![]() Indeed, as is obvious to any listener, this is no functional prayer setting or closing synagogal hymn, but a sophisticated concert cantata in every sense. The work received its premiere in excerpted form at that congregation’s third annual service of new music on a Sabbath eve in 1945 in the company of other newly commissioned prayer settings by Leonard Bernstein, Henry Brant, Darius Milhaud, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.Īt the time of the Park Avenue commission and premiere, the piece was known simply as Yigdal, and only subsequently and in its extended form did it come to be titled Yigdal Cantata. The genesis of Wolpe’s cantata was a commission from Cantor David Putterman and New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue as part of their much-heralded and long-running program for encouraging contemporary composers to address the Hebrew liturgy (see the notes to David Diamond's Mizmor l’david). The liturgy of the Sephardi tradition includes a fourteenth line, and in some prayerbooks a fifteenth, summarizing: “These are the thirteen principles of faith they form the foundation of faith in God and of God’s Torah. Its thirteen lines summarize and reflect poetically Maimonides’ thirteen principles-as presented in his introduction to Mishna Sanhedrin 10:1-which stipulate that there is indeed an almighty Creator of the universe that His essence is absolute unity and oneness that He is without material substance or form that He is eternal-i.e., without beginning and without end that only God is to be worshipped that the biblical prophets represent truth-that their prophecies are true that Moses was the greatest of all prophets that the entire Torah is of Divine origin and was given directly by God to Moses that the Torah-God’s stipulated ways-is immutable and not subject to any alteration that God is aware of all human thoughts and actions that God both rewards and punishes that the Messiah will ultimately come and that there will be a messianic resurrection at a time of the Creator’s choosing. Some liturgists, however, have argued that the poem was written by Emanuel ben Solomon of Rome.Īlthough the strophic poem occurs in the Ashkenazi rite as an opening hymn in the daily morning service, it is probably most familiar to synagogue-oriented American Jewry from its other role as an optional concluding hymn following Sabbath and holyday evening and/or musaf services (Sephardi, Italian, and Yemenite rites, among others, also traditionally include yigdal at the conclusion of the Sabbath eve service). Stefan Wolpe’s Yigdal Cantata-for baritone solo, mixed chorus, and organ-is a highly complex setting of the stalwart medieval hymn of faith known by its text incipit as yigdal (We exalt the presence of the living God) and based on Moses Maimonides’ “thirteen principles of faith.” This liturgical poem, constructed according to an Arabic meter, is most commonly attributed to Rabbi Daniel ben Yehuda of Rome, who is thought to have written it in the 14th century, but whose identity (apart from his name) and the circumstances of the poem’s composition remain uncertain. ![]() Part 6 Verses 12, 13a – Interlude 5 – Allegro non troppo Allegro – Verses 9-10 – Interlude 4 – Allegro furioso ![]() Moderato – Verses 2-4 – Interlude 3 – Verses 5-8 ![]() ![]() Allegro – Verses 1-4 – Interlude 1 – Verse 1 – Interlude 2 ![]()
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