Nicola Benedetti plays Ernest Bloch's poignant 'Prayer'

Nicola Benedetti has recorded a world exclusive performance of a new arrangement by The Ayoub Sisters of Ernest Bloch’s “Prayer”.

Originally composed in 1924 for Cello and Piano, this new arrangement was made especially for violinist Nicola Benedetti and a string quartet featuring Yume Fujise and Charlie Westhoff (violin), Jenny Lewisohn (viola) and Ariane Zandi (cello). This live recording was made at Kemps House, the home of musician and furniture maker Alex Willcock.

The short piece features the musicians playing in a candlelit room in music that soothes and consoles amid troubled times.

Both Alex and Nicola talk about the serendipitous events that connected them and led to working together.

“Our hope is that we can share the experience and the emotional connection that we both have with classical music, with as many people as possible. We hope to share our passion and to offer that experience, or sense of being completely immersed in beautiful music.”

Nicola Benedetti went further adding, "Music can uplift through joy and it can console through reflection. Sometimes you are looking for something to make you feel more of what you are feeling. And through the process is a kind of cleansing, or a rebirth of your most uplifted self. I know I understand that experience myself and I am sure most people do. Sometimes you go deeper to come up.

Of the collaboration, Alex Willcock said, "What we feel about this piece is how rich it is in terms of its emotional expression. Being immersed in the moment, being immersed in the emotion is something that, as a musician, you can experience in an extraordinary way. But also, as a member of the audience, there are times when something really special happens.

We wanted to capture that moment, that indefinable element of immersion, where you are literally removed from the present moment into something that becomes even more present, in a way. So, everything that we’ve wanted to do - with the arrangement, with the film, is to immerse our audience inside the music, inside the emotion and connect deeply with all that it brings.’

Who was composer Ernest Bloch?

Composer Ernest Bloch was born in Geneva in 1880, and studied in Brussels before moving to the US in 1916, eventually settling in Portland, Oregon, where he died in 1959. Though famous in his lifetime for large-scale works like his opera Macbeth (1910), some of his song-like compositions – notably Schelomo for cello and orchestra (1916) – are still part of the concert repertoire today. Bloch was influenced by some of the leading composers of his time – including Mahler, Debussy and his teacher, violinist Eugène Ysaye.

Bloch strongly identified with his Jewish faith and wrote several works directly inspired by Jewish liturgy and folklore, among them Schelomo for cello and orchestra (1916), Israel for orchestra (1916), and Baal Shem for violin and orchestra (1939). ‘I aspire to write Jewish music - not for the sake of self-advertisement, but because I am sure that this is the only way in which I can produce music of vitality and significance’, he suggested.

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