In 2014, the popular Israeli rock singer Korin Allal set the entire Hebrew text of Ecclesiastes to music.

Blends elements of soul, electronic, funk, fusion, and hip hop.

(No recording here.)

Composer’s notes:

Qohelet is inspired by some of the teachings and poetic images in Ecclesiastes. I thought that this short book of experience would balance in some way the youthful innocence of Yiddishbbuk, through which I first met my friends of the St. Lawrence String Quartet 20 years ago.

The first movement of the work is a meditation on motion and melancholy. Those seemingly contradictory states actually feed each other here: a lyrical line emerges in the first violin from a gritty, ever more propulsive ride in the other instruments. The first violin finally lifts in flight and the movement ends suspended in mid-air, like the sword of Don Quijote at the end of chapter VIII in that book.

The second movement flows like two slow river currents, perhaps memory and present. The merging and bifurcations of these currents are punctuated by cradling bells: reflection rather than action.

performed by: Orquestra Sinfônica de Ribeirão Preto, Brazil

The thoughts and feelings of Ecclesiastes, explored in an edgy modern composition, rooted in classical forms.

The composer writes, “ ‘again (after ecclesiates)’ is a setting of a few lines from the beginning of the Book of Ecclesiastes, freely adapted by me. Ecclesiastes is a Hebrew prophet (in Hebrew his name is Kohelet) and his book is traditionally read during the harvest holiday of Sukkot. Kohelet moves powerfully from the cycling of the seasons to other endless natural and human cycles, creating a strange equilibrium of hope and futility.

“In my setting I wanted to make a piece that might convey the weariness of all of these endless cycles, concentrating on the weight of things repeating again. And again.”

“again (after ecclesiates)” was commissioned and premiered by the Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble in New York City, Kristina Boerger, Director. Composer’s site.

A song by Tim Stafford of the Blue Highway country music band. It speaks of the futility of living a life not rightly related to God.

Lyrics: http://www.bluehighwayband.com/Lyrics/wondrousLove.htm

Born in Tel-Aviv and later prominent in the Jewish musical life of Los Angeles, Aminadav Aloni was a composer, arranger, pianist, and conductor.

from the album Peace Beyond Passion

Dello Joio composed this piece for the dance “There Is A Time,” choreographed by José Limón. He received a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1957 for his score. See NY Times critique at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/arts/dance/16limon.html?_r=0.

performed by: Leonard Rose and the Cleveland Orchestra

The composer wrote, “For years I had a number of sketches for the book of Ecclesiastes which I had wanted to set to music, but the French language was not adaptable to my rhythmic patterns. Nor was German or English, and I hadn’t a good enough command of Hebrew. Thus the sketches accumulated and…lay dormant. One day I met the cellist Alexander Barjansky and his wife. I heard Barjansky play…. Why shouldn’t I use for my Ecclesiastes–instead of a singer limited in range, a voice vaster and deeper than any spoken language–his cello?”
Online, one may find a brief history and analysis of the work and a full dissertation.