New Releases from Naxos:
HERMAN BERLINSKI’S AVODAT SHABBAT (CD #8.559443)
and
MARVIN DAVID LEVY’S MASADA (CD #8.559427)

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HERMAN BERLINSKI’S AVODAT SHABBAT (CD #8.559443)
“I don’t think I can write a piece of music, no matter what I do and what I
will try, that does not have the stamp of my Jewish existence,” said Herman
Berlinski during the recording session for his masterpiece AVODAT SHABBAT,
one of only three complete Sabbath services ever written for soloists,
chorus, and large orchestra. The eighty-nine-year-old Berlinski returned to
his native Germany to attend the world-premiere recording of this major
20th-century sacred work, which he created during the course of many years
in America. For more information, go to
http://www.milkenarchive.org/cds/cds.taf?cdid=14

MARVIN DAVID LEVY (CD #8.559427)
The legendary defense of the desert fortress Masada by a small band of
Jewish Zealots against a massive Roman army inspires awe nearly 2,000 years
after the historical occurrence. Marvin David Levy’s dramatic retelling of
the Masada story, originally written for the great operatic tenor and cantor
Richard Tucker, here receives its world-premiere recording. Also recorded by
the Milken Archive for the first time is Levy’s haunting CANTO DE LOS
MARRANOS, a dramatic scene for soprano (in four languages: English, Ladino,
Hebrew, and Latin) that reveals the passions and conflicts of the
15th-century Spanish Jews who outwardly converted to Christianity while
secretly practicing their Jewish beliefs “under penalty of death.” For more
information, go to http://www.milkenarchive.org/cds/cds.taf?cdid=13