But perhaps Maria was secretly a Marrano? Even though the ethnic elements of the plot were changed, the original inspiration in the music remains embedded throughout. It was this interfaith conflict that informed the thematic development of the score.
In the earliest version, the musical was called “East Side Story” and the female lead was not the Puerto Rican immigrant Maria, but rather a Jewish girl who falls in love with an Italian Catholic boy in Greenwich Village. And this theme is the musical kernel from which Bernstein derived most of the music in this score. Without doubt the most famous music inspired by the call of the shofar is Leonard Bernstein’s masterpiece, “West Side Story.” The very first notes of the introduction are nothing but a full-throated orchestral evocation of the sound of the shofar. Other composers have been more literal in invoking the shofar. Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, the sweetly singing tuba mirum of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Requiem,” which seems to have been equally inspired by the call of the wood thrush. Composers throughout history have vied to conjure the magic of the biblical shofar, but most have done so fancifully, perhaps the most spectacular being by the 19th-century atheist and genius Hector Berlioz, who dreamed up four spatially separated brass bands for the unforgettably rousing Dies Irae of his “Requiem Mass” to illustrate what the shofars at the end of the world would sound like. Whether it is at the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses, Gabriel blowing the last trumpet, the raising of the dead or the tuba mirum (wondrous trumpet) of the Catholic mass - all are referring to the shofar. Almost every time the Jewish or Christian Bibles mention a trumpet or horn, it means the shofar. To adapt the famous categorization of Claude Levi-Strauss, if such wind instruments as clarinets and cornets are “cooked,” the shofar is definitely “raw.” The question arises: Why has this wild horn, the only biblical instrument still in use, come to represent so much to Jews, especially in the holiday season we are entering?Īccording to tradition, the shofar is the closest thing to the voice of God. Send us feedback.Originally published in the Forward September 6, 2002. These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'tremulous.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. 2022 Willingham’s tremulous narrative voice might have some readers reaching for a calming agent, too, but her denouement is both surprising and plausible. 2022 Ronnie Spector, whose hard-edged yet tremulous voice soared on the Ronettes’ girl-group hits of the early ‘60s, died on Wednesday of cancer.Ĭhris Morris, Variety, 12 Jan. Los Angeles Times, Garnish as one desires, perhaps with a juicy blackberry or a hothouse flower, something dewy and tremulous, to be sure. Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 10 June 2022 In high, tremulous voices, the Sisters of the Holy Family were chanting their midday prayers when a child’s gleeful shout echoed from a nearby corridor, punctuating the solemn incantation. 2022 His voice trips between tremulous Christensen and baritone Jones.ĭarren Franich, EW.com, 22 June 2022 And Minnelli is clearly aware of the force of her performance, creating long takes that serve as a sort of proscenium as well as urgent closeups that burst with her tremulous power. 2022 With it, O’Farrell demonstrates fiction’s ability to offer counter narratives to those of received history, to open before us imaginative abundance and a tremulous sense of possibility. Recent Examples on the Web Consider the household of Jack Chambers (Styles) and his wife, Alice (Pugh), who is fair of face and tremulous of mind.Īnthony Lane, The New Yorker, 16 Sep.
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