Each new release of little-known music by Ernest Bloch continues to impress. Here’s a really fine composer, one whose seriousness, exuberance, and passion always communicates directly and intelligently. So it proves with these (generally) early works. The Psalm settings are particularly important, forming as they do a hitherto little-known chapter in Bloch’s Jewish cycle–the catalog of works that includes his most famous piece of all, the tone poem for cello and orchestra Schelomo. The quasi-oriental tunes and richly exotic but always tastefully displayed orchestral colors proclaim these Psalm arrangements as vintage Bloch. The song cycle Poems of Autumn redeems some rather soggy poetry with excellent, sensitive word setting and curvaceous melodic lines. Two instrumental works, the “love poem” In the Night (an intensely expressive miniature), and the early, evocative diptych Hiver-Printemps (Winter-Spring) complete a program that is as well performed by all concerned as it is musically valuable. This disc is a real sleeper that deserves more attention than it is likely to receive. If you enjoy either Bloch particularly, or music that evokes an authentic fin-de-siècle Romanticism, you’ll want to hear this.
