Re: Beregovski

[Eliott Kahn <Elkahn...>]

At 12:30 PM 6/25/02 -0700, you wrote:
>There are 2 volumes of Beregovski collections which have been published in the 
>US.  The first volume, Old Jewish Folk Music, is primarily made up of  folk 
>songs, i.e., vocal music, which is its own distinct tradition in Askenazic 
>music and a smaller number of what are called "instrumental tunes" (No. 
>71-150).  To refer to the collection as "art songs" is a bit surprising.  
>There is a very definite art song tradition in Yiddish music (i.e., composed 
>songs for concert performance), but the Beregovski collection doesn't really 
>reflect it.  
>
>There is a second volume which was recently published, Jewish Instrumental 
>Folk Music: The Collections and Writings of Moshe Beregovski, editted by Mark 
>Slobin, Robert A. Rothstein, Michael Alpert, and Izaly Zemtsovsky.  I assume 
>that is the volume that the initial inquiry referred to, as it includes a CD. 
>It is that volume that can more appropriately be called "klezmer."  The nature 
>of the Beregovski collection was the topic of a lecture by Mark Slobin, 
>Michael Alpert and Jim Loeffler at the Eldridge Street Shul last month.  
>Anyone attend?
>
>Shira Lerner

Shira:

I would like to have attended but had not heard about it.

We have both these books in our library and, from what I can ascertain, the 
recent publication and CD edited by Mark Slobin, Michael Alpert, Robert 
Rothstein and I. Zemtsovsky, entitled Jewish Instrumental Folk Music, is from 
Beregovski's ms. volume on Klezmer music that was made available for 
publication to M. Slobin by Zemtsovsky. The ms. is housed in a library in St. 
Petersburg.

Also, from what I can gather from the introduction, the original Old Jewish 
Folk Music published by M. Slobin in 1982 and reissued in 2000, includes 
Beregovski's writings and the music from volume 2 of his Yidishe Folkslider. 
This second volume was set for printing but, though never printed in the Soviet 
Union, somehow got into the hands of YIVO in New York. Again, from my 
understanding of the introduction, these are the materials that Slobin 
published in Old Jewish Folk Music.

I do not know if anyone has mentioned on the list, but there was a volume 1 of 
Yidishe Folkslider published by Beregovski and I. Fefer in the Ukraine in 1938. 
It is a very rich collection of Yiddish folk songs for solo voice with texts 
(474 p.) and "Nigunim un Tents" (40 p.)  (intrumental tunes).

The folk tunes are in the following categories. (Please excuse my Yiddish):

Arbayt un Kampf
Rekrieshine-Priziv
Libe-Lider
Familien-Shtayger
Vig-Lider
Kinder-Lider
Humor un Satire
Farshydene 



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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