Berlinski, Herman

Herman Berlinski (1910-2001) was a composer.

From the description of Scores, 1961. (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 232009675

Herman Berlinski was a composer, organist and choir conductor. He was born August 18, 1910 in Leipzig, Germany. His parents were immigrant Jews from the Polish city of Lódź. Berlinski's mother died when he was ten years old. He displayed considerable talent for piano at an early age, continued studies in piano and clarinet into his teens, and graduated from the Landeskonservatorium Leipzig in 1932 with honors in piano and theory. The music of J.S. Bach, Mahler and Reger were important early influences. Berlinski wrote political cabaret music from 1929-1932. With the advent of the Nazi government, he left Leipzig in March 1933. He emigrated to Paris, where he married pianist Sina Goldfein on May 3, 1934. Berlinski was music director and composer for the Paris Jewish Avant-Garde Theatre (PIAT) from 1934-1939. He studied composition with Nadia Boulanger for two years, while sharing artistic bonds with La Jeune France, a group of Parisian composers. Members Oliver Messiaen and Daniel-Lesur encouraged Berlinski to find the sacred Jewish dimension in his music. World War II broke out in September 1939 and he joined the French Foreign Legion. Nearly a year later he was demobilized, one among 250 of an initial 1,250 soldiers who had survived. Berlinski and his wife received their visas to emigrate to the U.S. in March 1941. They crossed the Pyrennes and sailed twenty-two days on an old Spanish ship before reaching the United States. Herman and Sina Berlinski arrived in New York City on May 28, 1941. Their son David was born February 5, 1942. By 1944 Herman Berlinski had become a member of the Jewish Music Forum. This organization, with its scholarly papers and monthly concerts of new music given by its members, made a lasting impression on him. In 1948 he studied with Messiaen at Tanglewood. Here he also met his future publisher, Milton Feist of Mercury Music. Through the Forum, Berlinski met Joseph Yasser, who offered to teach him organ in 1951, and Lazare Saminsky, who hired him as assistant organist at New York's Temple Emanu-El in 1954. Berlinski began formal studies in traditional Jewish music at the Cantors Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1953. He received a Doctor of Sacred Music degree from the Seminary in 1960. His organ piece "The Burning Bush" was composed upon request from Temple Emanuel's organist Dr. Robert Baker. Baker popularized the new piece and "The Burning Bush" was published by H.W. Gray in 1957. In 1958 Berlinski completed his Friday evening service Avodat Shabbat. It had been commissioned and performed by Cantor David Putterman at New York's Park Avenue Synagogue. The work was praised by Leonard Bernstein, who found the work to be "a fine compromise between tradition and somewhat contemporary sounds." On the strength of this recommendation, the service was orchestrated by Berlinski for a concert performance at New York's Lincoln Center in 1964. In 1963 Herman Berlinski accepted the invitation of Rabbi Norman Gerstenfield to become Director of Music at the Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C. Berlinski considered the five years he worked with the rabbi to be "the most exciting and creative" of his life. The oratorio Job was commissioned by Rabbi Gerstenfield's wife after he passed away in 1968. Herman Berlinski remained "Minister of Music" at the Reform Washington Hebrew Congregation until his retirement in 1977. As his liturgical music was desired less and less, he began composing more complex, larger vocal works for what he called "the Synagogue of his mind." He also continued writing what ultimately became his twelve Organ Sinfonias (1954-2000). Berlinski founded the Shir Chadash chorale in October 1977. For the next eleven years the thirty-voice choir gave annual Hannukah concerts at the Kennedy Center, as well as annual concerts of Hanukkah and High Holiday music at the Kennedy Center and Washington's National Cathedral, respectively. During this time Berlinski completed two important commissions, Shevirath ha-kelim (The Breaking of the Vessels), for the fiftieth anniversary of Reichskristallnacht (1988), and the Hannukah oratorio The Trumpets of Freedom (1988). Two more important vocal/orchestral works were commissioned later: Das Gebet Bonhoeffer's (The Prayer of Bonhoeffer), part of the Altar Tryptichon for Bonhoeffer commissioned by the Union Theological Seminary in 1993; and Maskir Neshamoth (In Remembrance of the Souls) , commissioned by Ann and Donald Brown. Parts of Maskir Neshamoth were performed at the Library of Congress for the sixtieth anniversary of Kristallnacht (1998). Herman Berlinski received the Peabody Waite Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1984, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Guild of Organists in 1995. Berlinski's music was very well received in Germany during his final years. German versions of his oratorios Etz Chayim, Shevirath ha-Kelim and Job (Hiob) were performed there between 1995 and 1998. He received the Order of Merit in 1995 and the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit in 2001 from the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. In his award letter he was singled out for praise as a builder of "many lasting bridges over the Atlantic." Herman Berlinski's final composition, a setting of "Psalm 130" (Shir hamaaloth: Out of the Depths), was commissioned by the National Cathedral to dedicate the installation of its final stained glass window. The psalm setting was completed September 9, 2001. Herman Berlinski died on September 27, 2001. As a tribute to him, the first performance of "Psalm 130" took place at the dedication of the stained glass window on the afternoon of his burial, September 30, 2001.

From the description of Music scores and papers, 1938-2006. (Jewish Theological Seminary of America). WorldCat record id: 74723512