Re: Tsimbl revisited 2

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

> But I wouldn't say his style was "urban Romanian"; his Romanian tunes
> are Moldavian, like "Trandafir din Moldova" (which is the standard
> Moldavian song played to announce Moldavian identity), "La Bacau"
> (which is regarded today as a Jewish song), plus horas. There isn't
> really any muzica lautareasca in his recordings, such as that played
> by the Gypsy groups from Bucharest

Yes, that's what I meant- Moskowitz's style is not Gypsy lautereasca,
but rather Romanian (i.e. as you correctly point out, from the state of
Moldavia in Romania, where Moskowitz was from) people commonly assume
that all Romanian (including little Moldavia, Muntenia, Oltenia, Banat,
Dobrudja, Vallachia and Transylvania) folk music is Gypsy, forgetting
that Gypsies themselves differentiate sharply between Romanian and Gypsy
Romanian muzica Lautaresca. Moskowitz's style was Romanian. I say urban
because his repertoire is mostly not village stuff, but finely played
and arranged popular repertoire which was known throughout Romania.
Except for his orchestral recordings (not yet reissued) he must have
played from memory, as he was known for his all-night bouts of playing
at his restaurant in New York. 

I don't know if the earlier strings used for Jewish tsimbls was brass.
I've seen both steel and brass on tsimbl mics as well Ukrainian,
Belorussian and Hungarian small models. The Rabinovitch tsimbl had thin
gage steel strings of .13mm-.19mm but they may not have been the
original strings. You're right about many tsambal mics having brass,
though the tension is greater on those than the older cigarette box
instruments which seemed to be common among Jews. Most of the string
production for Europe between the 18th and 19th Centuries was provided
by Vienna and Nürnberg. The standardisation of string types occurred
around 1900, at least this is what I was told when interviewing the
tsimbl maker, Alfred Pichlmaier (Fraunberg, Germany) who restores the
museum tsimbls in Germany and built the tsimbl I used for the Budowitz
Mother Tongue CD. The strings on that are bronze (actually phosphorus
bronze - okay, I cheated a little bit, but the sound and tension is
identical and the strings don't break after every third chord) and thin
steel, which uses a softer alloy than is common today. 

 ---you can see that Moskowitz wore velvet
> dampers tied onto his forearms, even though his instrument had spring
> or weight-operated dampers. 

That technique of elbow dampening is typical for instruments without
pedals. I used it sometimes when I felt like looking like a classically
trained castrati. The classical players (Schickhaus' classical school as
well as the Belorussian school) use their hands for the same purpose to
the extent that it looks more like they're doing ballet hand gestures
rather than playing their instruments. Have you seen pictures of
Moskowitz with velvet dampers on his forearms???
 
I was told by a Polish friend of mine that the term "Ty cymbale" (you
idiot) probably came from the instrument, and have no idea how to check
whether or not its true or not. It sounded plausible to me, kind of like
the musicians' jokes about violists, drummers, accordionists, etc. Any
ideas how to check that? 

I'd like to know when those lilliput Belorus hammers Pete Rushefsky
mentions appeared on the scene. That's what all the Belorussians use.
When I first saw them I thought they were tourist souvenirs, but
couldn't find the token "Welcome to Belarus" painted on the grip. Aside
from the tuning, everything seems to be completely wrong about their
instruments. Players have to carry rolls and rolls of string with them
in their cases because they break so much (which comes clearly from a
mismeasurement of proportion). The hammers are obviously responsible for
the back problems that every Belorussian tsymbaly player has, because
they have to bend over so much to reach the high strings. Maybe the "Ty
cymbaly" (i.. tsymbaly) got started there, whaddya think??  
Josh

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