ERNEST BLOCH began his musical studies in Geneva, where he was born in 1880 to Jewish parents. Bloch was initially taught by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze who had studied with Leo Delibes and Anton Bruckner, and was the founder of Eurhythmics, a method that co-ordinates music with bodily movement, and regards the furthering of expression as the goal of musical training. As the 19th Century and the romantic epoch drew to a close, Bloch was well on his way to finding a modern musical language of his own, having already composed his Oriental Symphony and a string quartet, and with his lyric-drama Macbeth on the drawing board.
Bloch's Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano was written in 1920 in America, where he had emigrated in 1917. A fine introduction to his instinctive powers of imagination, the sonata is a work of glowing intensity and originality. Vigorously rhythmic, it is laden with combinations of color, and suffused by Bloch's knowledge of Jewish history and prophecy, which played a key role in his aesthetic evolution. It was reserved for Bloch to create a modern musical medium that conveys something of the poetry and passion, the turbulent sorrow and noble exaltation of Judaism as transmitted by the Old Testament. A deeply serious piece of music, predominantly tragic in tone yet marked by strains of heroism, this sonata is a work that arguably predicts the Holocaust.
Copyright by Judith Aller 2007