Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, who died recently, wrote pieces that were elegiac, but suffused with a sense of survival: we are broken, we are wounded, we carry on.
Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, the composer and piano-playing nun who died this week at the age of 99, had an extraordinary life, which included being a trailblazer for women's equality and walking barefoot for a decade in the isolated mountains of northern Ethiopia.
Every year I dive into the extremely rich tradition of Passion music. But, as I have done occasionally, we will take a detour into music for Passover. Tradition has it that the Passion of Christ occurred during Passover, so the two are forever linked. We will start with a unique piece by Jewish Swiss composer Ernest Bloch. Bloch had many influences, but he purposely composed music inspired by his Jewish heritage. Most fascinating of these compositions is his "Avodath hakodesh" or "Sacred Service". This was a work for soloist, choir, and large orchestra. There was no precedent for a large scale work of music like based on Jewish liturgy. He composed it during a very tense time for European Jews, from 1930-1933. The work was actually premiered in Italy in 1934 before Mussolini made his alliance with Hitler and before adopting his antisemitism wholesale. Though the work is based on Jewish liturgy of Sabbath services, due to the large musical forces required, it was nev