One for the ages

Conductor David Shemer brings to life centuries-old baroque music.

By BARRY DAVIS
Jerusalem Baroque orchestra (photo credit: Courtesy)
Jerusalem Baroque orchestra
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Despite having a couple of king-sized bees in his bonnet, David Shemer is a happy man. “I do what I love, so I’m not complaining but I think the state should give us a lot more support,” says the 57-year-old musical director and founder of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra (JBO).
“When I contact musicians from abroad, I am embarrassed to tell them the fee I can offer them. Some don’t care and say ‘just cover my expenses’ and they come over willingly, but there are lots of great artists out there whom we simply can’t afford to bring here.”
Even so, Shemer is certainly happy about the JBO’s upcoming performances of Scarlatti’s oratorio Hagar and Ishmael, which Shemer will conduct. “It is a wonderful work, and it’s incredible that Scarlatti could write such a deep piece at the age of only 23.”
As its name suggests, the work was inspired by the tragic biblical story of Hagar’s banishment from Abraham’s household together with her son Ishmael.
“Yes, Hagar and Ishmael suffered but I believe the real victim here is Abraham,” declares Shemer. “He was torn between his wife’s demands and his feelings for Hagar and for Ishmael who, after all, was his son.”
The musical director says the story behind the work, and the depths of emotion it generates, means that all the members of the ensemble have to do their homework and be in top form at the concerts.
“Each player has to be able to tell the story, the emotions that the story involves, and all the colors. Also, we are not a large ensemble so they have no one to hide behind. Each player has to play his part to his utmost.”
Shemer has certainly been doing his utmost to fly the flag of early music performed in an authentic style. He not only founded the JBO in 1989, he was also the first in Israel to fly the flag of antique music using period instruments and historical performance techniques.
Prior to pioneering the performance of early music in this country, he accrued a rich and varied classical education in his hometown of Riga, Latvia. He starting learning violin at the age of six, but, by 15, realized he was never going to become a virtuoso on the instrument, opting instead for the theoretical side of the art form. He encountered some baroque music in Latvia before making aliya in 1973, at the age of 20, but it was during a two-year sojourn in London, from 1980 to 1982, that his interest in early music was well and truly sparked.
“I went to study at the Guildhall [School of Music and Drama] and privately, specifically harpsichord and conducting, but I wasn’t initially focused on historical performance. That’s hardly surprising, considering the genre did not exist at all in Israel at that time.”
According to Shemer, it wasn’t just a matter of ignorance or apathy towards authentic performance of early music. “In Israel at the time, like other places in the world, it was not just frowned upon. Musicians who engaged in that area of music were considered a bit crazy.”
Shemer says that the genre, and those who performed it, were considered by most to be inferior. “The attitude was that those who don’t know how to play music properly play baroque instruments, because they are easier to use. By the same token, the approach was that anyone who can’t play the piano plays the harpsichord. That may have been true with regard to some players back then, but that idea is so outdated now.”
One wonders whether it is possible that objection to historic playing techniques was due to a rejection of the idea of delving into the past and adopting an approach that was no longer considered relevant for contemporary times. After all, art is often a forward-looking occupation. Shemer believes there is a wider issue at stake here and that there is much that contemporary musicians, and people in general, can learn from playing and listening to baroque music played on authentic instruments.
“Anthropologists like to talk about ‘the other.’ But does the fact that the other is different mean he or she is inferior? What is playing ancient music on historic instruments? That means I am saying, ‘I don’t know what you are any more than you do.’ It means: ‘How can I learn from you, and accept you on your own terms?’” The “you” in question refers to the musicians who performed during the baroque era.
“One of the things that differentiates our times from those times is that, these days, we are constantly breaking things down and separating things. If you play piccolo, it means you are no longer a flutist. In those days, you were just a musician, without specializing in some narrow field.”
Shemer has strong views on the importance of playing music that pertains to a particular period as authentically as possible.
“What does it mean when people play Bach on modern instruments? When they did that because that’s all they knew, that’s one thing. However, when people do that today, it is as if they are saying, ‘I know how to play Bach better than Bach knew how to play Bach.’ To my mind, that is absurd and arrogant.”
Beyond interpreting early music per se, Shemer feels there is an important added value to be gained from following his approach.
“You learn to accept people, people different from you, for what they are. I think that is the greatest value of what we do. Never a day goes by without my discovering just how clever, sensitive, wonderful and educated musicians were in those times. We all know that if you have a piano at home, you get the tuner in once in a while and you make sure you’re not at home when he’s working because it’s annoying.
You go out and you rely on the tuner that he will sort out your piano for you. But, in those times, there were probably dozens of ways of tuning an instrument, in keeping with all the types of scales that were played. They heard the differences between them, and that is something we have lost. There is so much we can learn from the musicians of the baroque era.”
Shemer says that modern artists are also far more possessive than their predecessors.
“I remember when I was a student someone who studied with me gave me a work he had written for harpsichord, and asked me to play it. I happily agreed – it was a nice work – but I noticed a copyright symbol at the bottom, as if people were waiting in line to steal his composition and make millions out of it. In the old days – and I have seen quite a few old scores in my time – no one ever wrote a copyright symbol on their charts. That’s not because copyright had not yet been invented. It is because composers back then simply gave something of themselves to the world, to enrich the world. And that was Bach’s approach. He did not write a piece so that, in 2010, the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra would play it. It was all so much more humane in olden times.”
Scarlatti’s Hagar and Ishmael certainly touches on humane matters of great import and the JBO’s performances next week will benefit from the services of several high caliber vocalists, including mezzosoprano Inbal Hever; sopranos Ye’ela Avital, Keren Motseri and Anat Edri; and celebrated German bass-baritone Christian Imler. Imler will also lend his celebrated skills to a recording of the work, which the JBO will undertake later in the week. There are not too many recordings of Hagar and Ishmael and the JBO release could help to raise the global profile of Scarlatti’s masterpiece.
Hagar and Ishmael will be performed on at 8:30 p.m. at the YMCA. For tickets: www.bimot.co.il, 624-7000.