Re: Anniversary song

[Robert A. Rothstein <rar...>]

Lori M Simon wrote:

>  
> I was under the impression that this song was originally written in 
> Yiddish.  Am I mistaken?
>  


The original music was from an instrumental piece
called "Valurile Dunarii" ("Waves of the Danube") by the Romanian composer Iosif
(or perhaps Ion) Ivanovici, first published in 1880 in Bucharest, and later 
popular 
throughout Europe. According to James J. Fuld's _The Book of World-Famous 
Music: 
Classical, Popular and Folk_, the English text of "Anniversary Song" was 
written by Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin for "The Jolson Story" in 1943, but Ron
Robboy's citation of 1946 (MENDELE 7.050) and attribution to Chaplin alone may 
well be
more accurate.*  


Sheet music of "Der khasene valts," published by Metro Music and Hensley Music 
Co.
as "Der chasene waltz (The Wedding Waltz)" with a copyright date of 1963, has 

Yiddish lyrics by Chaim Tauber. (The original copyright was granted to the 
arranger, 
Henry Lefkowitch, in 1947.)  Tauber's text (including an additional verse that 
may 
or may not be his) is as follows:

        Akh, yene nakht, yene gliklikhe nakht
        hot freyd on a shir far undz beyde gebrakht.
        Tsum ershtn mol ven ikh hob dikh gezen [gezeyn],
        geshpilt hot dan di muzik azoy sheyn.

                Tsvey yunge hertser mir zenen geven [geveyn],
                libes gefiln umshuldik un reyn.
                Gedrikt hob ikh dir azoy tsertlikh tsu mir,
                zikh ayngelibt bald in dir.

                Koym zikh dervart, fun der shul nor aroys,
                gefayert a khasene, glik azoy groys.
                Gedenkstu di nakht, s'hot geshpilt di muzik,
                dem zelbn valts fun glik.

        Kum, tants mit mir undzer valts fun amol,
        Gehat nor mit dir hob ikh glik on a tsol.
        Biz in mayn toyt blaybt mir liber fun alts
        fun yener nakht undzer khasene valts.

Tsugegebener ferz:    

        Lebt nokh di nakht azoy frish vi amol,
        freyd un layd durkhgemakht hobn mir on a tsol.
        Khotsh zilber di hor un di fis oykh shoyn mid,
        In harts klingt gor klor fun dem tants undzer lid.      


Some variants can be found in vol. 3 and 7 of  MENDELE
<http://shakti.trincoll.edu/~mendele/arc.htm>.

Bob Rothstein


*"As [Saul] Chaplin tells it in his book [_The Golden Age of Movie Musicals
and Me_ (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994)], he
needed something -- and he needed it fast -- for 'background' music for a
scene depicting the wedding anniversary of Jolson's parents [for the film
_The Jolson Story_].  Because Ivanovici's music was long since in the public 
domain (lapsed copyright, no licensing fees), it seemed ideal, and he quickly 
dashed off some lyrics to it (in English, of course).  Though Chaplin thought 
he was only doing background music (his own critique of the metrics and 
phonetics 
of his throwaway lyric is priceless -- see pp. 108-11 of his book), Jolson's
recording of the song became a hit and was seemingly instantly absorbed
into quasi-folk repertory as The Anniversary Song."