Arts is Life
Shofar Man
The composer of nearly two dozen works for shofar, Rafael Mostel has spearheaded
a renaissance of interest in the biblical instrument's musical possibilities.
SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News
aphael Mostel, like other Jews attending
services on the High Holidays, listens to the
hofar with an ear toward religion. Unlike
other Jews, he also thinks of the shofar
c,
throughout the year, with an ear toward secular audi-
ences.
The New Yorker — whose brother Julian attended 1
Oakland University in Rochester, Mich. — has corn-
posed about 20 works for shofar since 1985 and has
done a series of reports on the significance of the ram's .4>
horn for National Public Radio.
Working with the only biblical instrument still in
use might seem a little offbeat for a contemporary
entertainer who seeks to bring new approaches to con-
certs and recordings, but the offbeat is somewhat tradi-
tional in his family: Uncle Zero Mostel, the late actor
and comedian who previewed Fiddler on the Roof at
the Fisher Theatre, set the stage.
Mostel plays a wide variety of instruments, and has
Rafael Mostel, front and center, with Rams' Horns Tocsin, Silent Thunder Drummers, Equinox Winds and
played a ram's horn during services. But he prefers lis-
Tibetan Singing Bowl Ensemble, performing "Ceremonial for the Equinox" (1985), his work for shofar
tening to someone else play the shofar. "I'm not as
good with it as I should be," he says, "and relate that to
why people become -composers.
early 1980s. He created the Tibetan Singing Bowl
and they become feedback loops.
"While every other instrument in the orchestra is
Ensemble to project his musical orientation, and went
"The music I was creating was to get myself out of
better behaved," he adds, "the shofar maintains its
on to experiment with the shofar because of its
these loops and hopefully, at the same time, get audi-
wildness, which I think is why it was chosen for what
ambiguous pitch.
ences out of the loops. I've found that [this approach]
it does in the synagogue service. Its a reminder to
"I think that we very often sleepwalk through
really does wake people up."
bring ourselves to our roots and fundamentals."
life and give conditioned responses," Mostel says.
Mostel's works that feature the shofar — and are
Mostel, 55, likes to bring a sense of the unbridled
"This happens in music also. There are these
available on CD — include Ceremonial for the
into his compositions, and started working
usual patterns that are repeated. After a while,
Equinox, which is based on cantorial repertoire and
with Tibetan singings bowls in the
people don't listen to them so much anymore,
evokes the idea of a clarion call; Jacob's Ladder, which
Er
The Sound Of The Ram's Horn
Classical and modern works feature sounds of the shofar.
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2003
114
aphael Mostel is not alone in
recalling the sounds of the sho-
far in a variety of musical pieces. In a
piece he wrote for the Forward news-
paper last year, the composer noted
that every time the Hebrew or
Christian Bible mentions a trumpet
or horn, it is referring to a shofar.
Therefore, many classical works
incorporate renditions of the shofar's
mystical and majestic sounds, he
wrote.
In the piece, Mostel referred to the
following composers whose works
were either inspired by the shofar or
incorporate the instrument:
Hector Berlioz: The 19th-century
atheist's "Dies Irae," from his
Requiem Mass, "fancifully illustrates
what the shofars at the end of the
world might sound like."
Wofgang Amadeus Mozart: The tuba
mirim (wondrous trumpet of the
Catholic mass) of the composer's
Requiem "reflects the shofar" but
seems to have been "equally inspired
by the call of the wood thrush,"
noted Mostel.
Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story
was originally titled "East Side Story,"
and the female lead was a Jewish girl
who falls in love with an Italian
Catholic boy in Greenwich Village.
Even though the final version's lead
became the Puerto Rican Maria, the
original inspiration for the score was
retained. West Side Story opens with a
"full-throated orchestral evocation of
the sound of the shofar" and it is "the
musical kernel from which Bernstein
derived most of the music of this
score," Mostel asserted.
Sir Edward Elgar: In his oratorio The
Apostles, Mostel wrote, the English
composer of Pomp and Circumstance
utilizes "a mystical vision of the sho-
far sounding to announce daybreak
over the Temple in Jerusalem."
Since Mostel began incorporating
actual shofars in his compositions
two decades ago, other contemporary
composers have followed suit, includ-
ing John Duffy, whose Heritage
soundtrack employs an actual shofar;
Alvin Curran, who combines shofar
and electronics; and John Zorn, the
New York-based avant-garde compos-
er/saxophonist renowned for his
"downtown" shofar sound. Li