(adv.) Excellent new complilation! "Oytsres/Treasures: Klezmer Music 1908-1996"

[a bisl yidishkayt <klezmer...>]

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Of the handful of compilations of old klezmer music, this one, by clarinetist-klezmer historian Joel Rubin, has got to be the most -  diverse?  - encompassing?  Thus, it is valuable to instrumentalists such as fiddlers and clarinetists. 

Regardless, not only is a wonderful album to listen to, there are European-recorded pieces, too.

For instance, in the fiddle department:

*  H. Steiner, accompanied by a tsimblist in 1908 in Lemberg plays a traditional ornamented style with spare use of vibrato. 

*  In contrast, the classically trained Jacob Gegna (1880-1944), plays a highly emotional Taxim  (in New York, 1921). According to Rubin, this is the only known historical example that has come to light, and only one of two surviving klezmer pieces Gegna recorded. 

*  Similarly, the only extant recording of the brilliant M.I. Rabinovitsh is heard in a kale bazetzn (seating of the bride) staged in 1937 by the State Ensemble for Jewish Folk Music and Song of the Ukrainian SSR (!).  Not a parody, it is complete with both an excellent badkhan (wedding M.C.) - the actor Leyzer Kalmanovitsh - and weeping kale (actress Nadya Vinyar) - as well as a large kapelye (klezmer band).


*  The opening to Cherniavsky's Yiddishe Jazz [sic] Band in 1924 has another haunting solo - this time with Joseph Cherniavsky on the cello - as befits a recording of der dibuk.

Clarinet styles are all over the glorious map!

*  What Rubin proports "is the only recording of a European klezmer clarinet solo that we have been able to locate" is from Belf's orchestra (Rumynskii Orkestr Bel'fa) in 1913 - a lamenting, very beautiful doyne and short freylekhs - one which uses the lower register to advantage. 

*   Shloimke Beckerman (b. Ukraine, 1883) plays a second fantastic version of ot azoy  in New York, 1923.  You will recognize the same musicians and their voices on another version - on Henry Sapoznik's "The Compleat Klezmer" recording. 

*   Two Naftule Brandwein pieces in 1925 (one a honga based on a Rom/Gypsy melody; Rubin says this is the only klezmer recording of it).  After his doyne, he plays the gasn nign (the one played by Kandel's Orchestra in the Compleat Kezmer)?and one can also hear mazl tov, mazl tov - which will be familiar to those in the KlezKamp '96 and '99 ear bands)

*  Dave Tarras plays on several cuts, one of which is his 1929 version der heyser recorded by Naftule in 1923!  What a treat to hear each genius play this piece! (For that version, see Sapoznik's "Naftule Brandwein: King of the Klezmer Clarinet" or Rubin's compilation "Yikhes")

*  The Israeli-Hasidic clarinetist Avrom Segal appears in a 1968 field recording complete with men krekht-ing along and urging Segal on - "s'iz git - lebidik" (it's good - lively!) (More of Segal, and of Moshe Berlin, can be heard on the same recordings by Andre Hajdu on "Hasidic Tunes of Dancing and Rejoicing".)

*	A 1947 impromptu and unarranged recording by Hymie Jacbson's Orchestra starring Max Epstein.

*	Joel Rubin, rather immodestly including himself, in a 1996 German radio recording of Gershfeld's Bulgarish.



There are also examples orchestral and Yiddish theater band arrangements. 

* In 1910, the Orchestra of the Lemberg Yiddish Theater plays a 5 1/2 minute overature to a play by I. L. Peretz composed by the then-popular Khone Wolfsthal (1851-1924).  The opening section's open fifths are unusual and interesting (even though the clarinets are out of tune).

*  The abovementioned State Ensemble?SSR plays modern-sounding orchestral arrangements of klezmer tunes in 1939.  The arranger is Solomon Fayntukh (1899-1985) It is interesting to compare this example with North American orchestrations of the same period.

*  Also of note are two fairly early examples of women klezmorim - one of Lara Cherniavsky, the other of Sylvia Schwartz.

*  the Jewish Wedding Orchestra, plays, per Rubin, the only known example of a large wedding (vs. theater) kapelye  from before WWI - in Warsaw, 1912. 

*  Rubin's notes contain capsule biographies on the highlighted klezmorim and/or orchestras and give a good historical context to each offering.

"Oytsres/Treasures: Klezmer Music 1908-1996" costs $18 plus shipping (see below).


Recordings in the same vein available from a bisl yidishkayt (please see our website under "Old Masters" and "Hasidic: for details.

-  Yikhes/Lineage, Early Klezmer Recordings 1911-39.  An earlier Rubin 
anthology.  $18
-  Klezmer Music: Early Yiddish Instrumental Music: The First  
Recordings: 1908-1927. Martin Schwartz' excellent collection. $15  
Contains another H. Steiner fiddle piece.
-  Klezmer Pioneers: 1905-1952, Sapoznik and Spottswood compilation. $16
-  Klezmer Music: 1910-42 (cassette only, $11) Early compilation by  
Henry Sapoznik. Contains excellent notes.
-  Hasidic Tunes of Dancing and Rejoicing (cs. only, $10) Excellent 
notes, too.
-  Naftule Brandwein: King of the Klezmer Clarinet. Sapoznik's  
collection and notes. $14
-  Dave Tarras: Yiddish-American Klezmer Music 1925-1956. Sapoznik's  
collection and notes. 
-  Epstein Brothers, self-produced double CD, $32.99
-  Joseph Moskowitz: The Art of the Cymbalom: $16/$10
-  Klezmer Plus: Featuring Sid Beckerman and Howie Leess. $15

Present-day recordings in the old Europan style:

Josh Horowtiz (his group "Budowitz"): Mamaloshn.  $14.50
Horowitz and Rubin:"Bessarabian Symphony", $19 
Rubin ("Bergovski's Khasene", "Hungry Hearts"), $18 each



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