This special evening features two emotional works by composers Fredrick Kaufman (Jacob's Wrestling with the Angel) and Igor Stavinsky ("L’Histoire du soldat") that takes us on a journey in which we must face our angels and demons, leading to an inevitable state of grace or downfall.

Fredrick Kaufman's Jacob Wresting with the Angel is a work for cello and viola based on the biblical story of Jacob and his desire to be blessed. A Florida premiere.

Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) is regarded as one of the most important and influential chamber works of the early twentieth century. A demanding score meant “to be read, played, and danced” by actors, dancer(s), and accompanied by a septet of instruments, it tells the tale of a soldier on leave from the army, who trades his old violin for a magic book that can tell the future and make him rich.

About Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat" (The Soldier's Tale)

Igor Stravinsky wrote The Soldier’s Tale during World War I when he was in exile in Switzerland. Stravinsky had already made a big splash in the musical world with his earlier trio of large-scale ballet works The Firebird, Petrushka, and the infamous The Rite of Spring. Because of the composer’s exile and the economic restrictions that accompanied WWI (not to mention the influenza epidemic) The Soldier’s Tale (1918) is a much more modest theatrical composition in terms of personnel. The piece is now regarded as one of the most important and influential chamber works of the early twentieth century.

Jacob Wrestles: The Story

To know Jacob’s story is to know his life was one of never-ending struggles. At a pivotal point in his life, Jacob was on his way to see his estranged brother Esau, hoping to reconcile with him, when he encounters a mysterious man on a riverbank at night. The story is told in the Bible and Torah in the Book of Genesis, chapter 32.

Verses 24 through 28 describe the wrestling match between Jacob and the man, in which Jacob ultimately prevails: "So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, 'Let me go, for it is daybreak.' But Jacob replied, 'I will not let you go unless you bless me.' The man asked him, 'What is your name?' ' Jacobs he answered. Then the man said, 'Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.'"

Fredrick Kaufman on Jacob Wrestling with the Angel

Hope. Fear. Regret. Betrayal. Despair. The unknown. These are the emotional forces and threads that weave through the biblical story of Jacob Wrestling the Angel and through this three-movement composition. It is an anxiety driven story that parallels the unknown of our times, the wrestling that so many of us are engaged in as we search for meaning, sense, order. The brutal side of ourselves, driven by concern for our own well-being, wrestling with tendencies and aspirations that lead towards generosity and hope. We seek a transformation such as undertaken by Jacob whether we realize it or not.

When Dr. Hector Bolivar commissioned me to write a chamber music piece focused on Jacob wrestling with the angel, I felt a sense of responsibility to research the subject in earnest. I contacted scholars in California, Boston, Kentucky, Florida and New York, studying their recommended readings. I explored relevant works of master painters and sculptors and their depictions of the subject matter (i.e. Rembrandt, Delacroix, and Sir Jacob Epstein) and likewise the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, and the writings of Hermann Hesse and others. In order to understand the significance of the story and the music that ensues one has to view the patriarch Jacob in the context of his familial relationship, specifically in regard to his brother Esau. 

* This work first premiered as part of the first-ever Arts Policy Conference by Florida International University in Washington, in D.C. with members of the NEA, NEH, and other policymakers on February 11, 2022. Performed by members of FIU’s Artist-in-Residence Ensemble, the Amernet String Quartet — at the Florida House in D.C. The work was written for viola and cello.