Kol Nidrei Op.47

Adagio ma non troppo – un poco più animato

Bruch was so successful in writing for violin – above all, of course, in the Concerto No.1 in G minor – that distinguished players of other string instruments competed to get him to write something to add to their own repertoire. Perhaps the most distinguished of all was the great German cellist Robert Hausmann who, according to the composer, “plagued” him for so long that he finally agreed to dedicate a piece to him. “I have written a cello work with orchestra for Hausmann,” Bruch wrote to his publisher in 1880, adding that it was based “on the finest Hebrew melody, Kol Nidrei.”

Bruch had become familiar with the melody when working with a choral society in Berlin in the late 1870s and, although he was not Jewish himself, he would have known that, traditionally sung on the Eve of Yom Kippur during the service of Atonement, ‘Kol Nidrei’ (All Vows) was a prayer of special religious and cultural significance. As the subtitle “Adagio on Hebrew melodies” suggests, however, ‘Kol Nidrei’ is not the only traditional material Bruch drew on here. Contrasted with it is another synagogue melody which Bruch was to use again (with words by Byron, “O weep for those that wept on Babel’s stream”) in his Three Hebrew Songs later in 1880.

After a brief but suitably serious orchestral introduction, the ‘Kol Nidrei’ melody is heard for the first time on the cello, which presents it as a lament, with short sighing phrases separated by breath-catching rests. While those opening sighs remain the distinguishing feature of the theme, it is developed at some length by the soloist, ever more eloquently and ever more elaborately, with occasional interjections from the orchestra. When a solo harp brings about an encouraging change of harmony (from a sombre B minor to a radiant D major), the orchestra introduces the rapturous second theme, which is then taken up by the cello to the accompaniment of flowing arpeggios on the harp. Although there are allusions back to the ‘Kol Nidrei’ theme, this new idea remains the main source of melodic interest up to the quietly expressive closing bars.

Kol Nidrei was first performed not by Hausman but by Joseph Hollmann in a private concert given the Liverpool Philharmonic Society, where Bruch had recently taken up a three-year post as music director, in November 1880. Hausmann gave the first public performance in Leipzig a year later.