About the creation

Joachim Stutschewsky's song collection, most of which are published here for the first time, portrays his character as an arranger of music and as a composer over more than twenty-five years. Since his immigration to Palestine in 1938, he felt an increasing connection to the Hebrew Language, and from the 1950s its structures actively imbued his compositional style. The songs focus on Jewish music and children's songs, two main themes that were central to Stutschewsky's thinking. He often expressed their importance in forming national identity. Stutschewsky published several collections of children's songs, most of which were performed by his wife, the soprano Julia Stutschewsky. The opening song of this collection is the acapella jolly D major Turtledove to words by Levin Kipnis, symbolically describing a bird returning to its homeland. In contrast to David Agmon's strophic song Birthday, which depicts with a quick tempo and short figurations the excitement towards a kindergarten birthday celebration, Pinchas Lander's Longings illustrates a child's longing for his mother with a tender melodic line accompanied by chromatic intervals and diminished chords in the piano part. The collection also includes arrangements for songs from various Jewish communities. Yiddish folksongs appear next to traditional songs of the Jews of Corfu, as well as two arrangements for original compositions of liturgical texts – Vetechezenah Eineinu by Nissan Cohen-Melamed and Psalm 69 based on a melody by Sila Goldenberg. Whereas this song, the earliest in the collection (1939) as well as the Yiddish folksongs, reflect the influences of Hassidic melodies, other songs express the influence of Sepharadi melodies on the harmonic basis, an influence that strengthened following Stutschewsky's immigration. Although the title Kipa Aduma (Red Ridinghood) taken from Nathan Alterman's collection Kochavim Bachutz (Stars Outside) implies the famous legend, this is not a children's poem, but rather a nostalgic view of childhood. Despite strophic elements, the introduction of the new melodic material in the second stanza and the coda strengthen the effect of a through-composed song. The song expresses the composer's aspiration to create a Hebrew Romantic Lied. This is evident in the melodic line's development, the harmonic diversity, the tempo changes throughout the song, and the gradual fading of all memories, that are according to Alterman: "like a tale that was lost, like a song long ago, like a smile that is old and forgot." Dr. Anat Viks