The Jewish art music movement began at the end of the 19th century in Russia, with a group of Russian Jewish classical composers dedicated to preserving Jewish folk music and creating a new, characteristically Jewish genre of classical music. The music it produced used Western classical elements, featuring the rich chromatic harmonies of Russian late Romantic music, but with melodic, rhythmic and textual content taken from traditional Jewish folk or liturgical music. The group founded the
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
Society for
Jewish Folk Music, a movement that spread to Moscow, Poland, Austria, and later Palestine and the United States. Although the original society existed formally for only 10 years (from 1908 to 1918), its impact on the course of Jewish music was profound. The society, and the art music movement it fostered, inspired a new interest in the music of
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
an
Jewry
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
throughout Europe and America. It laid the foundations for the Jewish music and
Klezmer revival
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 l ...
in the United States, and was a key influence in the development of
Israeli folk and classical music.
With the outbreak of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and the rise of Communism in Russia, most of the composers active in the Jewish art music movement fled Eastern Europe, finding their ways to Palestine or America. There, they became leaders of the Jewish musical communities, composing for both synagogue and the concert hall.
Origins
The interest in Jewish national music coincided with the nationalist trends in music throughout Eastern Europe. In Russia, composers led by
Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov . At the time, his name was spelled Николай Андреевичъ Римскій-Корсаковъ. la, Nicolaus Andreae filius Rimskij-Korsakov. The composer romanized his name as ''Nicolas Rimsk ...
, were composing new works based on Russian folk themes. In Hungary,
Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music ed ...
and later
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...
undertook a massive project of recording and cataloging folk melodies, and incorporating them into their compositions. Other composers such as
Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following t ...
and
Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janáček (, baptised Leo Eugen Janáček; 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and other Slavic musics, including Eastern European fol ...
were increasingly seeking a uniquely national sound in their work. "Europe was impelled by the Romantic tendency to establish in musical matters the national boundaries more and more sharply," wrote Alfred Einstein. "The collecting and sifting of old traditional melodic treasures ... formed the basis for a creative art-music."
Parallel with this trend toward national music styles was an awakening of nationalist sentiment among the
Jews of Russia
The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...
and Eastern Europe. Long subjected to severe restrictions on their lives, outbursts of violent antisemitic pogroms, and forced concentration in a segregated region of Russia called the
Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, '; yi, דער תּחום-המושבֿ, '; he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ') was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 19 ...
, Russian Jewry developed an intense nationalist identity during the 1880s onward. This identity gave rise to a number of political movements - the
Zionist movement
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Jew ...
, which advocated emigration from Russia to Palestine, and the
Bund, which sought cultural equality and autonomy within Russia. There was a flowering of Yiddish literature, with authors like
Sholem Aleichem
)
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Pereiaslav, Russian Empire
, death_date =
, death_place = New York City, U.S.
, occupation = Writer
, nationality =
, period =
, genre = Novels, sh ...
,
Mendele Mocher Sforim
Mendele Mocher Sforim ( yi, , he, מנדלי מוכר ספרים, also known as Moykher, Sfarim; lit. "Mendele the book peddler"; January 2, 1836, Kapyl – December 8, 1917 .S. Odessa), born Sholem Yankev Abramovich ( yi, , russian: Сол ...
and others. A
Yiddish theater
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revu ...
movement started, and numerous Yiddish newspapers and periodicals were published.
In spite of the
restrictions on residency and
quotas on Jewish students in universities, many Russian Jews enrolled as music students at the
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
and
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
Conservatories. These included violinist
Joseph Achron
Joseph Yulyevich Achron, also seen as Akhron (Russian: Иосиф Юльевич Ахрон, Hebrew: יוסף אחרון) (May 1, 1886April 29, 1943) was a Russian-born Jewish composer and violinist, who settled in the United States. His preoccu ...
, composer
Mikhail Gnesin Mikhail Fabianovich Gnessin (russian: Михаил Фабианович Гнесин; sometimes transcribed ''Gnesin''; 2 February .S. 21 January18835 May 1957)Sitsky, Larry. (1994) ''Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900–1929,'' pp.24 ...
, and others. Many of the great violinists of the last century —
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz (; December 10, 1987) was a Russian-born American violinist. Born in Vilnius, he moved while still a teenager to the United States, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received. He was a virtuoso since childhood. Fritz ...
,
Nathan Milstein
Nathan Mironovich Milstein ( – December 21, 1992) was a Russian-born American virtuoso violinist.
