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JOURNAL

OF SYNAGOGUE

MUSIC

July 1976 /Tamuz 5736

Volume VI

Number 4

CONTENTS

Heinrich Schalit (1886-1976)

Autobiographical Sketch

J oshua S. Weisser (1888-1952)

Alfred Sendrey :
In Memoriam

Fading Footprints

Herbert Fromm 3
Albert Weisser 9

Robert Strassburg 13
Max Wohlberg 21

DE PARTME NTS

Brief Music Reviews

"Heichal Han'ghina V'Hatfilah"

and "Neginot Todres" by Todros Greenberg

Music Section

Selected Songs from the compositions

of Moses Milner introduced by Albert Weisser

Richard Neumann 27

J ournal of synagogue music, Volume VI, N umber 4

July 1976 / Tamux 5736

editor : Morton Shames

managing editor : Samuel Rosenbaum

editorial board: Saul Meisels, David Myers, Marshall Portnoy,
David J. Putterman, Cregor Shelkan, Moses J. Silverman, Pinchas
Spiro, David Til man, Dr. Max Wohlberg.

business manager : Yehuda Mandel

officers of the cantors assembly: Michal H ammerman, Pres-
ident; Kurt Silberman, Vice President; Ivan Perlman, Treasurer;
Jacob Barkin, Secretary ; Samuel Rosenbaum, Executive Vice
President.

journal of synagogue MUSIC is a quarterly publication. The sub-
scription fee is $12.50 per year. Second-class postage paid at New
York, New York. All articles, communications and subscriptions
should be addressed to Journal of Synagogue Music, Cantors Assem-
bly, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York 10011.

HEINRICH SCHAUT (1886-1976)

Herbert Fromm

. . . Dieser erst oben
bieg t sich zur L eier.
Only this one above
bends into a lyre.

Thus, Rilke in the seventeenth of his "Sonnets to Orpheus."
Obscure lines when taken out of context. As the concluding verses
of the complete poem, they tell us that many branches of the family
tree will break but that the last one may bend into the shape of a
lyre -poetry or music.

It was music with Salomone Rossi (1587-1630), scion of an
illustrious J ewish family in Mantua, and it was music again in the
case of Heinrich Schalit, descendant of a Viennese J ewish family
that began to distinguish itself in the second half of the 19th cen-
tury. The father, J oseph Schalit, was an acknowledged Hebraist.
Heinrich's brothers worked in other fields: The oldest, Isidore, was
co-worker, friend and sometime secretary of Theodor Herzl; Leon,
writer and Anglicist, was the translator into German of the works
of Galsworthy, one of the most widely read authors of the period.

Heinrich Schalit's musical education leads us way back into the
history of music. He studied with the composer Robert Fuchs (1847-
1927) who was considered one of the greatest teachers of composi-
tion. His works are hardly played anymore but — irony of ironies
— a joke about him has not yet lost its currency. J oseph Hellmes-
berger (1855-1907), conductor, violinist and composer of successful
operettas, after hearing a work by Fuchs, said : "Fuchs, das hast du
ganxgestohlen" (Fox, this you have stolen entirely), a pun on the
first line of a well-known German children's song "Fuchs, du hast
dieGans gestohlen" (Fox, you have stolen the goose).

Herbert Fromm is one of the best known and most individualistic composers creating
music for the American Jewish community Born in Kitzingen, Germany, he has been
in the United States since 1937. He holds a master's degree from the State Academy
of Music in Munich and holds an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Lesley
College in Massachusetts. After 33 years of devoted service he refired as music director
and organist of Temple Israel in Boston. He is the composer of a wide variety of
works, for orchestra, organ, the synagogue, art songs, chamber music, cantatas, choral
cycles, etc. He is a member of the American Guild 01 Organists and was the recipient
of the Ernest Bloch Award. His music is performed extensively, he lectures and writes
and continues to compose.

Another teacher of Schalit's was J osef Labor (1842-1924), a
blind pianist, organist and composer who, according to Schalit's
account, must have been an extraordinary musician. Labor himself
had studied with Simon Sechter (1788-1867), one of the most fa-
mous theorists in the history of music who wrote three volumes
"DieGrundsaetze der Musikalischen Komposition", 'The Founda-
tions of Musical Composition". It is known that Franz Schubert in
the last weeks of his life, after having created a vast library of
masterworks, considered studying with Sechter to improve his
counterpoint. Through Schubert's early death (November 19, 1828)
the plan came to nothing. Anton Bruckner, (1824-1896) however,
was a full -time student of Sechter, faithfully following his teacher's
insistence on regular exercises in all branches of counterpoint.

