeanne
Preucil Rose, violins, Joan DerHovsepian, viola,
Brant Taylor, (cello)/Samuel Adler; 3
Frances Lucey (soprano), John Aler (tenor), Randall
Scarlata (baritone), Harold Lester (harpsichord),
The Ruskin Ensemble, Laudibus Choir/Michael Brewer;
4 Martha Cowan (soprano), Kimball Wheeler
(mezzo-soprano), Theresa Diamond (glockenspiel),
Timm Boatman (tubular bells), Choral Society of
Southern California/Nick Strimple. 
