“The last few months have been difficult and strange as a rabbi, cantor, and composer”
Arnold Saltzman’s latest work is based on a story he made up about King Solomon.
In 1987, Arnold Saltzman walked by his then-3-year-old son Michael Meir’s gan hayeladim (nursery) class. The kids were making a kotel, Jerusalem’s Western Wall (a remnant of a Second Temple retaining wall), of brown wrapping paper. They told the teacher which prayers to write on little pieces of paper to place between the wall’s “stones.” Recognizing Saltzman as a cantor and parent of a child in the class, the teacher motioned for him to enter and asked him to tell a kotel story.
“I improvised something about King Solomon and his gift for understanding birds,” Saltzman said. “Not wanting to be a disappointment to my son, who thought I could do anything including being a trapeze artist, I made up the story.”
A 2019 photo I took of Saltzman in his office at Adas Israel Congregation in D.C., where he is cantor emeritus, for my Religion News Service story “Cantor regains his lost voice by composing Jewish music.”
Here’s how it went, riffing on the legend that Solomon could speak to animals: En route to dedicating the Temple’s outer walls, the wisest man hears an injured bird’s cries. He finds a dove and brings it to the palace for rehabilitation. Though his ministers object to the small, new palace resident, Solomon tells them when the dove heals it will be a peaceful time and the right moment to dedicate the Temple.
Once healed, the dove flies away, and Solomon misses it. When he dedicates the final stone in the wall, the king sees the returned dove resting on the stone. “A king must care for everyone and everything in his kingdom,” Saltzman said. In this time of anxiety, especially for children, “Hoping for the dove’s well-being is part of human caring and love,” he added. “The dedication makes sense when the dove is healed.”
That day, 33 years ago, Saltzman recorded the story when he got home. It now forms the basis of his chamber music work—for five instruments and a narrator—which the Md.-based Chesapeake Orchestra will perform (and stream) on Labor Day weekend. Jeffrey Silberschlag, orchestra music director, will conduct, and Michael Meir Saltzman—now 36 and a professional actor, singer, and writer—will narrate the piece based on a story his dad told him in nursery school.
The instruments in the three-movement work are symbolic to Saltzman. The flute represents the divine spirit; the oboe is the injured dove; the guitar stands in for King David’s harp and for Jerusalem; and the cello and double bass suggest Solomon and the people of Jerusalem.
The opening is a variation on the very-timely Rosh Hashanah blessings, and one can hear an imitation of the shofar in the melody, according to Saltzman. The second movement follows petition and penitential formulas used on the Sabbath, and the third—based on a theme attributed to Mozart—uses the familiar “Dona Nobis Pacem” melody, which is used for the Hebrew blessing “Sim Shalom” (“Grant peace”).
Family portrait courtesy of Saltzman. Michael Meir is on the far left and Saltzman is in the middle. The others (left to right) are Josh, Carol Nissenson, and Norma and Marc Nissenson.
The piece will be performed subsequently in Italy in Italian at the Alba Music Festival, which Chesapeake Orchestra co-produces. (Saltzman’s “A Choral Symphony: Halevi” premiered in Italy in 2017). “It’s a story about healing and peace,” Saltzman said of the work on Solomon and the dove. “For art, sometimes it’s a long journey into light!”
Not only is it not unusual for works to develop over many decades, but music and stories have life, according to Saltzman. “Ideas percolate,” he said.
He began writing the music for “Solomon and the Dove” during production of his opera in the mid-1990s, while waiting for its premiere. He was in touch then with renowned choreographer Virginia Freeman (who passed away in 2011), who referred him to a former student, Marci Schlissel. That introduction brought an entire ballet school from Ellicott City, Md., into the picture.
In 1998, the work was performed as a chamber music piece with a narrator. Saltzman went on to compose symphonies, and after his fourth symphony premiered, the musician Giuseppe Nova was excited by the work—Saltzman said—and asked him to submit a chamber music piece. Silberschlag, co-director of the Alba Music Festival, told Saltzman the latter was among just a few U.S. composers to be so honored, according to Saltzman. (Saltzman’s fourth symphony premiered at the Alba festival in summer 2018, and in Washington the following year.)
“Luckily, I found my work!” he said.
Saltzman, a rabbi and cantor, reads the torah. Photo courtesy of Saltzman.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, it derailed plans for a 2020 premiere of “Solomon and the Dove” in Europe, due to travel restrictions and a virus outbreak in Italy.
“The last few months have been difficult and strange as a rabbi, cantor, and composer,” Saltzman said. “In many ways it has been a time for reflection as well as for being creative.”
One wedding he was supposed to officiate was rescheduled for next year. Another had a socially-distanced civil ceremony in a garden in Saltzman’s backyard (with just the groom’s parents, the couple, and him), and a second religious ceremony with a chuppah (wedding canopy) was held in the garden of the home of the groom’s parents. A Zoom hookup connected the latter ceremony with family and friends across the country and in Korea, with the ketubah (marriage documents) read in Hebrew, English, and Korean.
“It was beautiful and memorable,” Saltzman said. “At the same time, I turned down requests for officiating at weddings, funerals, other life cycle events, and teaching. I feel that I cannot expose myself or my family to the current risks.”
Saltzman has been taking advantage of Conservative synagogue and Reform temple streaming services, and he cites those of Washington Hebrew and by Adas Israel’s cantor Arianne Brown as among the best. But in others, he finds the lack of professional respect for trained voices puzzling.
“In my career as chazzan [cantor], I did my best to make services tasteful, beautiful, and meaningful,” he said. “Others should strive to do this as a life’s goal. The streamed service can be a gift if people are willing to prepare a wonderful service.”
Photo courtesy of Saltzman.
Jewish music has been part of a sacred tradition from the very beginning of the faith, according to Saltzman, but when he first arrived in the Washington, D.C., area, cantors were very few and far between. A decade later, nearly every congregation was seeking a trained cantor.
“If it’s done well and authentically, people rethink what they accept,” he said. “Of course, many amateur cantors want to lead, and some are very good. But the in-depth training at Jewish Theological Seminary [Conservative] and Hebrew Union College [Reform] provide a more-complete cantor, who is not just singing tunes or thinks a service set to popular secular melodies provides an authentic service.”
“I am in search of something different and authentic,” he added.
Saltzman originally dedicated “Solomon and the Dove” to the peace-keeping efforts of former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and former diplomats Dennis Ross and Aaron David Miller. “Coincidently, now there is a new agreement just as we are about to stream the story and music,” he said of the recently-announced peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
“We are reminded of earlier agreements and celebrate; nevertheless, we ask what healing is happening in this process?” he said. “That remains to be seen.”
Despite difficulties working in the present, trying moment, Saltzman completed an opera libretto (called “Geniza”) recently, and he’s begun writing music and editing. He’s also at work on a Spanish translation of his English opera “Touro,” which he said will be “a revelation” to Spanish- and Portuguese-speakers, who aren’t familiar with early Jewish settlers in the Americas who fled persecution in those countries.
“Somehow, I managed to work during this difficult time,” he said. “In some ways, some isolation has a benefit for my creative process. Nevertheless, I translated the joy of being with family and friends into art, which is necessary for me and many artists.”