Rosh Hashanah

Shana Tova! A happy Jewish New Year to you all. The complete dearth of blog posts of late is partially due to this particular festival and the sheer amount of diary time that rehearsals and services have required from me. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is celebrated over two days in this country - as is so often the case with Jewish festivals, which are only celebrated on a single day in Israel. It may well have something to do with time zones. I’ve never really been sure. Perhaps someone reading this blog knows?

Anyway, the Rosh Hashanah service is something of a roast for singers. On Monday and Tuesday, we arrived at shul at 8.30am, and essentially didn’t stop singing until 1.30pm, without so much as a break for a cup of tea. In fact, I dashed out of the service to go to the loo and by the time I’d come back, the next number had started.

We sing a mixture of music including a large number of pieces from the Blue Book (amongst which is some of the repertoire from the album we’ve been recording) and a number of arrangements by Stephen Glass, who has cut out a successful career for himself scoring religious Jewish music for male voice choir. It was a niche which desperately needed to be filled as the majority of materiel hitherto out there was desperately awful. Fortunately, Glass writes stunningly beautiful arrangements, which are both challenging and well-conceived for vocalists, lovely to listen to and carefully written out (which makes all the difference.) He’s very much a legend within Jewish choral scholars. The reason he’s not a household name is that he’s dealing with such a small (and ever-dwindling) audience. 

Monday’s service was, as you might expect, not hugely brilliant. You never quite get enough rehearsal time when you’re singing three hours worth of material, and, however much careful prepping you do, there are always going to be issues. I sang like an old dog, which was partially due to my being utterly knackered. The first thing which goes with me is the Hebrew words, which can often prove to be quite a tongue-twister. If I’m not right on top of them, I can end up singing a load of old rubbish. It makes me feel quite self-conscious as the place is always filled with people who have been studying Hebrew since their childhoods! When I’m on top of the words, I’m able to utterly emotionally engage - and, more crucially, listen to - and blend with - the other performers.

Today’s service, as you might expect, was a much better one, but, as you might also expect, there were far fewer people in the congregation to actually enjoy what we were doing.

One of the highlights of Rosh Hashanah is the blowing of the shofar which is a ram’s horn - or at least was traditionally a ram’s horn. It makes a somewhat other-worldly sound which reverberates around the shul like the scream of a demented harpy. I learned today that the shofar is blown on a number of occasions to confuse the angel of death. It’s played in three patterns of varying lengths from ear-splitting, almost endless notes, to strings of short, sharp blasts.

There are all sorts of other strange and beautiful rituals including the moment when those with the surname Cohen (traditionally the priests) stand in front of the arc without shoes, their tallises over their heads, swaying like ghosts, singing a call-and-response with the cantor. If done well it can be quite moving. Unfortunately one of today’s Cohen’s was, how should I say, a little tonally challenged. That, or he’d been listening to a lot of medieval music. His use of parallel 4ths would have excited my good friend Sam Becker!

So I’m home now. I have to work. I don’t want to work. I might take the night off. I can feel my telly calling me.