Yigal Calek’s Yom Kippur Niggunim Never Get Old

“I once asked my father about those crashes of thunder at the start of the arrangement of ‘Chamol,’” says his son Duvid Zvi, “and he shared his inspiration with me. The opening words of the piyut are a supplication, asking the Ribbono shel Olam to have mercy on His creations, which He chose to bring into existence. That takes us back to the Creation of the World, which is of course one of the key themes of Rosh Hashanah. Then the second part, the words “Tukdash, Adon, al kol ma’asecha,” are a burst of song, a vision of the glory of Hashem’s kedushah being spread over the entire Creation.

“I remember hearing my father speaking on the phone to his good friend, Yisroel Lamm, who did the music and arrangements for the album where ‘Chamol’ would debut (London School – Neginah Orchestra, 1973). My father would explain what he was aiming for in the arrangements for his songs. He’d speak about horses and chariots, wind and storms, seas and faraway lands, people crying and laughing. As children, we found these conversations to be enthralling. Yisroel, in his own genius, was always ‘yoreid lesof daato,’ able to completely understand and find ways to express what my father had in mind. My father always had tremendous respect for him.”

Duvid Zvi remembers the rehearsals when his father would tell the boys, who ranged in age from nine to 13, to close their eyes as they listened to a song. He would share the story that the words conjured up for him, and then dig deeper to further ignite their own understanding and connection to the words they were singing. “Many of his creations journey through a range of moods,” he says. “Most of his songs tell a story. And he was an expert at bringing his audience into the narrative.”

The song “Mar’eh Kohein” (on the 1971 album, Borchi Nafshi, the “tzitzis” album), taken from the piyut in Yom Kippur Mussaf, is a song of pure majesty and infinite joy in the glory of the Kohein Gadol as he has successfully completed the avodah of Yom Kippur and gained forgiveness for his people.