“Ma’oz Tzur” (arranged here for SATB chorus) is a traditional Jewish song with a long history. The tune dates back at least 500 years, and is still familiar to most modern Jews. The words, written in the 13th century, tell the history of the Jewish people, and because one of the poem’s six stanzas concerns the Hanukkah legend, the song has become associated, in recent centuries, with the celebration of Hanukkah. Today, it is often sung immediately after the lighting of the menorah.
When Scott MacPherson first asked me to put together an arrangement of a Hanukkah tune “of [my] choosing” for the Cleveland Chamber Choir’s 2018 holiday concerts, the date was October 30—just three days after eleven people had been killed in a horrific mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The idea of Jewish perseverance—of surviving hardship—was very much on my mind. This concept has been at the core of Jewish identity for millennia; it is, in fact, the main takeaway of both the Hanukkah legend and of “Ma’oz Tzur.” Whereas many renditions of the song are upbeat and raucous, mine is deliberately more solemn. It culminates on a “chillingly soft” chord on the word sh’mona (“eight”), in which the choir divides briefly into eight-part dissonance (appropriate, given the symbolism of the number eight in Hanukkah lore). It is my hope that this arrangement might honor the memory of those who lost their lives on October 27, 2018, and remind us all, Jewish or not, that we possess the strength to survive any hardship.
Recording: The Cleveland Chamber Choir; Scott MacPherson, conductor; Bruce Gigax, recording engineer (Cleveland, Ohio, 2018)
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