Na’ama Goldman (mezzo-soprano)
Legata
Giulio Zappa (piano)
rec. 2022, Klangscheune, Lottstetten, Germany
Reviewed as download from press preview.
Sung texts with English translations enclosed
Solo Musica SM421 [64]

The Israeli mezzo-soprano Na’ama Goldman explains in the foreword to this disc her choice of repertoire, and I can’t resist quoting it in full:

“On every journey comes a moment where you stop, look around, and listen to what is inside you. There are no rules to these moments. They come and go without our control. One of these moments happened to me after deciding to put down roots in Berlin. Constantly traveling the world as an opera singer, why was it Berlin of all places? The city from which my family was deported? Music was where I found answers. Mahler, Korngold, and Weill inspired me to look at my life in a different way. The music of Engel carried with it the sounds of distant memories. Argov and Bat offered new perspectives on my homeland. The discovery of the song Elei Tashuv by Sonnenschein, which is dedicated to my grandmother, connected me to my heritage. The Kaddisch by Ravel reminded me of the power of being a woman, by singing this prayer traditionally allowed only for men. When brought together on a CD album, the songs connect with each other. Their music captures a moment in a journey through a multitude of expressions. They speak of their own heritage, their own legacy.” 

The first thing that struck me when I started listening was the pure sound of her voice. It is grand, beautiful with a quick, attractive vibrato, and a kind of folk music quality in the tone, that is utterly becoming in the two Hebrew melodies by Ravel that open the programme. Her expressivity, her handling of the texts, are further qualifications. I savoured her straightforward readings and generous tone in the early Korngold songs – just imagine that he was only fourteen when he wrote them – and, even more, the Mahler songs. I was initially a little worried about Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, which stood out as rather prosaic – the celestial subtleness of Janet Baker in her two recordings with Barbirolli is still unsurpassed – but I believe that Ms Goldman had no ambition to challenge them. Her reading is more earthbound, but still deeply felt, which is a fully valid approach. On the other hand she catches to perfection the cabaret style of Brecht-Weill’s Nannas Lied – a song that also can be interpreted in many different ways. Listen to Ute Lemper and Anne Sofie von Otter, who are miles apart but still idiomatic in their own way. This first half of the programme was a real tour de force of impassioned singing, the voice flowing out of the loudspeakers like an unstoppable lava stream of healthy natural power. Overwhelming!

The second half is just as overwhelming, vocally speaking, but it brings the listener to a quite different world, presumably unknown to a majority of our readers. Though Israel is not too far away from Europe geographically, the music is largely unfamiliar. Israeli musicians – instrumentalists, singers, conductors – are well established in the Western cultural hemisphere, but how many are familiar with Joel Engel? Still he was a pioneer in creating an Israeli musical language – long before the State of Israel was founded in 1948. He was born in 1868 in the Russian Empire in Berdyansk in Ukraine, moved to Berlin and then to Palestine where he died in 1927. He has been called  “the true founding father of the modern renaissance of Jewish music” (Jacob Weinberg). Around the turn of the century 1900 he became deeply interested in Jewish folk music and started collecting, and from 1905 also recording them. This was about the same time that Bartok started his research in his Hungarian surroundings. Engel also published two volumes of Jewish Folk songs in 1090 and 1912, and started the Society for Jewish Folk Music, which arranged concert tours throughout Russia with star musicians like violinists Joseph Achron and Jascha Heifetz (then a child prodigy), pianist Leopold Godowsky and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. The three songs by Engel on this disc – there is no information on time of composition – are melodically enticing, in particular the beautiful lullaby A mol iz geven a Maise (Once upon a time), while Minhag Chadash (A new Custom) is lively and humoristic. 

Sasha Argov (1914-1995) is another historical figure within the Jewish music history. Like Engel, he was born in Russia but emigrated to British Palestine in the 1930s. His mother was a concert pianist, and she taught him to play the piano but otherwise he had no formal musical training and never made a living on music. In spite of this he wrote many popular songs, film music, musicals, and other kinds of music – in total, around 1200 works. The three songs recorded here are certainly attractive.

Eyal Bat is also a prolific composer of songs, more than two hundred so far, and the two recorded here have an agreeable personal touch. Concerning the fourth Jewish composer, David Sonnenschein, I am at a loss regarding his identity. Online I found a person with that name who was given as sound designer. A photograph of him showed a person not particularly elderly looking. Bearing in mind that the song Minhag Chadash (Come back to me) is dedicated to Na’ama Goldman’s grandmother I had supposed the composer to be from an earlier generation, since it is a deeply felt love song. Be that as it may, the song is extremely beautiful, filled with emotions and sung a cappella, which makes it even more intimate. It is a lovely conclusion to a programme that expresses so many feelings and is an inviting calling card  to a fascinating singer, from whom I expect to hear more. Why not an opera recital next time? Her voice and looks seem to indicate that she should be a riveting Carmen – a role she has done on stage to great acclaim.

Göran Forsling

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Contents

01-02 Maurice Ravel
Deux mélodies Hébraïques 
Kaddisch 5:18
L’énigme éternelle 1:32
03-04 Erich W. Korngold
Sechs einfache Lieder, Op. 9
Schneeglöckchen 3:34 
Sommer 3:10
05-07 Gustav Mahler
Des Knaben Wunderhorn 
Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen 6:32
Rheinlegendchen 3:16
Rückert–Lieder
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen 6:16
08 Kurt Weill
Nannas Lied 4:06
09-11 Joel Engel 
Nor noch dir 5:13
A mol iz geven a Maise 4:02
Minhag Chadash 1:59
12-13 Eyal Bat
Ha’hakara sheli nemoga 3:12
Ke’tzitz ha’amakim 2:50
14-16 Sasha Argov
Az haya la 3:24
Hakol zahav 3:06
Lo yada’ati ma 4:28
17 David Sonnenschein
Elei tashuv 2:16