Chamber Works by Alberto Hemsi

by ARC Ensemble

Overview

This release, part of the Chandos label's excellent Music in Exile series, will be absolutely essential for lovers and students of Jewish music; Alberto Hemsi's works are rarely recorded except for, sometimes, the Coplas Sefardias, Op. 30, three excerpts of which are heard here. However, its appeal is spreading far beyond the Jewish music community, and indeed, the ARC Ensemble has no special connection to Jewish music. The album hit classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2022. Hemsi's background is unusual and remarkable. He was a member of the Sephardic Jewish diaspora created when Isabella and Ferdinand expelled Spain's Jewish population in 1492. These exiles maintained their traditions as far away as Anatolia in what is now Turkey, where Hemsi was born in 1898, but during Hemsi's lifetime, owing to the currents of world events, they became threatened. Hemsi grew up partly in Alexandria, Egypt, and lived later in Italy and France. Observing what was happening in his home city, he set out to collect Sephardic music that had been passed down orally for centuries and to incorporate it into modern compositions. The results are extraordinarily artful. Hemsi has been compared with Bartok, but his music does not have quite the same abstract rigor Bartok derived from folk materials. Nor is it pure Romantic nationalism. Ralph Vaughan Williams or Zoltan Kodaly might be a better comparison, or one could even say Hemsi's music rests in a sweet spot between those two. The haunting quality of the Sephardic melodies is retained, but the treatment of them is elegant and fresh. All of the music is enjoyable, but the Quintet, Op. 28, with a solo viola carrying the Sephardic material against fairly dense counterpoint in the other instruments, is a standout and deserves much wider exposure. It is to be hoped that this fine Chandos release will bring just that. ~ James Manheim

Product Details

Release Date:	10/14/2022
Label:	CHANDOS
UPC:	0095115224328

Tracks

1. Méditation (dans le style arménien), for cello & piano, Op. 16
2. Quintet for 2 violins, 2 violas & cello, Op. 28
3. Pilpúl Sonata, for violin & piano, Op. 27
4. Arie Antiche (3) from "Coplas Sefardies", for string quartet, Op. 30
5. Danze nuziali greche, for cello & piano, Op. 37bis

Album Credits

Performance Credits

ARC Ensemble   Primary Artist,Ensemble
Steven Dann   Viola
Emily Kruspe   Violin

Technical Credits

Francis Marchal   Liner Note Translation
David Frost   Recording Producer,Editing
Simon Wynberg   Artistic Director,Liner Notes
Carl Talbot   Editing,Engineer
Silas Brown   Mastering Engineer
Alberto Hemsi   Composer
Finn S. Gundersen   Booklet Editor
Andreas Klatt   Liner Note Translation
Ralph Couzens   Executive Producer
Sue Shortridge   A&R
Cass Cassidy   Design,Typesetting
Kevin Fallis   Assistant Engineer
Alexander James   Mastering