This CD (featuring Alberto Mizrahi, tenor, and the Chorale Mystique conducted by Matthew Lazar) is a creative, beautiful and often haunting treatment of a wide variety of liturgical texts from the Bible and the traditional prayers. One track features the Ashkenazi version of the Song of Songs (1:1-3), sung by women's voices (as the Song is not sung in the Orthodox synagogues). Another features the opening of Lamentations, with it relatively simple and repetitive motives allowing the congregation to join the singing freely. Some texts are treated in a fascinating, modernistic way; others, in a very traditional way; still others, in a way that deliberately combines the two. A number of more modern works are included as well. All of the voices used are very beautiful. One wishes that Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura had access to such expressive, knowledgeable singers and high production values from the beginning of her work.

One of the best features of this recording is that its liner notes (unlike those of The Sacred Bridge, which features some of the same texts found here) are mostly honest and up-to-date as to the real ages and origins of the synagogue chants. One may yet challenge their opening assertions (p. 7) that the synagogue chants are "an oral tradition that dates back to the days of the Temple in Jerusalem" (in most cases, there is no proof of this) and that "the modes of the Bible were codified in the 9th and 10th centuries by the Masoretes in the Galilee region of Israel (Tiberias)" (this is not what the Masoretes themselves said). But the liner notes do admit freely that the "Great Tradition" of Islamic music heavily influenced the music of the local Jewish communities (p. 12). They also admit that the original melodies to which the Psalms were sung in the Temple were lost (p. 11). They even admit that "During the Middle Ages, there was a great deal of cross-cultural borrowing between the church and the synagogue" (p. 10). It is in the light of the latter statement that the famous alternating Hebrew-Latin version of Psalm 114 is offered -- effectively refuting the claim of The Sacred Bridge (with regard to the same version) that the melodic-verbal correlation of the synagogue and Gregorian chants of this Psalm prove the high antiquity of the former.

There is some danger that the treatment of some of the ancient synagogue folk melodies as "art songs" will mislead the listener as to the real character of the original chants. Nevertheless, this is a very good and very enjoyable evocation of the various synagogue liturgies. (Apparently it is available only to members of the Musical Heritage Society's Music Club, which is accessible online.)