Re: Beyond Recall: Once more revisited...

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

Okay, the article has finally be converted to HTML at

http://www.klezmershack.com/articles/2002.spudic.beyondrecall.html

If you approve, I'll make it live.
ari

At 12:31 AM 2/4/2002 -0500, you wrote: 
>
> Dear List, 
>
>       A little over a month ago, there was some talk about  the 11 CD set
> "Beyond Recall --A Record of Jewish musical life in Nazi Berlin 1933-1938."  
> Well imagine my surprise on Thursday morning to have the postman ring with
> just such a package!  A couple of friends in Europe had ordered this
> collection from Bear Family Records in Berlin and had it shipped to me!  An
> extraordinary birthday present if there ever was one!   
>       There is also a DVD enclosed, a silent film shot in Jerusalem in the
> winter of 1934-35 with the violinist Andreas Weissgruber.  Back in December,
> there was question on the list regarding the "playability" of the DVD.  It is
> a standard video DVD that can be viewed on any television screen connected to
> a DVD player. 
>        I will not venture to even begin to evalutate this collection and the
> most amazingly detailed and comprehensive 500 page plus hardcover that
> accompanies the set.  Perhaps a few impressions will suffice for now.   
>        Detail after detail about the performers, the circumstances of the
> performances, pictorial renderings of concert programs, performers, copies of
> musical notation, and original record label copy all abound.  There are
> informative essays that pivot the collection, most poignant being one from
> Rabbi Andreas Nachama (dated July, 2001, Riverdale, N.Y.) which has very
> personal insight into the meaning of such a special restorative project as
> this one.   
>       Thus far, I have only listened to one CD, and that was this afternoon
> with a retired cantor living together with his wife in Flushing, New York,
> both survivors of the shoah.  We decided to listen to CD-7 and for over an
> hour, with the CD player on the kitchen table, we heard among other musical
> treats Yiddish songs, sung by Marion Koegel ("A jiddische Mamme," 'L'koved
> dem heiligen Shabbos"); the "Juedischer Madrigal-Chor" singing three German
> folksongs, followed by; Sid Kay's Fellows, swinging things with a couple of
> Yiddish potpourri types with favorites like "Oifn Pripetschik," "Amol is
> geven a Mayse," and "Wen der Rebbe lakht."    
>        Of course together with the pleasure of listening to the music for its
> own sake, one just cannot forget that running concurrently in the background
> in "real time" is the extraordinary suffering existing outside the recording
> studios and concert halls of Berlin.  Again, I refer Rabbi Nachama's essay
> "Madly Beautiful," for further insight regarding this, but of course each
> member of the list would have his or her own sensitivities regarding this
> project.   
>       I can only conclude by saying that with this monument of a book, and
> over 14 hours of music--together with an added DVD--one can spend a
> tremendous amount of time focusing on any one aspect of all the types of
> music making, and marvel that such a world has been brought back to life....
> as it were.  I am haunted by the cantor's wife's last words before leaving
> their apartment early this evening. Kurt recognized so many of the names of
> the people involved among the musicians and among them, expressed his glee
> that a Michael Taube, first conductor of the Jewish Kulturbund Orchestra left
> Germany immediately after Hitler came to power and Kurt had the pleasure of
> working with Taube in Israel.  Kurt's wife Isabelle then mentioned, barely
> audible, "how terrible for all those that didn't leave in time."   
>        For the next several months, we agreed that we would sit together on
> Sunday afternoons and listen to more musical testimony in the spirit of
> "hemshekh" with those voices.   
> Michael Spudic 
> Forest Hills, NY 



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