![W](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/W._N._Kostakowsky_from_International_Hebrew_wedding_music_1916.jpg)
Wolff N. Kostakowsky (1879–1944) was a
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
-born
klezmer violinist known mostly for his publication of a book of klezmer dance tunes titled ''International Hebrew Wedding Music'', published in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
in 1916. That book was one of the earliest collections of klezmer repertoire published in the United States.
Biography
Kostakowsky was born on June 11, 1879, in
Feodosia
uk, Феодосія, Теодосія crh, Kefe
, official_name = ()
, settlement_type=
, image_skyline = THEODOSIA 01.jpg
, imagesize = 250px
, image_caption = Genoese fortress of Caffa
, image_shield = Fe ...
,
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
.
His father was named Nathan Kostakowsky and his mother was Mary (née Leibowitz).
Wolff emigrated to the United States in 1892, sailing from
Lyons in December and arriving in New York City later that month.
He married his wife Ida (née Shapiro) in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
in June 1896. It seems that his parents followed him to America; although his father died in New York in 1901, his mother was listed as still living with Wolff and his family in the
1910 census.
In the 1900 census he was listed as a Musician living in
Atlantic City, New Jersey. In 1908 he was working as a master violin instructor at the New York School of Music and Arts on West 97th Street.
In the 1910s, aside from his only full-length work ''International Hebrew Wedding Music'' (1916), Kostakowsky arranged and printed a handful of shorter piano scores of Jewish or other Eastern European music. These included ''Palestiner March'', ''Sher'', and ''Free Russia March'' (all published with Sam Bederson music in 1918).
![Wolf Kostakowsky Palestiner March 1918](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Wolf_Kostakowsky_Palestiner_March_1918.jpg)
Kostakowsky died on October 6, 1944, at age 69.
He was buried in the Mount Richmond Cemetery in
Staten Island.
''International Hebrew Wedding Music'' (1916)
Kostakowsky is mainly remembered today for his 1916 publication ''International Hebrew Wedding Music'', a large collection of violin lead sheets published by his son Nathan. It is one of the only commercially-published large collections of klezmer tunes from its era; some others include ''European Jewish Wedding'' publisher by Herman S. Shapiro in 1902
and the ''Kammen International Dance Folio'' series published by the
Kammen Brothers
J. & J. Kammen Music Company, commonly known as the Kammen Brothers, was a sheet music publishing company operated in Brooklyn, New York by Jack and Joseph Kammen from the 1920s to the 1970s. The company published Jewish music (including Klezmer an ...
from the 1920s onwards. Among those handful of publications, the Kammen books were by far the most well-known and widely distributed.
The klezmer researcher
Walter Zev Feldman
Walter may refer to:
People
* Walter (name), both a surname and a given name
* Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968)
* Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 19 ...
describes ''International Hebrew Wedding Music'' as the "earliest substantial American printed collection of klezmer music" with a particularly Romanian repertoire (notably
Bulgars and
Sirbas).
He described its contents as such: "He divided the substance of his book between a klezmer dance repertoire (i.e., “Rumanian” hora, sirba, and bulgar), followed by hongas and a large group of freylekhs. The remainder of the book is various non- Jewish dance forms, such as csardas, tarantella, polka, mazurka, “Russian” selections, and waltzes.
..The book closes with several Zionist songs and assorted American wedding staples, such as the Lohengrin march."
The book was not as widely circulated as the Kammen klezmer folios, but it was nonetheless still circulating in the 1970s at the beginning of the
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 ...
. A copy made its way into the hands of the musicians in
The Klezmorim
The Klezmorim, founded in Berkeley, California, in 1975, was the world's first klezmer revival band, widely credited with spearheading the global renaissance of klezmer (Eastern European Yiddish instrumental music) in the 1970s and 1980s.Thompson ...
in 1977. Since then, melodies from the book have been performed by many other revival musicians, including
Giora Feidman
Giora Feidman ( he, גיורא פיידמן; born 25 March 1936) is an Argentine-born Israeli clarinetist who specializes in klezmer music.
Biography
Giora Feidman was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where his Bessarabian Jewish parents immigra ...
,
Veretski Pass
Veretskyi Pass or Verecke Pass ( uk, Вере́цький перевал, translit=Veretskyi pereval, more formally: uk, перевал Середньоверецький, translit=pereval Serednoveretskyi, label=none, also known as: uk, В ...
,
Khevrisa,
Yale Strom
Yale Strom is an American violinist, composer, filmmaker, writer, photographer and playwright. Strom is a pioneer among klezmer (musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe) revivalists in conducting extensive field research in Cent ...
, and others.
Out of print for most of the twentieth century, the book was finally republished in a new edition by Tara Publications in 2001, with editing and annotation by Joshua Horowitz.
References
External links
International Hebrew Wedding Musicin the
Petrucci Music LibraryW.N. Kostakowsky scoresin the
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 ...
digital collection
International Hebrew Wedding Music Web Edition(still in development)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kostakowsky, Wolff
1879 births
1944 deaths
Klezmer musicians
People from Feodosia
Jewish American musicians
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States