Moses Pergament: The Jewish Song

Finland-Swedish composer Moses Pergament (1893-1977) is perhaps one of Swedish music history’s most well-kept secrets. In contrast to e.g. Lars-Erik Larsson and Wilhelm Stenhammar the name Moses Pergament is one largely forgotten today, but during his time he was regarded as one of the major figures in Swedish art music. For the public, he was most famous as a music critic and annalist, whose educational and descriptive style made him an important voice for the understanding and acceptance of the radical new musical trends. In a time when the Swedish art music business was still highly pervaded by the late Romantic ideals, Pergament harbored a keen interest in new music. This continued even in old age, for when the experimental electronic music made entrance in the 1960’s he claimed that while he could not grasp it musically, it was certainly in “absolute unison” with the rampant technological development of the time.

Pergament’s own sound world was based on growing up in an Orthodox Jewish home in Helsinki, and the historical, religious musical culture that he had access to. As he himself put it, it gave him the “intuitive basis for my music”. He studied the early ancient notation systems, and learned the history of Jewish musical culture.

The tremendous work The Jewish Song was composed during a three week period in 1944, at a time when the extent of the German Nazis’ crimes against humanity had just begun to be unveiled. The music, written for soprano, tenor, chorus and orchestra, takes us through history and switches between moods of deep bitterness, pride and confidence in the future. The lyrics are taken from two of the Swedish author and art historian Ragnar Josephson’s poetry collections, The Chain (1912) and Jewish Poems (1916), in which Pergament among other things found, quote, “The feelings of a true Jew. Not a despicable nationalism, but a liberating feeling of belonging, even in the midst of great suffering “.