Re: Manuscript from Lithuania...PLEASE HANDLE IT WITH CARE!!!

Chaverim:

Whatever you decide to do with this manuscript...please have an Archivalist look at it FIRST. Someone from YIVO or the National Yiddish Book Center. What you are describing at "violet" ink, is probably in fact Black or Blue ink that over the course of time has interacted with the acidity of the paper. It was probably home-made ink. It would be wonderful if this manuscript could be preserved as well as being used. If you are going to peruse it, bring it to an Archivalist first. My guess is that she/he will tell you that you should be wearing cotton gloves while you handle the pages so that the acid and body heat from your own hands will not compound the problems that already exist between paper and ink.

I have seen manuscripts like this before. It is important to handle them correctly. If you are going to send pages via the mails, they must be treated with care. The heat of postal machinery and other vagaries also compound issues. This is also why I suggest that you consult with an Archivalist before you do anything with it.

As great as it is to look at this work, it is also IMPORTANT TO PRESERVE IT, for future use and future generations, even if it does turn out to be a copy, it is still Yiddishkeyt and still History.

Trudi the G

>From: "Alex J. Lubet"

>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org

>To: World music from a Jewish slant

>Subject: Re: Manuscript from Lithuania

>Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 15:44:36 -0500

>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)