Music
Kavanah, by Cappella Amsterdam and Alberto Mizrahi, conducted by David Porcelijn. December 11, Korzo Theater, The Hague. Tour: Groningen (15), Amsterdam (17), Utrecht (18), Rotterdam (21) and Den Bosch (12/22). Radio 4: Januari 11.

It is always a bit risky to bring sacred music into the concert hall, but on Sunday evening the audience in Korzo reacts enthusiastic to the passionate song of Alberto Mizrahi, and he gets clearly carried away himself as well. Mizrahi is the cantor or chazzan of the Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago, and is according to Jewish cantorial standards a world star. He is at the same time the main character of the program Kavanah, a production of the Korzo Theater, in which traditional cantorial music is connected to new notes. Composer Vanessa Lann, who wrote especially for this group a piece with the title Illuminating Aleph, has a good sense for the musical language of the chazzan. It results however in vehement, but sweet suspense with many excessive repetitions, tremulous plucked instruments and other ingredients that actually don’t differ much from the ones of a little orchestra in an Hungarian restaurant, although a bit more complex. The two new compositions are being framed by shorter Jewish-liturgical pieces that prove musical assimilation ability. The Renaissance idiom that Salomone Rossi uses in his four centuries old psalm arrangement is beautiful, even more surprising is the mix of traditional chazzan-song and the tickling blue notes that Kurt Weill processed in his Kiddush.

With Kavanah (Tefilat Erev Shabat) Benedict Weisser, who like Lann was born in New York but has lived in the Netherlands for a long time, has prepared a challenging piece for Mizrahi. Weisser composes in The Hague School with cluster-like chords and alternating kicking rhythms, sharply dosed. It is good to hear that Weisser, himself a grandson of a cantor, imposes his will on the material while at the same time doing justice to the extended cantillations of Jewish traditional song. He found in Mizrahi the best advocate for this music one can think of.