Re: Yiddish art song

[Eliott Kahn <Elkahn...>]

It's difficult sometimes to make a distinction between "art" and "folk" or 
"theatre" songs. To me, art songs usually have quite a challenging piano 
accompaniment, with just as much musical interest as the melody  and text. The 
text might be poetry set to music, although there have frequently been folk 
songs given such ornate accompaniments that they certainly would qualify as art 
songs.

Please feel free to search our library's online catalog: http://sefer.jtsa.edu 
under subject heading= songs, yiddish. We use standardized Library of Congress 
subject headings, so you may search any library's database with this heading. 
The Yiddish art songs will be mixed up with Yiddish folk and theatre songs but 
there are quite a few there.

Jascha Nemtsov--a lovely guy and fabulous pianist--did not "discover" The New 
Jewish School. (He might have popularized the term.) Much research was done by 
American musicologist Albert Weisser in the fifties and sixties and published 
in his THE MODERN RENAISSANCE OF JEWISH MUSIC, as well as by Irene Heskes later 
on. Both Weisser and Solomon Rosowsky--a founder of the Society for Jewish 
Music in St. Petersburg--taught here at the JTS Cantorial School. We have 
Rosowsky's papers with his published and unpublished scores. The music from 
this group of early twentieth-century Russian-Jewish composers never really 
disappeared within Conservative Judaism's cantorial circles. It was kept alive 
by cantors with a profound knowledge of Yiddish art song as well as performance 
practice, such as, Louis Danto, Samuel Rosenbaum, Abe Lubin, Robert Abelson, 
Bernard Fitch, etc.

Primary among the vocal composers from the St. Petersburg Society was Moses 
Milner, sometimes called the "Jewish Schubert." His "In Cheder" was always very 
popular among the finest of cantors  from "The Golden Age" of the early part of 
the twentieth century. His "Iber di hoyfen" and "Vokal Suite:Kinderlider" are 
beautiful art songs. A few other vocal composers from the St. Petersburg School 
would be M. Gnessin, J. Achron, and Solomon Rosowsky. From the Moscow branch of 
the Folk Music Society, two impt. composers would be Alexander Krein and, of 
course, Joel Engel, who was the earliest pioneer who wanted to develop a 
"National Jewish Style" of Art Music in Russia.

This movement spread to other countries. There were composers in Germany mainly 
between the wars who were involved with Yiddish Art Song, among them: Hugo 
Adler, Jakob Dymont and Arno Nadel. In London there was Samuel Alman, a very 
important, often overlooked composer. In America, there have been any number of 
composers who were involved with synagogue music who composed Yiddish art 
songs: Ruben Kosakoff, Max Helfman and Zavel Zilberts come immediately to mind.

Eliott Kahn





At 01:48 PM 1/11/2004 -0500, Sylvia Schildt wrote:
>I mean a folk song is one whose authorship is lost to time and has many
>versions.  I think of art songs as someone's poetry set to music. Then other
>Hersh Glick song I mention "Dos Zangl" is a love song and I think falls into
>the art song category -- I forget which Mlotek book it's in, but it's there.
>
>Also folk songs are kind of singalong-friendly -- art songs generally are
>not.
>
>An art song is a special moment of communication between the performer and
>the audience.
>
>
>At least that's what in my fevered brain.
>
>
>Sylvia Schildt
>Baltimore, MD
>
>
>on 1/10/04 6:17 PM, Sylvie Braitman at curlySylvie (at) hotmail(dot)com wrote:
>
>> I guess when I say art songs, I mean music that cannot be just written with
>> a chord chart. 'Zog nit keynmol" can. It does not mean I don't like the
>> song. I perform it. But what I'm looking for is something that clearly
>> belongs to a different genre. Again I am not against folk music, but this is
>> a different project.
>> Thanks for the various leads though. I'll listen to lorele's CD, and
>> research all the others.
>> But what do you mean when you say "A lot of what is thought to be folk music
>> isn't"? I think I know what you mean but would be interested to hear more
>> about it.
>> Thanks!
>> Sylvie
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Sylvia Schildt" <creativa (at) charm(dot)net>
>> To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>> Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 1:59 PM
>> Subject: Re: Yiddish poetry
>> 
>> 
>>> There's so much of this around as I begin to think on the matter.
>>> 
>>> Peretz's "Treyst Mayn Folk"  - which you can hear on Lorele's new CD. The
>>> songs of Aliza Greenblatt., Bella Schaechter Gottesman who usually also
>>> wrote her own music.. The art songs of Papiernikov including the great
>> "Zol
>>> Zayn". Avrom Reizin's "Borukh Ate Zingt Der Tate".  A wonderful piece
>>> "Yidish iz Mayn Loshn" by Maurice Rausch.
>>> 
>>> Lots of what is thought to be folk music isn't. So it doesn't hurt to
>> peruse
>>> the canon - the red, blue and purple books of the Mloteks.  Sidor Belarsky
>>> did tons of them on his recordings.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Songs of the sweat shop poets - Morris Rosenfeld, Einhorn, Moyshe Leyb
>>> Halpern.
>>> 
>>> Songs of political struggle - the CD of Zalmen Mlotek and Adrienne Cooper
>>> puts a bunch of them together.
>>> 
>>> Then there's music set to great Holocaust poetry - Hirsch Glick (The Hymn
>> of
>>> the Partizans, Dos Zangl)  Schmerke Kaczerginsky  (Geule) , Sutzkever, et
>>> al.
>>> 
>>> And the work of Itzik Manger - Afn Veg Shteyt a Boym,  Di Goldene Pave,
>>> selections from Megiles Yitskhok.
>>> 
>>> My God, there is so much to discover if you haven't yet. What a treasure
>>> trove our Yiddish culture has produced.
>>> 
>>> Sylvia Schildt
>>> Baltimore. Maryland
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>

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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