Herman Berlinski

Herman Berlinski (18 August 1910 – 27 September 2001) was a German-born American composer, organist, pianist, musicologist and choir conductor.

His first major works written in New York were suites all published under the title, From the World of My Father, and drawn in part from material on the fragmentary scores which he had been able to rescue from his home in Paris, but mostly from his memory of the melodies that he had heard or written in that period before the War. Under this general title, From the World of My Father, there are several suites for various instrumentations. The first (subtitled Chazoth (or Hatzot)) for chamber orchestra, written in 1941 and revised in 1995, has four movements, Prayer at Midnight, Procession, Legend, and Dance and is, as its subtitle suggests, related to the suite for string quartet and ondes Martenot which he composed in Paris in 1938. It also appeared later after several revisions as an Organ Suite also under the title, From the World of My Father, but with five movements listed in the HBMC catalogue as Prayer at Midnight (Chazoth), Air (Nigun), Nocturnal Procession, Legend and Ritual Dance. The second suite, written in 1948, existed first in a version for cello and piano. Subtitled Dialogues, it has four movements, Dialogue, Hasidic, Nigun, and Wedding Dance. Later Berlinski arranged it for cello and chamber orchestra.

In 1958 Berlinski completed another major work, a Friday-evening service entitled Avodat Shabbat for cantor, choir and organ, which had been commissioned by Cantor David Putterman of New York's Park Avenue Synagogue who was cantor in its first performance there in that same year. Some years later the work was being assessed for performance at Emanu-El and was submitted for examination by several musicians including Leonard Bernstein, who noted it to be "a fine compromise between tradition and somewhat contemporary sounds." Subsequently, Berlinski orchestrated and expanded the work for a concert performance conducted by Bernstein at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1963.