Leon Schwartz, Yiddish אריה–לייב שווארץ (Arye-Leyb Shvarts) (1901-1990) was a

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 l ...

and

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

ist born in the village Karapchiv,

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

near the town of

Vashkivtsi Vashkivtsi (, ; ro, Vășcăuți; german: Waschkautz; ) is a city in Vyzhnytsia Raion of Chernivtsi Oblast (province) of Ukraine. It is located in the historical region of Bukovina. It hosts the administration of Vashkivtsi urban hromada, one o ...

in today’s Vyzhnytsia Region of the

Bukovina Bukovinagerman: Bukowina or ; hu, Bukovina; pl, Bukowina; ro, Bucovina; uk, Буковина, ; see also other languages. is a historical region, variously described as part of either Central or Eastern Europe (or both).Klaus Peter BergerT ...

area of

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. Raised in a

Hasidic Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...

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 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 ...

eastern front reached Bukovina, he and his family fled and lived as refugees in Jungbunzlau (Mladá Boleslav), Austrian

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

. 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 Ukrainian and Romani musicians Halynko Marianchuk, Kolio Tyslycki, and Aleko Yeremichuk. Schwartz made more than one trip to the U.S in the 1920s before settling in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1927, where he studied classical violin with

Max Jacobs Maxwell Ralph Jacobs (25 February 1905 – 9 October 1979) was an Australian forester. Jacobs was born in North Adelaide and attended Unley High School and then the University of Adelaide. He began his career as a forest assessor in the Australia ...

and Elias Malkin. In addition to orchestral and chamber music, he played weddings and other occasions professionally in Jewish and other ensembles, with trumpeter Max Peters (Petrowski) and clarinetist Shloimke Beckerman among others, and taught violin privately for many years. In the 1980s he was mentor and teacher to key klezmer revivalist

Michael Alpert Michael Alpert (born 1954, Los Angeles, California) is a klezmer musician and Yiddish singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, scholar and educator who has been called a key figure in the klezmer revitalization, beginning in the 1970s. He has ...

as well as

Alicia Svigals Alicia Svigals (born January 8, 1963) is an American violinist and composer. A co-founder of the Grammy-winning band The Klezmatics, she is considered by many to be the world's foremost living klezmer fiddler. Early life Alicia Svigals, violinis ...

and Rebecca Miller, and was an important influence on the playing of Deborah Strauss and the klezmer revitalization in general. One of the signature pieces of Schwartz’s repertoire is the majestic "Dem Rebns Nign" - his solo violin rendering of a

nign he recalled from the singing of Reb Shulemke Hager, the Storozhinitser

Rebbe A Rebbe ( yi, רבי, translit=rebe) or Admor ( he, אדמו״ר) is the spiritual leader in the Hasidic movement, and the personalities of its dynasties.Heilman, Samuel"The Rebbe and the Resurgence of Orthodox Judaism."''Religion and Spiritua ...

, from the Hager dynasty of

Vizhnitz Vizhnitz is the name of a Hasidic dynasty founded by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Hager. Vizhnitz (ויז׳ניץ or וויזשניץ) is the Yiddish name of Vyzhnytsia, a town in present-day Ukraine (then, a village in Austrian Bukovina). Followers of ...

Hasidim Ḥasīd ( he, חסיד, "pious", "saintly", "godly man"; plural "Hasidim") is a Jewish honorific, frequently used as a term of exceptional respect in the Talmudic and early medieval periods. It denotes a person who is scrupulous in his observ ...

. Along with much of Schwartz's repertoire, the piece is performed and taught today by several violinists from the klezmer revitalization, including Strauss, Alpert, Steven Greenman and Mark Kovnatsky. Schwartz was interviewed and recorded extensively in the 1980s by Michael Alpert and Michael Schlesinger and videoed by Itzek Gottesman. A portion of his repertoire, with vignettes of Schwartz speaking, was released on the 1993 annotated album ''Like in a Different World'' on Global Village Records, which was selected as an Outstanding Folk Recording of 1993 by the American Folklife Center at the

U.S. Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library i ...

. He also appears in Michal Goldman’s klezmer documentary "A Jumpin Night in the Garden of Eden" (1988), taught at KlezKamp in the late 1980s, appeared with Kapelye on NBC's ''First Camera'' and played with Alpert at

Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer ( yi, יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער; November 11, 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Polish-born American Jewish writer who wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated himself into English with the help ...

’s 83rd birthday party. According to klezmer fiddler Bob Cohen, the 1993 album offers "One of the best examples of traditional Jewish fiddling ... Leon’s range of styles and inter-ethnic repertoire reflects his region as well as his own Jewish upbringing."

References

Di Naye Kapelye
site * 'Fiddler on the Move' by Mark Slobin p. 124-5 {{DEFAULTSORT:Schwartz, Leon 1901 births 1989 deaths American male violinists Klezmer musicians 20th-century American violinists 20th-century American male musicians People from Chernivtsi Oblast Ukrainian Jews American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent