Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) was a Swiss composer who did more to
establish Jewish themes and musical idiom in to music than any
other composer who could claim Jewish roots was. Whereas many
‘Jewish’ composers composed in idioms that were European, and
only occasionally used Klezma or gypsy themes and sounds (Mahler
for example), Bloch considered it his mission to position the
musical heritage of his people in the fore front of Western
classical music as Bartok and Kodaly had done in Hungary,
Vaughan Williams in the British Isles, Sibelius and Grieg in
Scandinavia, Enescu in Rumania and Copland in America.
Nationalism in music is fine if you have a nation. What if you
are Jewish, and are part of the musical culture of so many
nations – often scared to declare your parentage and origins in
case you were persecuted or killed? The place-less person, or
‘Wondering Jew’ gave Bloch the inspiration to compose what he
termed ‘most unmistakably racial music’. The best known work on
this CD is the striking cello concerto ‘