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Born in Tel Aviv, ABRAHAMKAPLAN (b. 1931) first cameto wide public attention inthe United States followinghis American debut in1962 as a young choraldirector and conductor.He subsequently gainedrecognition as a composeras well. His father, ShlomoKaplan—the son of aneastern European cantorand choir conductor—cameto Israel from Poland in the 1920s and was a prominentchoral conductor and music pedagogue in Israel. Hetaught at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and washead of the music department of the Histadrut (theUnited Federation of Labor Unions of Israel) prior tostatehood and until the end of his life, in 1974.Abraham Kaplan sang in his father’s choirs as a youngboy and soon became the leader of a choir at a kibbutznear the Lebanese border and a music teacher in highschools. He acquired his formal music education atthe (former) Israel Academy of Music in Jerusalem,graduating in 1953, and he made his professionaldebut directing the Kol Yisrael (Voice of Israel radio)chorus in 1952 at concerts in Jerusalem, Haifa, and TelAviv. He was subsequently engaged as its permanentdirector, and he prepared it in 1954 for the worldpremiere of Darius Milhaud’s opera David.Kaplan came to America in 1954 on a scholarship tostudy at the Aspen Music School and for advancedstudies at The Juilliard School, where he was awardedthe Damrosch Prize in conducting and a postgraduatediploma in 1957. He also attended the Berkshire MusicCenter at Tanglewood (1956 and 1961) as both a choraland an orchestral conductor. His principal teachers were8.559419 6William Steinberg, Hugh Ross, and Frederick Prausnitzfor conducting; and Milhaud for composition. Hereturned to Israel during the 1958–59 season, but soonafterward he was invited to bring an Israeli chorus toNew York for an “All-Israel” show at Radio City MusicHall. His decision to remain in America was bolsteredby Juilliard’s invitation to join its faculty as director ofchoral studies, a position he held with distinction from1961 until 1977. He also taught during that period atthe Union Theological Seminary in New York.In 1962 Kaplan prepared the Juilliard chorus for itsappearance at the opening night of New York’s newLincoln Center, at Philharmonic Hall (now Avery FisherHall), in an inaugural concert conducted by LeonardBernstein. Many years of collaboration with Bernsteinand the New York Philharmonic followed, withKaplan preparing choruses for numerous concertsand recordings—including the premieres of suchmajor Bernstein works as the Kaddish Symphony andChichester Psalms. Kaplan conducted many importantpremieres of choral-orchestral works, such as RobertStarer’s Joseph and His Bretheren, Vincent Persichetti’sStabat Mater, and George Rochberg’s third symphony.He also founded the Camerata Singers, his ownprofessional chorus, which he conducted both in NewYork and on tours for many years and with whichhe made a number of important recordings; and hedirected New York’s Collegiate Chorale as well.During the 1969–70 season—which saw the foundingof the Symphonic Choral Society of New York and thedebut of the Camerata Symphony Orchestra, bothunder his direction—Kaplan was critically praised as anorchestral maestro as well as a choral conductor. Duringhis career he has also guest conducted numerousensembles, including the Israel Philharmonic, the St.Louis Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic, the SanFrancisco Opera, and the Seattle Symphony.
In 1968 Kaplan became the director of choral activitiesat New York’s prestigious Park Avenue Synagogue,where, over a period of more than thirty years, heconducted premieres of many new works by majorcomposers at the synagogue’s annual new musicservices. He also began composing his own liturgicalsettings for these services. In 1977 he relocated toSeattle to begin his tenure as director of choralstudies at the University of Washington, and he wasalso associate director for choral activities of theSeattle Symphony.In the early 1970s Kaplan began turning his attentionwith increasing intensity to composition. His first majorwork was his oratorio, Glorious (1973). Among hissubsequent major works are Arvit l’shabbat, a completeSabbath evening service; the K’dusha Symphony,which was recorded with soprano Roberta Peters;Crystal Cathedral Psalms; and Psalms of Abraham,heard on this recording. His college textbook, ChoralConducting, was published by W. W. Norton in 1985(twice reprinted) and is widely used at conservatoriesand college music departments throughout the UnitedStates and Canada.Program NotesTHE DAY OF REST—Neil W. LevinSholom KalibThe Day of Rest is a concert service comprising settingsof texts from three sections of the Sabbath liturgy:for Friday evening (kabbalat shabbat and arvit), forSaturday morning (shaharit, the Torah service, andmussaf), and for the concluding service on Saturdayevening. There are nineteen numbers in all, fromwhich six have been excerpted for this recording.The Day of Rest was intended deliberately to recall andincorporate cantorial idioms, melodic contours, modalpractices and patterns, and an overall emotionalambience of the aggregate eastern European cantorialchoraltradition. That tradition developed gradually inlarge areas of the Czarist and Hapsburg empires fromat least the 17th century and reached its zenith inthe late 19th century. Aspects of it were transplantedin America by immigrant cantors and choirmastersfrom those regions, albeit not without a degree ofdilution and even some corruption. The stamp of thattradition at its most sophisticated level is manifestlytransparent in these settings. Yet in certain sectionsand passages there is also the discernible imprint ofthe imposing grandeur and majesty more commonlyassociated with the character of the 19th-centurywestern Ashkenazi—or “German”—Synagogue. Inparticular, there are some stylistic resonances of thepath forged by Salomon Sulzer (1804–90) in Viennaand Louis Lewandowski (1821–94) in Berlin—the twoprincipal architects of a learned approach to modernsynagogue music based on Western classical or artmusic models. That echo is especially evident herein the setting of Uv’nuho yomar in a seamless andsymbiotic blend with other, more specifically easternEuropean features. The apparent admixture poses nostylistic conflict, however; nor does it undermine thecomposer’s claim to eastern European foundation, forboth Sulzer’s and Lewandowski’s impact upon easternEuropean repertoires and tastes was formidable,even if not always popularly perceived. Indeed, thepolarization between the two traditions was notalways quite so distinct, nor the dividing wall quite soopaque, as is sometimes imagined. Extant choral booksreveal that by the late 19th century, certain Sulzer andLewandowski compositions were in use throughoutthe eastern Ashkenazi orbit, in conjunction withcreations of local composers. Thus the overall flavorof Kalib’s Uv’nuho yomar is no less an indication of7 8.559419
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Page 22 and 23: Joseph Achron:Violin Concerto No. 1
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