Re: Manuscript from Lithuania

[Eliott Kahn <Elkahn...>]

Alex:

I catalogued a book of manuscripts a few years ago that had three-voice choral 
texture. It was in our library's Sulem Miara Collection, which I found with 
Cantor David Putterman's papers. Miara was a hazzan/shochet in the Ukraine and 
these scores date from early in his career, ca. 1880-1890.  My notes say that 
the book is marked in various places for "meshorerim" and "Hazan, Sanger and 
Bass." In the meshorerim 3-voice texture the two surrounding voices would be a 
boy or boys above the hazan or a bass singer below. If I recall correctly, 
Daniel Katz points out in his article that most often this music was all 
written on one staff, with indications for solos written for hazzan, sanger or 
bass. Everything else was improvised.

I was surprised when I saw this manuscript, but apparently the three-voice 
meshorerim texture lasted in smaller shtetelach in the Pale beyond the 
mid-nineteenth century reforms of Sulzer, Naumbourg, and even late-19th century 
choral music of Louis Lewandowski.

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





At 10:18 AM 6/24/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Khaverim,
>
>A Twin Cities woman approached me this weekend about a very old manuscript in 
>her possession.  It belonged to her grandfather, a cantor in Lithuania.  It's 
>quite long, beautifully written in violet ink, and much of it is still 
>readable.  Other than that it appears to be in an Eastern European choral 
>style, some of it into three parts, for a cantor and two assistants, there's 
>little else I can determine, including whether it was composed by this 
>gentleman himself or merely copied from someone else's work.  This woman and 
>her husband are also interested in knowing whether this manuscript might be of 
>value to a collection somewhere, where it might be displayed.
>
>This is beyond my areas of expertise.  Is there someone out there who might be 
>willing to look at a few photocopied pages and see if a more in-depth 
>identification might be made and/or might know whether a Jewish Museum could 
>make use of this manuscript?  This woman and her husband are lovely people 
>whom I would like to help and who knows?  We might all learn something.
>
>Shevua Tov,
>
>
>Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
>Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music
>Adjunct Professor of American and Jewish Studies
>University of Minnesota
>100 Ferguson Hall
>Minneapolis, MN 55455
>612 624-7840 (o)
>612 699-1097 (h)
>612 624-8001  ATTN:  Alex Lubet (FAX)
>

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