Re: Announcement, Heinrich Schalit Collection

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

Mazl tov! titkhadesh! Kol ha-kavod!


At 03:14 PM 2/10/00 -0500, you wrote:
>
>The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary is pleased to announce the 
>completion of the cataloging of The Heinrich Schalit Collection. The scores 
>and archival material of the collection are now available for research and 
>perusal by scholars and patrons. All scores are listed separately on the 
>OCLC World-Cat data base. Photocopies of scores and archival material are 
>available from the Library according to the Fair Use provisions of the U.S. 
>Copyright Law. The Library reserves the right to deny access to any patron 
>whose intention is to violate these copyright laws.
>
>The Schalit Collection was cataloged by the Library's music archivist, 
>Eliott Kahn. Dr. Kahn has recently received the Doctor of Musical Arts 
>degree in choral conducting from the University of Iowa. His doctoral essay 
>was entitled: "The Choral Music of Heinrich Schalit."
>
>A brief description of the collection with biographical data follows:
>
>
>The Heinrich Schalit Collection at The Library of the Jewish Theological 
>Seminary of America is made up largely of the published musical works and 
>unpublished music manuscripts, 1905-1976, of the German-American composer 
>Heinrich Schalit (1886-1976). In addition, there are letters from prominent 
>musicians, rabbis, cantors, and other important figures who were actively 
>involved in Jewish religious and cultural life in Germany between the World 
>Wars, 1918-1939, as well as in the United States during and after World War 
>II, 1940-1976. There are Schalit's personal documents, 1906-1976; newspaper 
>clippings of music reviews from Germany, 1908-1936; concert programs and 
>synagogue bulletins from America, 1940-1994; and two photographs, 1933 and 
>1952. Finally, there are books and music collected by Schalit, 1912-1974; a 
>few sound recordings of  performances of his music, 1951-ca.1976; and a 
>microfilm of all of his compositions, prepared after his death in 1976.
>
>Heinrich Schalit was born in Vienna on January 2, 1886 and died in 
>Evergreen, Colorado on February 3, 1976. During his long life, Schalit had 
>the misfortune of experiencing two world wars as well as being born a 
>European Jew in a time of great political upheaval. These circumstances 
>profoundly altered the course of his life and his style of musical expression.
>
>Schalit was enrolled at Vienna's Konservatorium für Musik und darstellende 
>Kunst, where he studied piano with Polish pianist Theodor Leschetizky 
>(1830-1915) and musical composition with Robert Fuchs (1847-1927)-- teacher 
>of Gustav Mahler and Jan Sibelius.  Schalit graduated from the 
>Konservatorium in 1906 with a "superior" rating ("vorzuglich") and at the 
>end of the year won the prestigious Austrian State Prize for Composition 
>with his Klavierquartett in E moll (Piano Quartet in E Minor).
>
>Schalit relocated to Munich in 1907, embarking upon a successful career 
>composing post- Romantic Lieder and chamber music. His Jugendland (Land of 
>Youth) solo piano pieces were performed throughout Europe by renowned 
>pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch (1878-1936).  His 6 Liebeslieder (Six Songs of 
>Love) was published in Vienna in 1921 by one of Europe's most prestigious 
>music publishing concerns, Universal Edition.
>
>The carnage and privations of the first World War affected Schalit as they 
>would countless other young people. The continuance of German 
>antisemitism--in the form of a 1916 army census seeking to verify Jewish 
>service at the fronts--might also have deeply disturbed him. Whatever the 
>reasons, in 1916 he made a conscious decision to begin writing music of 
>"Jewish content and character."  This would align him with a small but 
>vibrant Jewish cultural movement that was an offshoot of the burgeoning, 
>early twentieth-century Zionist political movement.
>
>  During the 1920s Schalit composed, performed, and published several 
>important pieces of German-Jewish art music. His Seelenlieder (Songs of the 
>Soul) for voice with piano was published in Vienna by Universal Edition in 
>1921. His 1928 hymn In Ewigkeit (In Eternity) for chorus, organ, harp, and 
>violins was performed and well reviewed in Munich, Frankfurt, Augsburg, 
>Dresden, and Berlin. The texts of both works use German translations of 
>Hebrew poetry by medieval Spanish poet Judah ha-Levi (12thcent.).
>
>Schalit's early Jewish works profoundly influenced two younger Jewish 
>musicians who studied at the State Academy for Music in Munich: renowned 
>Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim (née Frankenburger, 1897-1984) and Herbert 
>Fromm (1905-1995), who became one of the most important creators of 
>American synagogue music in the twentieth century.
>
>In September 1927 Heinrich Schalit assumed the post of organist and music 
>director at Munich's Hauptsynagoge (Great Synagogue). He remained there 
>until late 1933, when he and his family were forced to to leave Munich to 
>avoid Nazi persecution. At the Hauptsynagoge, Schalit worked under Cantor 
>Emanuel Kirschner (1857-1938) and also began to compose religious music. In 
>1932 at the request of Alexander Weinbaum (1875-1943?), then organist and 
>music director at Berlin's Lützowstrasse Synagoge, Schalit composed his 
>Eine Freitagabend-Liturgie. This synagogue work utilized contemporary modal 
>techniques as well as traditional melodies discovered by Jewish 
>musicologist A.Z. Idelsohn (1882-1938). At its world premiere on September 
>16, 1932, the work was highly praised by German musicologists Alfred 
>Einstein, Hugo Leichtentritt, and Curt Sachs.
>
>After living in Rome and London, the Schalit family arrived in Rochester, 
>N.Y. in August 1940. Schalit was music director at Rochester's Temple 
>B'rith Kodesh until 1943. He would then serve as music director at Temple 
>Beth El in Providence, Rhode Island until his resignation in 1948. His last 
>full-time position was from 1949-1950 as organist at Temple Israel in 
>Hollywood, California.
>
>Schalit, his wife, and  their two younger sons  relocated to Denver in 
>1948. In 1954, with their children grown, the Schalits purchased a plot of 
>land in the nearby mountains and over the course of a few years had an 
>additional room built on it. They moved up their permanently in 1958.
>
>  In the 1960s Schalit received commissions to compose synagogue music for 
>Congregation Emanu-El in New York, N.Y.,  Temple E-manu-El of Dallas, 
>Texas, Temple B'rith Kodesh in Rochester, New York, and The Temple in 
>Cleveland, Ohio. He would continue publishing his newer and older, 
>revised  works throughout the 1970s. He was working on  Forget Thy 
>Affliction, a setting of an English translation of a Hebrew poem by 
>Medieval Spanish poet Solomon ibn Gabirol (1020-1027), when he died in 
>February 1976.
>
>
>Eliott Kahn, D.M.A.
>Music Archivist
>Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
>3080 Broadway
>New York, N.Y. 10027
>         (212) 678-8091
>FAX: (212) 678-8998
>
>---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+
>