Re: Shmuel Brazil's "Eits Chayim"

[Jordan Hirsch <trombaedu...>]

on 10/10/02 1:52 AM, Robert Cohen at rlcm17 (at) hotmail(dot)com wrote:

>> on 10/6/02 11:15 PM, Robert Cohen at rlcm17 (at) hotmail(dot)com wrote:
> 
> [Shmuel Brazil's] setting of "Eits Chayim," from the same period, is also
> still sung in shuls; I've  heard it combined with Shlomo's setting of
> "Hashiveinu" (i.e., the last line).
> 
>> If I am guessing correctly as to  which tune you are thinknig of, the
>> setting of Etz Chaim that you are referring to was composed by Tanchum
>> Portnoy for a group of Rabbi's Sons emulatyors "Bat Kol."
> 
> 
> The estimable Jordan Hirsch is guessing *in*-correctly!  I'm more familiar
> than he realizes with Tanchum Portnoy's lovely waltz setting of "Eits
> Chayim," which has indeed become a standard in many, many synagogues; if
> your synagogue sings "Eits Chayim" to a waltz melody rather than to the
> traditional (Sulzer) one, you're singing Tanchum's.
> 
> Shmuel Brazil's "Eits Chayim"--or at least the one I know; he may have
> written others--is *not* that one, and it's not a waltz; rather a lively,
> upbeat, almost freilach setting.  It is that setting--which, btw, I believe
> was recorded on the same "Or Chodosh" record that Jordan cites--that I've
> heard combined with Shlomo's "Hashiveinu"--*not* Tanchum's waltz.
> 
> BTW, Jordan, I've never known, or heard, that Tanchum's waltz was composed
> for "Bat Kol" and am *very* interested to know if that's so; whence cometh
> this information, please?!  Thanks.
> 
> --Robert Cohen

Ok, Ok, I think I know what yuou are talking about. Wow, I haven't even
thought of THAT Etz Chaim in a while. I will have to go dig up my neighbors
Or Chodosh and listen again.
As far as Tanchum's tune, I must point out I have never heard the whole Bat
Kol Album at one time. I just always heard it referred to as the Bat Kol Etz
Chaim. I do have resources to check on this.

Jordan 

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