Re: Jewish Chamber Music

[Eliott Kahn <Elkahn...>]

At 08:29 PM 5/24/02 +0200, Henny van der Groep wrote:
>Is somebody familiar with this cd playd by Tabea Zimmerman (viola) and Jascha 
>Nemtsov. CD 93008.
>I have a question about Alexander Weprik. Henny

I am familiar with this CD and it is excellent. Jascha has done several 
recordings of music of the Society for Jewish Music at St. Petersburg  (and 
Moscow) and this is the best one.

There is an entry for Veprik, Aleksandr in:  Biographical dictionary of 
Russian/Soviet composers /editors-in-chief, Allan Ho and Dmitry Feofanov.New 
York :Greenwood Press,1989.

Here is a paraphrase of some of what it says:

b. Balta, Odessa, 6/11-23/1899; d. 10-13-1958, Moscow.  V. studied piano with 
Karl Wendling at Leipzig Cons. and composition with Zhitomirsky at St. 
Petersburg Conservatrory (1918-21) and Myaskovsky at Moscow Conservatory 
(1921-1923)....Along with Gnesin, A. Krein, and Milner, Veprik was one of the 
important composers of the 'Jewish School' in Soviet music. The majority of his 
'Jewish' works date from the 1920s and include his piano sonatas, Violin suite, 
Viola Rhapsody, Kaddish, Hebrew Songs, and Dances and Songs of the 
Ghetto....Soviet themes become understandably more prominent after the 1930s, 
as in the cantata The People-The Hero (begun during his four years in prison), 
with its fifth movement entitled "Cheers to the Party." [Indeed.]

Jascha is a brilliant Russian-Jewish pianist and musicologist with a genuine 
passion for the Russian Jewish music from the early half of the twentieth 
century. We got to know him and his research partner Beate Schroeder-Naumbourg 
when they were here last summer reading our library's collection of Joseph 
Achron letters. 

Jascha continues to live and work in Germany and I believe he and Beate will be 
teaching Jewish music courses there this coming autumn.

Eliott Kahn

Dr. Eliott Kahn
Music Archivist
Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
3080 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
WK: (212) 678-8076
FAX (212) 678-8998
elkahn (at) jtsa(dot)edu

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