The Lighter Classics in Music: A Comprehensive Guide to Musical Masterworks in a Lighter Vein

Joseph Achron was born in Lozdzieje, Lithuania, on May 13, 1886. He attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied the violin with Leopold Auer and theory with Anatol Liadov, graduating in 1904. After teaching at the Kharkov Conservatory for three years, he toured Russia, Europe and the Near East as a concert violinist for about six years, and settled permanently in the United States in 1925. Some of his most ambitious and significant compositions were written in this country. Among these were three violin concertos, two violin sonatas, the Golem Suite for orchestra and the Stempenyu Suite for violin and piano. Achron died in Hollywood, California, on April 29, 1943.

When Achron was twenty-five years old, and still living in Russia, he became a member of the music committee of the Hebrew Folk Music Society of St. Petersburg. Its aim was twofold: to encourage research in Hebrew music, and to direct the enthusiasm of gifted Russian composers toward the writing of Hebrew music. It was as a direct result of this association, and the stimulus derived from the achievements of this society, that in 1911 Achron wrote a popular composition in a Hebraic vein which to this day is his most famous piece of music. It is the Hebrew Melody, Op. 33, for violin and orchestra. The melodic germ of this composition is an actual synagogical chant, amplified by Achron into a spacious melody following several introductory measures of descending, brooding phrases. This melody is first given in a lower register, but when repeated several octaves higher it receives embellishments similar to those provided a synagogical chant by a cantor. The composition ends with the same descending minor-key phrases with which it opened. This Hebrew Melody, in a transcription for violin and piano by Leopold Auer, has been performed by many of the world’s leading violin virtuosos.