Belsize Square is unique in its musical focus, as it preserves the German Liberale Tradition more comprehensively than any other British synagogue. It employs a professional, full-time chazan and also uses an organ in all of its services. Perhaps more significantly, its music comes predominantly from the nineteenth century. It is mostly composed by two individuals – Salomon Sulzer (b.1804), a contemporary and friend of Franz Schubert, and Louis Lewandowski (b.1821), a contemporary of Felix Mendelssohn. Of the two, it is Lewandowski who provides the greater proportion of the synagogue’s music. In addition to some of his best-known pieces, for example his Mah Tovu, Enosh Kechatsir and Hallelujah, we also sing lovely settings such as his Zacharti Lach, Tavo L’fanecha and Vye’etayu.

However, we also perform music by more recent composers, including our very own Sue Mariner, the émigré composers Isadore Freed and Heinrich Schalit, and living composers from America, Holland and Argentina. The preservers and shapers of our tradition have primarily been our cantors – Rev Magnus Davidsohn, Rev Joseph Dollinger, Rev Louis Berkman, Rev Lawrence Fine and most recently Cantor Norman Cohen Falah, who added a Sephardi aspect to our services.

In 1993 the congregation, as part of a re-development of its liturgy, introduced its own Shabbat prayer book. This was followed by the High Holyday Machzorim, a Festivals prayerbook and most recently an Evening Siddur. The introduction of the new Machzorim provided the opportunity to reintroduce compositions that had fallen into disuse, as well as to provide music for prayers that had previously been read aloud or silently.

Our CD

Our choirs

Our professional musicians

The Sibelius® Project