Re: Tsimbl revisited 2

[Paul M. Gifford <PGIFFORD...>]

Joshua Horowitz <horowitz (at) styria(dot)com> wrote:

> 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. 

Here's another bit of trivia (FWIW): according to Gus Horvath, who in 
the early '30s lived in New York when he was learning cimbalom from 
Bela Zsiga, Moskowitz's restaurant sign had a cimbalom painted on it. 
He was too young to go in, though. 

> 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.

I doubt if you can reach a lower string tension than with the Romanian
ones---brass wire is hard to find, which might be the reason that some
use steel, but putting steel wire on the one I have would make them 
like rubber bands. It all depends on the tuning, of course. But the 
the photograph of the tsimbl (c.1860s) of the Przemysl klezmorim in 
the CD "Klezmer Pioneers" shows a lot of similarity to Galician 
instruments used today, with the cove cut out under the pinblocks. 
Mordko Fajerman's instrument must be the "cigarette box" you 
describe. One thing that's interesting to me is that the traditional 
instruments from Belarus (& Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland) south to 
Romania (but not the Hungarian/Bohemian/German cimbalom/Cymbaln) all
have basically the same construction----heavy rails mortised into the 
pinblocks at both ends, with thin backs. Since klezmorim were 
responsible for most of its spread, at least from the 17th to 19th 
centuries, that design must have been typical for instruments played 
by Jews in that period.> 

>  ---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???

Yes, on his "Cymbalom Melodies" LP (Romany Records RR-02), 
occasionally available at junk stores. The Belarusian school, 
incidentally, was started by Yosif Zhinovich; one of his first 
teachers in the Minsk Conservatory was Khaton Shmelkin, a klezmer who 
started out playing with his father, who played the clarinet. 
Zhinovich started out with a family ensemble in the 1920s, much like 
that of the Lepyanskys of Vitebsk, although there probably was no 
connection.
 
> 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.

I think Zhinovich developed them and they got used in the postwar 
pedagogical tradition. Pete should speak for himself, as I haven't
seen Jankowski's hammers, but the village Belarussian hammers I've 
seen are different than those; they are carved from wood, longer than 
the Ukrainian-Canadian ones (which are maybe 6 inches long), with a 
simple finger grip. There is a picture in a book by I. D. Nazina 
(1982). Tim also saw them in Belarus. It seems to me that the 
Belarusian/Polish/Ukrainian ones are one type, though each are 
different, while the Romanians use the Hungarian type. 

Paul Gifford

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+