Lazar Weiner's music

[Judy Pinnolis <pinnolis...>]

Brandeis University hosted the New England Music Library Association
Regional meeting last Friday, and we were privileged to have as part of
that, a concert of music by Lazar Weiner. (This concert was co-sponsored by
the Libraries, the Tauber Institute, the Martin Weiner Lecture Fund of NEJS,
and the Office of the Dean. )

Performing were Re'ut Ben-Ze'ev, soprano of New York, and Yehudi Wyner,
piano of Boston. As you may know, Lazar Weiner was Yehudi Wyner's father. 

The songs were done brilliantly, and it was a great pleasure to hear them.
Most of Weiner's music is published, and it's time for a revival! More
concerts. More recordings are needed.

This is high Art Music, and I guess you could classify Lazar Weiner as
something of the "Schubert of modern Yiddish lieder". Among the selections
of songs performed were "A Gebet", "Fun vayte teg", "Viglid", "Dos gold fun
daine oign", "Baim boutshn licht", "S'iz nito kain nechtn", "Baym taykh",
"Dem shmeterling un di blum" and "A nigun (tshiri-bim-bam-bam). This last
song has been recorded frequently, but unfortunately Mr. Weiner sold the
copyright to someone else. I don't know who holds it, but I guess it's one
of those stories...similar to what happened to Secunda selling the copyright
to his most famous song... 

The songs were lovingly introduced by Yehudi Wyner who teaches music here at
Brandeis. It was exciting and very moving to see him perform an entire
concert of his father's music.

If any of you are in the process of recording Lazar Weiner songs, I'd love
to hear about it.

Other parts of the program's day included presentations about Yiddish and
Jewish music holdings, especially sheet music special and rare collections
at Brown University (Rsemary Cullen), Harvard University (Violet Gilboa),
the National Yiddish Book Center (Fay Zipkowitz), and our collections at
Brandeis (myself).

Judy

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