Music by Jack Gottlieb
Gottlieb: Three Candle Blessings; Shalom Aleichem; Love Songs for Sabbath; Set Me As a Seal; Shout for Joy; Psalmistry; Y’varekh’kha Tovah Feldshuh, narr; Karl Dent, t; Sarah Graves, org. Naxos 559433–76 minutes

American Record Guide, May/June 2005
Review by Ian Quinn
Of the many releases from the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music that have crossed my desk in the last year, this is the most consistently excellent–I like the music, the recordings are well made, and the performances are superb. Instead of attempting a (often formulaic) cross-section of genres, the producers have put together a fine program of choral music and have taken the good decision to include only excerpts from two longer, and very different, multi-movement works that otherwise would not both have fit.

Jack Gottlieb (b. 1930) is an unabashed populist in the Bernstein mold, which is to say his music has integrity at the same time as it makes itself accessible to people outside the rarefied circles of high musical art. This, clearly, is a skill that a composer of liturgical music needs. His idiom is often reminiscent of Michael Torke’s pop-inflected, neotonal, rhythmically sophisticated language, but without the younger composer’s mechanistic post-minimal trappings.

Tovah Feldshuh’s narration is spectacular–she’s a well-known Broadway actress, and she is as virtuosic with her modulated voice as any of the performers on the record. Her big number here is the excerpted Love Songs for Sabbath, an excellent introduction to the key components of the Friday night liturgy–in addition to luminous choral settings of the main prayers in Hebrew (with organ and percussion), Gottlieb gives the narrator some liturgical readings in English that illuminate the meaning, context, and function of the prayers. It would be a shame if the entire piece were never recorded and released, though it would fill a disc on its own.

The remaining pieces all have texts from Jewish liturgy or from the Old Testament. The second excerpted work is Psalmistry, which is more heavily influenced by rock and jazz and is less closely allied to Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms than it is to his kitschy and, in retrospect, quite dated Mass. 

Excerpts from two United Kingdom Reviews, Musicweb International, February 2006
Review by Glyn Pursglove
... a quintessentially American composer... the sheer honesty of the musical and religious intentions sustain the eclecticism and recommends it to the listener. ...I found the settings of the Psalms, in Shout for Joy and Psalmistry particularly pleasing ..There is a genuine sense of joy, of dance rhythms, in these settings, their jazz inflections well judged, textually apt and thoroughly integrated...Love Songs for Sabbath – a setting of the Friday service – is also presented as extracts; . ....moments of striking radiancy in the music, and, as elsewhere, Gottlieb makes very effective use of a reading voice. The reader on this recording is the actress Tovah Feldshuh and she is consistently superb, flexible in voice, intelligent in her phrasing and unsentimentally emotional.

Set Me As A Seal unites texts from the Song of Songs and the Book of Deuteronomy and Gottlieb’s setting of them is a forceful affirmation of the power of love. The programme opens with a sequence of Candle Blessings, whose texts are spoken in English and sung in Hebrew. These Blessings have a quiet, contemplative and private quality quite unlike the more public, even boisterous music of some of the Psalm settings. The CD closes with a short prayer of blessing in which traditional modes are dextrously employed, the resonant voice of Cantor Robert Abelson well blended with those of a small choir to make a moving conclusion.

Review by Robert Hugill
The ceremony from which the text for the Three Candle Blessings is taken is performed at home at sunset; it is one of the few Jewish prayers to be specifically designated for women - who light the candles in the ceremony. Gottlieb’s three movements reflect this as the major musical material is taken by soprano and alto solos. Even so a significant section of the text is read by the speaker. Gottlieb makes the mix between sung and spoken very effective, though the speaker, Tovah Feldshuh, is recorded quite closely and speaks rather intimately. This effect is lovely ...dignified and accessible without being simplistic, just what is needed.

