Chamber Works by Alberto Hemsi (CD review)

Danze nuziali greche (Greek Nuptial Dances), Op. 37 for Cello and Piano; Tre arie antiche (dalle ‘Coplas Sefardies’) (Three Ancient Airs, from the Coplas Sefardies) for String Quartet; Pilpúl Sonata, Op. 27 for Violin and Piano; Quintet in G major, Op. 28 for Viola and String Quartet; Méditation, Op. 16 (dans le style arménien) (in Armenian style) for Cello and Piano). ARC Ensemble (Erika Raum, violin; Marie Bérard, violin; Emily Kruspe, violin [Op. 27]; Steven Dann, viola [Op. 28]; Julien Altmann, viola; Tom Webe, cello; Kevin Ahfat, piano). CHANDOS CHAN 20243.

By Karl W. Nehring

Alberto Hemsi (1898-1975) is a composer whose name is doubtless unfamiliar to the vast majority of music lovers; indeed, all of the works on this CD are being given their premier recording. According to the liner notes, “for the greater part of his life, Hemsi lived and composed outside the European mainstream, and researchers and musicians were either unaware of his legacy or unable to access it. This changed in 2004, when the composer’s widow, Miryam Capelluto Hemsi, donated Hemsi’s entire archive to the European Institute of Jewish Music in Paris.” Hemsi was born in what is now Turkey to Sephardic Jewish parents who had recently moved there from Italy. He began to learn music at an early age, then as a teen was sent to live with an uncle in Smyrna, where he studied cantorial music and learned to play flute, clarinet, trombone, and piano. He played in a large wind band run by an Israelite Music Society, the organization which paid his expenses so that he could enroll at the prestigious Verdi Conservatory in Milan, Italy. He then became an Italian citizen, was conscripted into the Italian army, rose to the rank of captain, won medals for bravery, suffering a shrapnel wound to his right arm that diminished his ability to play the piano, and then returned to Milan to complete his musical studies.

During the 1920s he, like other composers such as Bartok, Smetana, and Vaughan Williams, began to study folk melodies. In Hemsi’s case, these were traditional Jewish folk melodies, so he was not restricted to any particular geographic region. “Hemsi was as fascinated by this musical heritage as he was concerned about its survival but, like so many other composers, he also understood how traditional melodies, together with the various performance styles and conventions that supported them, could provide inspiration and nourishment for his own music.”

In 1928, Hemsi and his family moved from Europe to Alexandria, Egypt, where he became the musical director of the Middle East’s largest synagogue. He also taught at Alexandria’s Conservatory, conducted both an orchestra and a choir, and composed music. He moved to Cairo during World War II, returned to Alexandria after the war, but then in 1957 was pressured to leave Egypt as the situation for Egyptian Jews became quite perilous. Hemsi wound up in Paris, directing music at two synagogues, studying at the Sorbonne, and eventually dying of lung cancer in October, 1975.

The ARC Ensemble consists of senior faculty from the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School in Toronto, Canada. They have made a specialty of recovering and recording music that has been suppressed and marginalized under the 20th century’s repressive political regimes, releasing a series of recordings under the heading of “Music in Exile” on the Chandos label, this being the sixth (the others featuring music by composers Paul Ben-Haim, Jerzy Fitelberg, Szymon Laks, Walter Kaufmann, and Dmitri Klebanov). On this CD, they really bring this music to life, playing with passion and commitment.

From the opening notes of the Greek Nuptial Dances for cello and piano, you can feel the folk influence; you can picture a whirling, twirling entourage of wedding celebrants. The music has a playful quality to it that may male you want to dance yourself rather than just sit passively in your favorite listening seat. The Three Ancient Airs for string quartet that follow are a bit less overtly dancelike, but still imbued with melodic energy and bouncy rhythms that will at a minimum have you bobbing your head in time as you listen. This is not heavy-duty, deeply metaphysical string quartet music; rather, it is nine minutes of joy. The Pilpúl Violin Sonata and the Quintet for Viola and String Quartet are longer works, more formally structured, but they still maintain that folk-melodic inspiration that makes them enjoyable to hear. There is an underlying joy to this music that cannot help but lift your spirits. The closing Méditation is more serious in its tone, but not at all somber. It is peaceful, restful, but in no way sad or remorseful.

It is wonderful work that Chandos and the ARC Ensemble are doing in their ongoing “Music in Exile” series of recordings. This is the third one that I have personally encountered; all three have been excellent in all respects – music, engineering, liner notes, art, the whole package. I extend to this and the rest of this series my most enthusiastic recommendation.

KWN