Re: Hatikvah melody/Bialik?/Warshavsky?

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

I found the reference to the Hatikvah melody in my 2nd edition Gradenwitz 
(THE MUSIC OF ISRAEL).  (It's its own Appendix--just miserable indexing.)  
His evidence for Imber's having himself appropriated the melody is *very* 
weak; his informant--albeit it was Rabbi Israel Goldfarb, of blessed memory 
(for fifty years the rabbi of Reyzl's shul), never actually heard to that 
effect from Imber--the source who cited Gradenwitz to that effect 
notwithstanding to the contrary.  Rabbi Goldfarb just *speculated* that 
Imber had appropriated the melody from Cantor Belzer by comparing a ms. of 
what he refers to as a Belzer "composition" with the Hatikvah melody; he 
opines that Imber "must have heard" the composition, etc.

I really think we have no evidence at all, and no indication at all, that 
Imber had anything to do with choosing/shadchaning the melody for Hatikvah, 
and the adapting by another--very possibly the Samuel Cohen I 
mentioned--seems much more likely.  The Jewish Press story, by the way, 
invokes that same explanation--but I think it may be by one of the same 
scholars others cite!

While we're on this sort-of subject, does anyone have data on how Bialik's 
poems got matched/set to music?  (Or Mark Warshavsky's, for that matter?)  
In Bialik's case, I think I've read that Bialik's poems were set to music 
sometimes by him, sometimes by others--which is awfully vague, though of 
course it may be correct.  Does anyone have any real data/sources on the 
sources of "Bialik (and Warshavsky) melodies"?

Thanks --

Robert Cohen


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