Leon Schwartz
Leon Schwartz, Yiddish אריה–לייב שווארץ (Arye-Leyb Shvarts) (1901-1990) was a klezmer and classical music violinist born in the village Karapchiv, Vyzhnytsia Raion, Chernivtsi Oblast, Karapchiv, Austria-Hungary near the town of Vashkivtsi in today’s Vyzhnytsia Region of the Bukovina area of Ukraine. Raised in a Hasidic family, Schwartz first learned to play violin from local Jewish, Ukrainian and Romani fiddlers who frequented the village tavern kept by his father, and began to perform occasionally in addition to working in the village post office. In 1916, as the First World War eastern front reached Bukovina, he and his family fled and lived as refugees in Jungbunzlau (Mladá Boleslav), Austrian Bohemia. Returning home at the end of the war, Schwartz began to play professionally at Jewish, Ukrainian, Romani, Polish and German weddings and other occasions throughout the Bukovina region, in a band with his younger brothers Burekh and Duvid as well as with local Ukra ...
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Klezmer
Klezmer ( yi, קלעזמער or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these would have been played at weddings and other social functions. The musical genre incorporated elements of many other musical genres including Ottoman (especially Greek and Romanian) music, Baroque music, German and Slavic folk dances, and religious Jewish music. As the music arrived in the United States, it lost some of its traditional ritual elements and adopted elements of American big band and popular music. Among the European-born klezmers who popularized the genre in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s were Dave Tarras and Naftule Brandwein; they were followed by American-born musicians such as Max Epstein, Sid Beckerman and Ray Musiker. After the destruction of Jewish life in Eastern Europe during the Holocau ...
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