Cultural and artistic identity were merged for the Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch. Born in Geneva in 1880 to Jewish parents, he wrote much of his music in the United States, emigrating to the country in 1916 and holding important teaching positions at the Cleveland Institute of Music and the San Francisco Conservatory. Though he returned to Switzerland for much of the 1930s, he returned to the United States in 1941, taking up residence in Agate Beach, Oregon.

Bloch established his Jewish musical identity through a series of epic works based on Biblical topics. The most famous is Schelomo for Cello and Orchestra (1915–1916). As Bloch explained, “What interests me is the Jewish soul, the enigmatic, ardent, turbulent soul that I feel vibrating throughout the Bible...it is all this that I endeavor to hear in myself and transcribe in my music; the venerable emotion of the race that slumbers way down in our souls.” In 1923, he wrote Baal Shem: Three Pictures of Hasidic Life in memory of his mother. The second piece in the triptych, “Nigun” (literally, “improvisation” or “melody”), is often performed on its own. According to the Kabbalah, a type of Jewish mysticism, melody empowers those with faith to achieve a transcendent state, making song a vital component of Hasidic worship. From start to finish, “Nigun” captures this reverence and power.

—©Jennifer More, 2023