38 Facts About Herman Berlinski

Herman Berlinski was a German-born American composer, organist, pianist, musicologist and choir conductor.

Herman Berlinski, born there on 18 August 1910, was the last of six children.

Herman Berlinski was educated at the Ephraim Carlebach School, Leipzig's only Jewish school at that time.

Deborah Herman Berlinski died in 1920 leaving the children in the care of their father who never remarried.

Herman Berlinski was then joined by Sina Goldfein, a former fellow-student both at school and the Leipzig Conservatory, herself a pianist and singer.

From 1934 onwards, Herman Berlinski became involved with a Jewish art theatre group known as the Paris Yiddish Avant-Garde Theatre and made up largely of immigrants formerly involved with Yiddish theatre in Vilna.

Herman Berlinski was appointed as music director, a role in which he continued until 1939, and for this group he directed plays or conducted, performed, arranged and composed incidental music.

Herman and Sina Berlinski settled in Manhattan and their son David was born there in 1942.

Herman Berlinski first earned a living by giving private piano lessons, and quickly made contact with the city's large Jewish community.

Herman Berlinski heard there the then young and relatively unknown Leonard Bernstein performing his new works including a piano reduction of his first symphony.

Herman Berlinski studied composition with Messiaen at the 1948 Tanglewood Music Center and gained from him an understanding of rhythmic and harmonic techniques which would affect his approach to using Jewish melodic forms in his later works.

Herman Berlinski gave his first public recital the following year.

Herman Berlinski served there for a total of eight years, during which time he composed many works including choral and other liturgical music as well as organ pieces.

In 1953, while continuing his organ studies with Yasser, Herman Berlinski undertook postgraduate studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America where he engaged in a musicological analysis of the origins and practices of ancient Jewish music.

Herman Berlinski studied composition with Hugo Weisgall, an experienced composer who was descended from a long line of cantors and was interested in both sacred and secular Jewish music.

In 1963 Herman Berlinski was named music director of Washington, DC's Reform Hebrew Congregation where he worked under Rabbi Norman Gerstenfeld who was enthusiastic about contemporary music and who wanted the temple to be presenting the best sacred music in the city.

Rabbi Gerstenfeld died in 1968, ending five years which Herman Berlinski described as being "the most exciting and creative" of his life.

Rabbi Gerstenfeld's widow paid tribute to her husband by commissioning Herman Berlinski to write the oratorio, Job.

Herman Berlinski continued as minister of music at the Washington Congregation until his retirement in 1977.

Herman Berlinski lectured widely in the United States and Europe through his later career.

Herman Berlinski was commissioned to create Ets Chayim, for the opening of The Precious Legacy at the Smithsonian.

In early 2000 Herman Berlinski was invited by the Milken Archive to Berlin to participate in the first recording of Avodat Shabbat for release on the Naxos label as part of its Milken Archive of American Jewish Music series.

Herman Berlinski's last visit to Germany was early in 2001 after the Federal Republic of Germany had awarded him the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit for his artistic achievements and his contribution to interfaith dialogue.

Herman Berlinski died at Washington's Sibley Memorial Hospital on 27 September 2001 after heart attacks and a stroke.

Herman Berlinski was in danger not only because he was a Jew, but because, in his early college days, he had composed music for a political cabaret.

Apart from the handful of scores that Herman Berlinski was able to carry with him from Paris, nothing else seems to have survived the destruction of the War.

In 1958 Herman Berlinski completed another major work, a Friday-evening service entitled Avodat Shabbat for cantor, choir and organ, which had been commissioned by Cantor David Putterman of New York's Park Avenue Synagogue who was cantor in its first performance there in that same year.

Herman Berlinski gave the premiere performance in New York that same year.

The work has six movements entitled Trumpets, Motion and Silence, Contemplation, Light Motion, Pulsation, and Polymodal Sounds and Motions, and Herman Berlinski employs a variety of techniques - changing rhythmic patterns, chromaticism, contrasting consonance and dissonance, occasional use of the serialist approach, dramatic gestures and sudden silences - to express his thoughts and feelings.

Between his arrival in 1963 and his retirement in 1977, Herman Berlinski concentrated largely on writing liturgical music for use at the Reform Hebrew Congregation.

Herman Berlinski recorded the poetry excerpts on his score against each movement as follows:.

In 1969 Herman Berlinski began his Sinfonia No 10 for cello and organ, completing it in 1976.

Herman Berlinski has affirmed his conviction that it is as important to celebrate victories as it is to remember tragedies.

In 1990 Berlinski wrote Maskir Neshamoth which was commissioned by Ann and Donald Brown in memory of businessman Jules C Winkelman, and its premiere was of excerpts only which were performed in 1998 at the Library of Congress for the sixtieth anniversary of Kristallnacht.

Herman Berlinski wrote a Cello Concerto between 1992 and 1994, a work which has yet to be performed.

Herman Berlinski constructed the work so poems are narrated between movements written for the solo piano.

The award letter for the Commander's Cross cited Herman Berlinski as having been a builder of "many lasting bridges over the Atlantic", significant recognition from a former enemy against whom Herman Berlinski had fought during the Second World War.

Much of Herman Berlinski's music expresses a sense of triumph in the face of affliction.