Israel Exists Again (Arnold Schoenberg)

Israel Exists Again — Arnold Schoenberg
Iain Farrington, Piano
Los Angeles Zimriyah Chorale
Nick Strimple, Conductor

Schoenberg’s interest in Zionism began in the early 1920s, when he was the subject of an anti-Semitic attack in the Austrian resort town of Mattsee. His play The Biblical Way, begun in 1926, describes the founding of a Jew- ish state. After fleeing from Berlin to Paris in 1933, Schoenberg tried to take part in Zionist activities and wrote to his friend and pupil Anton We- bern that he would be willing “to work in the future solely for the national state of Jewry.” Sensing before most the urgency of the situation in Europe, Schoenberg soon became frustrated with the slow pace of immigration ac- cepted by the Zionist leadership. “The immigration of 14 million Jews at 50,000 Jews per year would take 280 years,” he calculated. In Los Angeles in October 1938, he presciently wrote an essay predicting the extermina- tion of seven million Jews if a new state was not created to save them. In- spired by the establishment of the State of Israel, in 1949 Schoenberg began work on a choral work set to his own text in English, Israel Exists Again. Unfortunately, due to health problems and money concerns, he did not finish the work before his death in 1951, and so it is performed here as an incomplete fragment.

Israel Exists Again (1949)
Israel exists again!
It has always existed
though invisibly.
And since the beginning of time, since the creation of the world
we have always seen the Lord, and have never ceased to see Him. Adam saw Him.
Noah saw Him.
Abraham saw Him.
Jakob saw Him.
But Moses
saw He was our God
and we His elected people: elected to testify
that there is only one eternal God. Israel has returned
and will see the Lord again.

Видео Israel Exists Again (Arnold Schoenberg) канала Randol Schoenberg