Widely considered one of the finest violinists of the 20th century, Milstein was known for his interpretations of Bach's solo violin works and ...
,
Efrem Zimbalist
Efrem Zimbalist Sr. ( – February 22, 1985) was a concert violinist, composer, conductor and director of the Curtis Institute of Music.
Early life
Efrem Zimbalist Sr. was born on April 9, 1888, O. S., equivalent to April 21, 1889, in the Greg ...
,
Mischa Elman
Mischa (Mikhail Saulovich) Elman (russian: Михаил Саулович Эльман; January 20, 1891April 5, 1967) was a Russian-born American violinist famed for his passionate style, beautiful tone, and impeccable artistry and musicality.
E ...
, to name a few — were Jewish students of
Leopold Auer
Leopold von Auer ( hu, Auer Lipót; June 7, 1845July 15, 1930) was a Hungarian violinist, academic, conductor, composer, and instructor. Many of his students went on to become prominent concert performers and teachers.
Early life and career
Au ...
, who taught at the conservatory.
While many of these students came from orthodox Jewish backgrounds — Achron, for example, was son of a
cantor
A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds.
In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...
— their studies of music at the conservatory were strictly of the western classical tradition. However, the rise of nationalism in Russian music also awakened an incipient interest in Jewish music. In 1895, Yiddish writer
Y.L. Peretz started collecting lyrics of Yiddish folksongs.
[Weisser(1987).] Abraham Goldfaden
Abraham Goldfaden (Yiddish: אַבֿרהם גאָלדפֿאַדען; born Avrum Goldnfoden; 24 July 1840 – 9 January 1908), also known as Avram Goldfaden, was a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yid ...
, founder of the Yiddish theater in Russia, incorporated many folksongs and folk style music in his productions.
In 1898, two Jewish historians,
Saul Ginsburg and Pesach Marek, embarked on the first effort to create an anthology of Jewish folk music.
The main catalyzer of the movement for national Jewish music, however, was
Joel Engel. Engel, composer and music critic, was born outside the Pale of Jewish settlement, and was a completely assimilated Russian.
Jacob Weinberg
Jacob Weinberg (1 July 1879, Odesa – 2 November 1956 New York) was a Russian-born American Jewish composer and pianist who composed over 135 works for piano and other instruments. He was one of the founders of the Jewish National Conserva ...
(1946). (reprinted in Heskes(1998). A meeting with the Russian nationalist critic
Vladimir Stasov
Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov (also Stassov; rus, Влади́мир Васи́льевич Ста́сов; 14 January Adoption_of_the_Gregorian_calendar#Adoption_in_Eastern_Europe.html" ;"title="/nowiki> O.S._2_January.html" ;"title="Adoption of ...
inspired Engel to seek his Jewish roots. "(Stasov's) words struck Engel's imagination like lightning, and the Jew awoke in him,"
wrote Engel's friend and fellow composer
Jacob Weinberg
Jacob Weinberg (1 July 1879, Odesa – 2 November 1956 New York) was a Russian-born American Jewish composer and pianist who composed over 135 works for piano and other instruments. He was one of the founders of the Jewish National Conserva ...
, a Russian-Jewish composer and concert pianist (1879-1956) who joined the Moscow branch of the Society of Jewish Folk Music. Weinberg eventually migrated to Palestine where he wrote the first Hebrew opera, "The Pioneers" (
Hechalutz
HeHalutz or HeChalutz ( he, הֶחָלוּץ, lit. "The Pioneer") was a Jewish youth movement that trained young people for agricultural settlement in the Land of Israel. It became an umbrella organization of the pioneering Zionist youth moveme ...
) in 1924. Engel set out to study the folk music of the Jews of the Russian
shtetl
A shtetl or shtetel (; yi, שטעטל, translit=shtetl (singular); שטעטלעך, romanized: ''shtetlekh'' (plural)) is a Yiddish term for the small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish populations which existed in Eastern Europe before ...
s, spending the summer of 1897 traveling throughout the Pale, listening to and notating
Yiddish song Yiddish song is a general description of several genres of music sung in Yiddish which includes songs of Yiddish theatre, Klezmer songs, and "Yiddish art song" after the model of the German Lied and French mélodie.
The Yiddish language and song
F ...
s. In 1900, he issued an album of ten Jewish songs, and presented a lecture concert of Jewish folk music.
