[HANASHIR:15351] Re: background for Hava Nagila?

[I. Oppenheim <i.oppenheim...>]

From:
http://www.radiohazak.com/Havahist.html

<<
The man largely responsible for the song's existence in
its present form is Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, and he was
the father of Jewish Musicology.

As a young cantor, he left his native Latvia, worked in
Germany and South Africa, then went to Jerusalem early
in this century to pursue his dream of collecting the
oral traditions of his people and making them available
to the world of music.

In the course of his research he visited a group of
Sadigura Hasidim there, in 1915, and wrote down some of
their Nigunim. This was one of them. It was a wordless
"bim-bom" melody, a mystic chant.

Then came World War I. Idelsohn became a bandmaster in
the Turkish Army.

Three years later he was back in Jerusalem again,
leading a chorus in a victory concert. The Turks were
out, the British were in, there was a Balfour
Declaration, and the yishuv (Jewish community) was
celebrating. He needed a good crowd-pleasing number to
end his concert, and he didn't have one. But he had a
file. So he browsed, and as luck would have it his hand
fell on this Sadigura Nigun.

He arranged it in four parts, put some simple Hebrew
lyrics to it, and performed it. The rest, as you know,
is history, as this became the best-known Jewish song
in the world.

Idelsohn documented this part of the transmigration of
this melody in Volume 9 of his "Thesaurus of Hebrew
Oriental Melodies" page XXIV. I know a little more
about it, because he was my first teacher of music. In
recent years, long after his death, the Government of
Israel finally awarded his family some royalties. Also
after his death, Moshe Nathanson claimed authorship,
since he was a boy in one of Idelsohn's Hebrew classes
at the time I think. But to my knowledge, Israel never
accepted his claim.

Interestingly enough, recordings of Havah Nagilah made
in Europe in the 20's go at a relatively slow pace. The
Hora rhythm was added later, came from a Rumanian
folkdance brought to the yishuv by the Halutzim.
>>


On Fri, 19 Sep 2003, Steve Greenberg wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
>
>
> I realize this is probably a question on the same level as "who wrote
> chopsticks?" But I need to give an intro for Hava Nagila to a non-Jewish
> choir Monday evening. I know how, why, when, and where it's used, but does
> anyone know where it originally came from? I imagine in Eastern Europe,
> where people lived with little means, whenever there was a big simcha, it
> was a treat to have a good reason to be able to sing and dance it. Any
> thoughts?
>
>
>
> Thanks!
>
> Steve Greenberg
>
> Plymouth, MN


 Groeten,
 Irwin Oppenheim
 i(dot)oppenheim (at) xs4all(dot)nl
 ~~~*

 Chazzanut Online:
 http://www.joods.nl/~chazzanut/

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