Re: Manuscript from Lithuania

[Alex J. Lubet <lubet001...>]

Thanks, Eliott.  Does this mean I can have these folks send you a few pages for 
perusal?  It would be much appreciated.  What you're saying confirms my 
suspicions, but my friends would like to know considerably more, if possible.



Eliott Kahn wrote:

> 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)
> >
>

--
Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music
Adjunct Professor of American and Jewish Studies
Head, Division Of Composition and Music Theory
University of Minnesota
2106 4th St. S
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612 624-7840 612 624-8001 (fax)


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