Exploring the cosmos of composer Paul Ben-Haim with German-Jewish violinist Liv Migdal

Migdal boasts an impressive career, having played as soloist with top musicians and orchestras worldwide. Her recordings have garnered critical acclaim.

By LIRAN GURKIEWICZ JANUARY 19, 2025 03:06

VIOLINIST Liv Migdal. (photo credit: MATAN GOLDSTEIN)

In 2008, German Jewish violinist Liv Migdal was visiting Tel Aviv, participating in a project dedicated to the music of Paul Ben-Haim.

Ben-Haim, born in Munich as Paul Frankenburger, emigrated from Nazi Germany to Palestine in 1933. He is considered to be a central figure in Israeli art-classical music.

“Sometimes you have initial experiences which leave a particular mark, spontaneously opening new and unimagined horizons,” said Migdal, who 16 years later initiated, curated, and performed on the just-released The Cosmos of Paul Ben-Haim, a double CD featuring never-before-recorded compositions and new recordings of some of Ben-Haim’s most important works.

Migdal boasts an impressive career, having played as soloist with top musicians and orchestras worldwide. Her recordings have garnered critical acclaim, earning her nominations for prestigious awards.

How did this project come about?

“In 2022, I played Ben-Haim’s Yizkor for Violin and Orchestra,” relates Liv. “I was fascinated by the work, and following that, I decided to buy as many partiturs as I could and go through them. But the watershed moment was the Yizkor.”

Composer Paul Ben-Haim. (credit: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF ISRAEL)

In Peter Gradenwitz’s The World of Symphony, Ben-Haim described his Yizkor (Poem for Violin and Orchestra, 1942) as a “composition dedicated to the memory of the dead, a requiem without words,” all the more poignant considering the growing reports in Palestine on the fate of Jewish communities in Europe.

The Yizkor was recorded several times. However, until now, it was always with a cadence by Jascha Heifetz. The present recording is the first to use Ben-Haim’s own cadence, which Migdal considers as much more cohesive with the rest of the composition.

The present recording does true justice to this magnificent work, a painful lament with a fast middle section. A maelstrom of notes, beautifully executed by Migdal, draws the listener in to the work’s tragic end.

The Cosmos of Ben-Haim is also a concept album, featuring four different recordings of Ben-Haim’s folk-based Three Songs Without Words. Two of these recordings are for a solo instrument with 12 strings instead of the piano, endowing new depth and meaning of both resignation and painful nostalgia to the Three Songs.

“It’s just very atmospheric music, beautifully conjuring up varied images of the Levant and used as a point of reference for the listener,” clarifies Migdal.

---

---

There is a thread running from the more intimate couleur locale of the Three Songs Without Words to other folk pieces in this compilation, such as the beautiful setting of Five Melodies from the East or Bat Yonim for piano and voice with mezzo-soprano Hagar Sharvit, commendable for her rich tone and leading the listener to dwell on the sources from which these folk songs sprung.

In contrast to the more intimate compositions, the compilation features two large orchestral works by Ben-Haim, which have not been recorded in decades: Dance and Invocation (1960) and To the Chief Musician (1958). Both are highly dramatic and intense compositions, a culmination of Ben-Haim’s techniques, with devices and motifs drawn from folk Middle Eastern music.

Additionally, there is the never-before-recorded colorful orchestration of Ben-Haim’s Interpretation of Bach’s Choral Prelude and Two Easy Pieces for Violin and Piano (1939), one of the earliest works that Ben-Haim completed in Palestine, providing critical insight into his musical development.

The recordings are all very precise and impressive, with conductor Jesko Sirvend and the Staatskapelle Weimar orchestra delivering outstanding renditions. Migdal is a sensitive violinist, sincerely delving into the emotional nuances of Ben-Haim’s music, expressing the abundance of meaning behind the notes. Contributions from Canneti, Plath, Manz, and Gerzenberg are all top-tier.

The double CD is undoubtedly an important contribution to understanding Ben-Haim’s music, offering listeners a rare opportunity to acquaint themselves with Israeli art music at the core of its inception.