Wolpe in Jerusalem (2006)

This 2006 Mode release of music by Stefan Wolpe is a significant survey of compositions from the 1930s, when he was among the most important European musicians to settle and work in Jerusalem. Even though much of his time was occupied with teaching composition and theory at the Palestine Conservatoire and directing choral performances, Wolpe found sufficient energy and creative resources to compose a substantial body of concert and theater music in these transitional and often chaotic years. The orchestral version of the ... Read More

This 2006 Mode release of music by Stefan Wolpe is a significant survey of compositions from the 1930s, when he was among the most important European musicians to settle and work in Jerusalem. Even though much of his time was occupied with teaching composition and theory at the Palestine Conservatoire and directing choral performances, Wolpe found sufficient energy and creative resources to compose a substantial body of concert and theater music in these transitional and often chaotic years. The orchestral version of the Passacaglia, Op. 23 (1937), the Three Smaller Canons, Op. 24a, the Hexachord Suite, Op. 24b (both 1936), and the reconstructed Concerto for Nine Instruments, Op. 22 (1933-1937) are among Wolpe's earliest accomplishments in twelve-tone composition. In some ways still influenced by Webern's concepts, but also reflecting some of the more flexible applications of Hauer's trope system, Wolpe demonstrates an independence of thought and freedom of technique that sets him apart from the serial... Read Less