Gottlieb conflates two similar texts for the Shalom Aleikhem with Candle Blessing. Shalom Aleikhem belongs to the category of Sabbath table songs, sung just before the blessing of the Candles so Gottlieb’s conflation of the texts is most appropriate. Love Songs for Sabbath is a setting of the Friday evening service. The work is substantial... music that is tuneful and melodic; it is only in his accompaniment that the later twentieth century creeps in. Set me as a Seal comes from Gottlieb’s complete setting of ‘The Song of Solomon’, ...a fine reflection of Gottlieb’s serious composing style.
The two subsequent, more substantial, pieces reflect the lighter element in Gottlieb’s music. Shout for Joy ... [and] Psalmistry. The work evidently includes fragments of traditional chant but for me the dominating style is melodic and tuneful. ...The disc concludes with another lovely short prayer Y’varekh’kha, where we retrieve the style of music that I think Gottlieb does best; sober, considered but still melodic....the opening and closing tracks deserve to be better known.

Evening, Morn & Noon - The Sacred Music of Jack Gottlieb Premier (PRCD1018), 1991. With six New York City area cantors, a reader, choir, organ and instrumental ensemble.

Presidential Suite. Songs of Humor & Satire. Gregg Smith Singers, Premier (PRCD1030), 1994.
 "From the very first note you know this is going to be a treat...you'll either be charmed, amused and uplifted or just worn out (probably both!)...gets a vibrant reading here." Classics Today.com, September 2001. 

  Presidential Suite. Carolina Chamber Choir, Timothy Koch, conductor, Albany Records (Troy 452), 2001.  "Gottlieb's work sets texts of various US Presidents in a whimsical and humorous manner that also celebrates the ideas of freedom and patriotism."  Records International, December 2001.

Monkey Biz'nis, A Musical Diversion in One Act, Original Cast Records OC-6016, 2004.




Half Kaddish, "Jewish Composers in America," by Zamir Chorale of Boston Recordings, Joshua Jacobson, conductor, 2002.

Half Kaddish, "Celebration, 350 Years of Jewish Life in America," Zamir Chorale of New York, Matthew Lazar, conductor, Beth Robin, piano. 2005. The combined Zamir Chorales also perform it on the Israeli Zimriya 50th Anniversary CD, 2002.

Half Kaddish on CD Kol Sasson v'kol simchah, 125th Anniversary concert of HUC-JIR, School of Sacred Music Choir, 2004. (includes the JG edition of Max Helfman's Ahavat olam.

V’shamru from Love Songs for Sabbath) excerpted on “What is Judaism?," Volume I: Shabbat. Produced by The Radio Foundation, Inc. RadioArts Rado9001, 2003.

Mama's Cooking, (song) with Don Alan Croll, AMC Recording, Dallas Texas, 2002.

Downtown Blues for Uptown Halls with Charlotte Surkin, mezzo. 2005, Studio 21 label with works by Bolcom, Rodgers and Musto.

Other Recordings
Leonard Bernstein: A Jewish Legacy, posthumous recording. Concept by JG who participates as co-producer and as pianist. Naxos 8.559407, 2003. Numerous reviews, domestic and international.

Yamim Noraim-Days of Awe, Samuel Adler, conductor. Two choral works by Jack Gottlieb: "V'nislach" (Disc 3) & "Mi Sheshikein" (Disc 4). Transcontinental Music Publications, 1995.

Tovah: Out of Her Mind!, Tovah Feldshuh, performer in Gershwin Monologue based on Jack Gottlieb's "Funny, It Doesn't Sound Jewish."
Tovah(01CD), 1996.

Older LP Recordings
Let Me Hear Thy Voice. Barbara Ostfeld Herman, Cantor and Choir: "Shalom Aleichem and Candle Blessing" and "Ma Tovu." Kolayh Records, Clifton, NJ.

All Who Sing Pray Twice. Joel Gordon, Cantor and Choir: "Kaddish Response" arranged by JG. Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple, NJ.

Downtown Blues for Uptown Halls. The Ariel Ensemble: Julia Lovett, soprano, Michael Fardink, piano& Jerome Bunke, clarinet. Orion Records ORS 81411.