Wailing Wall

Ernest Bloch's symphony Israel, as played last week by the Cleveland Orchestra in Manhattan, was full of the woes of "a pious and sinful people." Full of fear of Jehovah, despair of stricken souls, anguished groping for light, the music was illustrated upon the vast stage by figures in tan and black flowing robes. Men of the priestly order (among them Dancer Michio Ito), mourning women bearing lighted candles, suppliants in prayer shawls, a pilgrim, the Ba'al Tokea, moved against the austere background of the enormous Wailing Wall of Jerusalem, achieved the spirit of Isaiah crying:

"For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light. . . . And I will punish the world for their evil and the wicked for their iniquity."

Each figure expressed an individual passionate sorrow, yet there was swaying and swooning in groups. It was extraordinarily well done. Responsible for the dramatic composition and the stage direction was Miss Irene Lewisohn.* The voices of invisible singers mingled with the orchestral sounds. The Rembrandt-like picture on the stage was but one more instrument. Conductor Nikolai Sokoloff was at his best; connoisseurs called him great.

* Irene & Alice Lewisohn, founders of the Neighborhood Playhouse, are nieces of Adolph Lewisohn (copper), donor of the famed Lewisohn Stadium, collector of Degas and Bellows pictures.