The St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music
In 1908, Engel and a group of like-minded musicians from the Petersburg conservatory, (including
Lazare Saminsky
Lazare Saminsky, born Lazar Semyonovich Saminsky (russian: Лазарь (Элиэзер) Семенович Саминский; Valehotsulove (now Dolynske), near Odessa, 27 October 1882 O.S. / 8 November N.S. – Port Chester, New York, 30 Jun ...
), founded the "St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music." The objectives of the society were to develop Jewish music "by collecting folksongs ... and supporting Jewish composers," and to publish compositions and research on Jewish music.
The society produced concerts, primarily of arrangements of folk melodies for various ensembles, and published arrangements and original compositions by its members. These included the composers
Solomon Rosowsky
Solomon (Salomo) Rosowsky (1878, Riga –1962) was a cantor (hazzan) and composer, and son of the Rigan cantor, Baruch Leib Rosowsky.
Early life
Rosowsky began to study music only after he graduated from the University of Kyiv, with a degree in ...
,
Alexander Krein
Alexander Abramovich Krein (; 20 October 1883 in Nizhny Novgorod – 25 April 1951 in Staraya Ruza, Moscow Oblast) was a Soviet composer.
Background
The Krein family was steeped in the klezmer tradition; his father Abram (who moved to Russia fr ...
,
Lyubov Streicher
Lyubov Lvovna Streicher (3 March 1888 - 31 March 1958) was a Russian composer, teacher, and violinist, as well as a founding member of the Society for Jewish Folk Music.
Streicher was born in Vladikavkaz
Vladikavkaz (russian: Владикавк ...
,
Mikhail Gnessin Mikhail Fabianovich Gnessin (russian: Михаил Фабианович Гнесин; sometimes transcribed ''Gnesin''; 2 February .S. 21 January18835 May 1957)Sitsky, Larry. (1994) ''Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900–1929,'' pp.24 ...
, and the violinist
Joseph Achron
Joseph Yulyevich Achron, also seen as Akhron (Russian: Иосиф Юльевич Ахрон, Hebrew: יוסף אחרון) (May 1, 1886April 29, 1943) was a Russian-born Jewish composer and violinist, who settled in the United States. His preoccu ...
.
With the growing nationalist and Zionist sentiment among the Jewish population, these concerts were received enthusiastically. In a concert in the Ukrainian city of
Vinnytsia
Vinnytsia ( ; uk, Вінниця, ; yi, װיניצע) is a city in west-central Ukraine, located on the banks of the Southern Bug.
It is the administrative center of Vinnytsia Oblast and the largest city in the historic region of Podillia. A ...
, for example, "the artists were met at the train and paraded through the Jewish part of the city with great ceremony and enthusiasm," recollected the local cantor.
Among the artists performing in these concerts were violinists
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz (; December 10, 1987) was a Russian-born American violinist. Born in Vilnius, he moved while still a teenager to the United States, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received. He was a virtuoso since childhood. Fritz ...
and
Efrem Zimbalist
Efrem Zimbalist Sr. ( – February 22, 1985) was a concert violinist, composer, conductor and director of the Curtis Institute of Music.
Early life
Efrem Zimbalist Sr. was born on April 9, 1888, O. S., equivalent to April 21, 1889, in the Greg ...
, cellist
Joseph Press and the bass
Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin ( rus, Фёдор Ива́нович Шаля́пин, Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyapin, ˈfʲɵdər ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ʂɐˈlʲapʲɪn}; April 12, 1938) was a Russian opera singer. Possessing a deep and expressive bass v ...
.
In 1912, the society sponsored an expedition that included the Yiddish musician and educator
Sussman Kisselgoff, to record Jewish folk music using the newly invented Edison
phonograph
A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
. The group recorded more than 1000
wax cylinders
Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity (c. 1896–1916), these hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engra ...
. The collection is preserved in the
Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine
The Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, VNLU ( uk, Національна бібліотека України імені В.І. Вернадського) is the main academic library and main scientific information centre in Ukraine, one of t ...
, in Kiev. This collection is one of the most important ethnographic resources of Jewish life in Ukraine from that period. Another important endeavour of the society was the publication of a "Song Collection for Jewish Schools and Home." This songbook was a monumental six volumes, and includes, in addition to folksongs collected by Kisselgoff and others, original art songs and a section on cantillation of religious texts.
