Art Choral Vol.10: Hallelujah
Ensemble Artchoral; Matthias Maute
ATMA ACD22429 (atmaclassique.com/en/product/art-choral-vol-10-hallelujah)
Ensemble ArtChoral, one of the pre-eminent choirs in Canada, have been active for 40 years and are now the resident choir of Montreal’s Maison de Musique. This is the tenth volume of the ATMA series of recordings under the direction of Matthias Maute who has been at the helm since 2019. The other volumes are each devoted to a single focus, such as Renaissance, Classical, or Modern repertoire, and here the programme consists of Jewish a cappella music. The pieces all have texts that specifically relate to Jewish themes and all the composers were Jewish.
The best known item will probably be a setting by André von der Merwe of Leonard Cohen’s almost ubiquitous Hallelujah. This is now the choral version of the iconic anthem to own.
Seven other composers are represented with all the polish, panache, and dynamic range one could want. The Halevy piece is a setting of part of a Jewish service, with a very florid tenor Cantor part, for which they are joined by Gideon Zelermyer, an actual Cantor with the necessarily large vibrato one hears in Jewish worship. There is a piece by Meyerbeer, but the most characterful are the five pieces by Montreal composer Rona Nadler, who also wrote the album notes. Her pieces are in Hebrew and Yiddish and present well contrasted fragments of Jewish life.
Ernst Bloch, Leonard Bernstein and Kurt Weill also have pieces, and there are five items by the 16th century Salamone Rossi of settings in Hebrew of the Songs of Solomon in four to six parts. These performances with the lithe youthful sound of only 12 voices are compelling.
Sound and technical production are ideal, recorded in a church in Mirabel Quebec in January 2023. I only wish the program could have been longer.
