Musical Sharing
Fort Street Presbyterian Church performs
Honegger's "King David" with rabbinic narrator.
SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News
A
Chorale director
Edward Knights:
"Barriers dissolve
when people make
music together:"
Flawed Hero
Who was the real King David?
SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News
onathan Kirsch is not familiar
with the Arthur Honegger
oratorio King David soon to
be performed by the Fort
Street Chorale, but he has completed
extensive research about the subject of
the musical production and come up
with his own work.
Kirsch, author of King David: The
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5/3
2002
68
Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel
(Ballantine Books; $28), presents
more of a flesh-and-blood piece than
is sung on stage.
Never neglecting the kingly triumphs
represented in this icon of Jewish histo-
ry and faith, Kirsch also has filled his
pages with carnal tales often kept in the
background by religious leaders.
"The very things that I have found so
fascinating resonate throughout art, lit-
erature and music, and there are many
examples in my book of how artists,
poets and writers — over 2,000 years of
civilization — have grappled with this
very commanding figure," says Kirsch.
(The author, 52, also works as a book
critic for the Los Angeles Times and
attorney specializing in publication law.)
"No one in the Bible has a more scan-
dalous life than David, and yet David is .
called 'a man after God's own heart.'
"It has become a compelling interest
for me to let people know what's really
in the Bible and to try to understand
why the original sources of the Bible felt
that it was appropriate to include the
more realistic side, the sharper edges of
human experience," says Kirsch.
"The Bible looks at human beings
as they really are and doesn't necessari-
ly judge them."
Kirsch found his way into the earthier
and less-familiar parts of the Bible after
deciding to make Genesis the bedtime
reading for his son, Adam, who was 5
when he began hearing the adult text.
The father-son reading program,
somewhat censored, introduced Kirsch
to some shocking stories he realized
rthur Honegger's King David
oratorio will have a Jewish
presence among those per-
forming it May 5 at Detroit's
Fort Street Presbyterian Church.
The Fort Street Chorale, with 65
members, will have two Jewish singers,
Beatrice Sandweiss of Oak Park and
Ann Friedman of Detroit. Rabbi
Norman Roman of Temple Kol Ami
in West Bloomfield is guest narrator,
portraying David.
Although the church's director of
music, Edward Kingins, is not Jewish,
he gained an understanding of the reli-
gion while working as tenor soloist at
Temple Beth El.
"King David is an unusual piece
with the music written as incidental to
were omitted from the Conservative
instruction he experienced as a young-
ster. It tested his curiosity and led to
his first religious book, The Harlot by
a play and later converted into an ora-
torio," says Kingins, who has traveled
to Israel with a group from the tem-
ple. "The narrator speaks the words of
David from the Bible, and the music,
in a contemporary idiom, supplements
the text.
"I asked Rabbi Roman to be narra-
tor because he has a wonderful speak-
ing voice, and I thought he could
bring the members of the Jewish com-
munity to the church. In 1989, I
invited the late Rabbi Richard Hertz
to be narrator. I think barriers dissolve.
when people make music together."
Honegger's King David was first
staged in 1921, when the Swiss-born
composer called it a symphonic psalm,
noting that many of its 27 sections are
from the Psalms of David. The music
was planned to evoke textures and
emotions ranging from war to peace,
of the rape of David's daughter,
Tamar, by his son Amnon.
Also described in the book are rea-
sons why David might be labeled "an
outlaw and an extortionist, as when he
uses the threat of violence to solicit a
gift from a rich man with a beautiful
the Side of the Road: Forbidden Tales of
the Bible, an exploration of stories that
have been suppressed because of their
erotic, mystical or violent con-
tent.
"One of the stories in Harlot
was about Moses, and one was
about David," Kirsch explains. "I
began to see that Moses was a
very prominent and dominant
figure in the Bible and David
was less so, but in fact, David
was the most crucial figure in the
Bible."
Kirsch, who writes about
David as if he were penning a
novel, gives realistic perspective
to the familiar events of David's
life — his slaying of the giant
Goliath, his challenge to the
weak rule of Saul and his cele-
brated reign in Jerusalem.
In his exploration of the less
familiar, Kirsch discusses David's
relationship with his first wife's
brother, Jonathan, and explains
how some understand it as an
expression of bisexuality. The
author goes on to detail the story
Michelangelo "David," detail.