Jewish art music outside Russia
The success of the society spread throughout Russia, and into eastern and central Europe. In 1913, a branch was founded in
Kharkov
Kharkiv ( uk, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine. , and later in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
and
Odessa
Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
. The advent of World War I and the
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
put an end to the formal existence of the society, but its members continued their activities and influence in Russia and abroad. Polish Jewish musicians such as Janot Rotkin, inspired by the society, embarked on their own projects of gathering, arranging, and composing Jewish music. In 1928, the Society for the Promotion of Jewish Music was founded in Vienna.
With the onset of the Russian revolution, most of the leading members of the St. Petersburg society left Russia. Joel Engel moved to Berlin in 1922, where he established the Juwal Publishing house. There he republished many of the society's works. Two years later he moved to Palestine, and started Jibneh, which continued the publishing work of Juwal. He died in Palestine in 1927. A street in Tel Aviv now bears his name. Lazare Saminsky emigrated to the U.S. in 1920, where he became a leading figure in the promotion of Jewish music. He was music director of the
Temple Emanu-El reform congregation in New York, a position he held until his death, in 1959.
In 1932,
Miriam Zunser, together with Saminsky,
Joseph Yasser
Joseph Yasser (April 16, 1893 – September 6, 1981) was a Russian–American organist, music theorist, author, and musicologist. An influential figure who established a handful of musical institutions, Yasser is noted for his 1932 publication, '' ...
and others, founded MAILAMM (known by its Hebrew acronym), an institute for the study and promotion of Jewish music in Palestine and the United States;
[About Us]
. American Society for Jewish Music. jewishmusic-asjm.org. Retrieved 6 August 2017.[Loeffler, James October 19, 2010).]
Society for Jewish Folk Music
" ''YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe''. yivoencyclopedia.org. Retrieved 6 August 2017. it was one of the predecessor organizations to the American Society for Jewish Music, which formed under that name in 1974.
Solomon Rosowsky moved to Palestine, and later to the United States, where he continued composing, teaching and researching Jewish music.
Jacob Weinberg moved to Palestine in 1922 after being persecuted in Odessa by the Bolsheviks. In 1927 his opera "The Pioneers" won first prize in the Sesquicentennial composition contest. With the prize money, he was able to migrate to New York. His religious works were performed in New York City at Temple Emanuel, (where he became a "house composer"), as well as the
Park Avenue Syngagogue and the 92nd St. Y. He joined the music faculty of Hunter College and the (now defunct) NY College of Music. He continued to compose, perform, and teach. His comic opera, "The Pioneers" ("Hechalutz") (1924) was performed in concerts at Carnegie Hall in February, 1941 and again in February, 1947, and in the 1930s at City Center (then called "The Mecca Temple", with its Moorish architecture). It was also performed in Berlin in the 1930s by the Kulturbund, featuring the great soprano
Mascha Benya
Mascha Benya ( yi, מאַשאַ בעניאַ, October 15, 1908 – November 4, 2007), born Masha Benyakonsky, was a Russian-born soprano known especially for her promotion and performance of Yiddish and Hebrew folk and art music in the United S ...
. Her aria "Song of Solomon" was more recently performed in 1998 by soprano Harolyn Blackwell at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall in a gala "Salute to Israel's 50th Birthday" concert conducted by Leon Botstein with the
American Symphony Orchestra
The American Symphony Orchestra is a New York-based American orchestra founded in 1962 by Leopold Stokowski whose mission is to demystify orchestral music and make it accessible and affordable for all audiences. Leon Botstein is the orchestra's m ...
. A production of "The Pioneers" is planned for
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus.
Being New York City's first publ ...
in the fall, 2015 to celebrate the opening of their new performing arts center. A concert version of this opera was produced by his granddaughter, Ellen L. Weinberg, in NYC in 2012 and can be seen on YouTube.
Footnotes
References
{{Cite Book, first=Joel
, last=Epstein
, title=Music for the Love of It: Episodes in Amateur Music-Making
, chapter=A Yidl Mit a Fidl: The Jews of Russia
, publisher=Juwal Publications
, ISBN = 978-9659278237
, year = 2022
, url=https://www.amazon.com/Music-Love-Episodes-Amateur-Music-Making/dp/9659278233
External links
Songs with violin or violawritten by composers of the society.
of the society and composer biographies.
Archival recordingsof Jewish art songs by Cantor Louis Danto.
Classical and art music traditions