Debuting in Atlanta this week, and subsequently coming to New York’s Carnegie Hall, is an oratorio composed by Jonathan Leshnoff and inspired by the foundational text of Jewish mysticism. The Atlanta Jewish Times reports:
Zohar . . . was created as the antithesis to the more somber, hour-long requiem [by Johannes Brahms] in the evening’s program, Leshnoff said. “All I was told was, ‘We’re going to do the [German Requiem]; can’t you do a piece that gives the soprano a little bit more to do?’ That got me thinking; I designed the piece to be a purposeful contrast to Brahms.”
His oratorio, which lasts 25 minutes, is “just long enough to be legit and not too long to be massive,” he said. The difference between the two is thematic as well. “Where Brahms is a comfort, a solace to the bereaved, mine is an ecstatic embrace of the living. Brahms has a secular perspective on the New Testament; mine is from [Jewish] sources. . . . My composition straddles the ecstatic mystical experiences that I glean from the Zohar itself and balances such heightened moments against the human, ‘down-to-earth’ elements of existence.”
Read more on Atlanta Jewish Times: http://atlantajewishtimes.com/2016/04/leshnoffs-zohar-premieres-atlanta-symphony-orchestra/