[6] It is styled as an Adagio on 2 Hebrew Melodies for Cello and Orchestra with Harp and consists of a series of variations on two main themes of Jewish origin.
The second subject of the piece is quoted from the middle section of Isaac Nathan's arrangement of "O Weep for Those that Wept on Babel's Stream", a lyric which was penned by Lord Byron in his collection Hebrew Melodies (which also includes the famous poem "She Walks in Beauty").
[6][7][8] Bruch was a Protestant[2]: 109 and first became acquainted with the Kol Nidrei melody when his teacher Ferdinand Hiller introduced him to the Lichtenstein family, the head of which served as the cantor-in-chief of Berlin.
[9] Even though I am a Protestant, as an artist I deeply felt the outstanding beauty of these melodies and therefore I gladly spread them through my arrangement (taken from a letter written by Bruch)...
(Idelsohn, from Jewish Music in its Historic Development, 1929)[9]The work is scored for solo cello, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, harp and strings.