Robert Fuchs and J osef Labor — the latter, incidentally, also
a teacher of Arnold Schoenberg — saw to it that Schalit's talent got
a solid grounding in technical competence. His early works, all
secular, show him second to none in compositional perfection. I have
before me op. 17 "Sechs Liebeslieder" (Six Love Songs), published
by Universal Edition, one of the most reputable houses in Europe.
These songs are based on poems by Max Dauthendey (1867-1918),
"Rhapsodist of blessed abundance", as Richard Dehmel called him.
The poems are sensuous throughout, but not marred by the vulgarity
that is so much in evidence in contemporary poetry. There is no doubt
where Dauthendey belongs in the history of literature: He is a true
child of a period we call "J ugendstil", a mixture of medievalism,
folksong simplicity and over-bred, self-indulgent sensibility. How-
ever, I will not minimize the quality of verses such as:

DeineAugen sind himmlische Bruecken,
Wienach derm Regen im Bogen
Sieben Freuden amHimmd einzogen,
So koennen deineAugen begluecken.
(Your eyes are heavenly bridges,
as after the rain, in a bow,
seven joys appear in the skies —
thus your eyes bring bliss to me).

Schalit's music is the work of a master in musical form as well as
in the sweeping fullness and independence of the accompaniment.
Early in his life, like Mahler, Schalit broke with the then fashionable
style of Hugo Wolf with its declamatory treatment of the voice
which had to depend on the accompaniment to make any sense at all.
In his Love Songs, Schalit created singable melodies, not mere frag-
ments, that were complete in themselves.

As a young man of twenty, Schalit moved to M unich to take
up a teaching career. Among his students were the daughter of the
piano builder, Stein way, and one of the daughters of Samuel Clemens
(Mark Twain). I remember, that at the time, when I was a student
of the State Academy of Music, in Munich, Schalit's name was al-
ready known to me as composer and pianist. (He had been a pupil
of Leschetitzky, in piano). But I met him, for the first time, in
Rochester, N.Y., then more often in Providence, R.I., where he
served as organist at the Reform Temple. After a short period as
organist in Hollywood, Cal., he retired to Denver, Colorado. Later,
he built a mountain cottage in Evergreen, near Denver, where I'
visited him and his wife Hilda, on several occasions. He was amused
when I called him "my ever-green composer." In our personal re-
lationship, Schalit was always friendly and cordial and he did ap-
preciate my work. Basically, he was not a socially minded person
and preferred to stay by himself. Producing music, especially in his
later years, was a slow, often painful process — partly due to his
failing eyesight — and he never stopped revising his works.

But I am ahead of myself. Returning to Munich, it is important
to relate that in 1927 he was appointed organist of the Synagogue,
and in this position exposed to the music of Emanuel Kirschner, the
synagogue's cantor-composer, who was a conservative follower of
Lewandowski. Challenged to seek new ways, Schalit gave up an al-
ready recognized career in the field of secular music which had
begun auspiciously at the age of twenty when he won the Austrian
State Prize in Composition, for a piano quartet.

It must have been around 1930, that Schalit turned to J ewish
liturgical music. His first piece, as he once told me, was the
V'shamru, now part of his Friday Evening Service. It is a full-blown
masterpiece and I can well imagine that, at that time, Schalit came
to a decision that was to determine his future career as a composer.
Continuing in the secular field, he would have been one among other
good composers. In the liturgical field, he had to offer something
entirely new, a musical approach that would influence the way
J ewish liturgical music should go. I am not thinking here of practical
considerations. Writing liturgical music became for Schalit, a sacred
calling to the almost complete exclusion of any other musical forms.
His basic achievement, called EineFrei tag Abend Liturgie appeared
in Germany in 1933, and was revised and newly published in America
in 1951, under the title Liturgiah shd Leyl Shabbat I have the first
German edition of the work, published by the composer himself.
This is not the place to go into a detailed comparison between the

German and American editions, although there are striking differ-
ences worth exploring. The most important addition to the American
publication is the inclusion of Psalm 98 in the K abbal at Shabbat
section. It is an extensive composition bearing the dedication 'To the
Genius and Humanitarian, Albert Einstein". This dedication is by
no means presumptuous. I consider this Psalm as Schalit's most
perfect, his most ambitious liturgical work.

Trying to understand Schalit's aims as a composer of Syna-
gogue music, I shall translate some of his illuminating sentences
from the German preface of the first edition :

"It is an obligation for the creative minds among J ewish musi-
cians to prepare a change in style and outlook, to create a new,
unified liturgical music growing out of the soil of the old-new, signi-
ficant and valuable source material offered by Idelsohn. The un-
organic mixture of traditional cantorial chants with congregational
and choral music in the German style of the 19th century must be
eliminated." And further : 'This work is trying to fulfill the de-
mands which must be made today for the rejuvenation of our Temple
music. Its style is rooted in the timelessness of old Hebrew motifs
for Bible and Prayer, motifs which form the germinal cells for the
musical substance of this work. Also the freely invented parts rest
on the foundation of Hebrew-Oriental melody."

Thus, Schalit was the first composer to grasp the importance
of the material offered by Avraham Zvi Idelsohn in his collection of
Oriental -J ewish chants. Schalit's preference is clear but he did not
neglect the Ashkenazic tradition either, as shown in his settings of
L'chu N'rannenah, Adonai Malach and Vay'chulu. In the preface to
the American edition Schalit speaks of "our ancestral memory",
and I see it at work when, without folkloristic models, the composer
must rely on the infallibility of that memory. For all this melodic
material Schalit avoided the harmonic idiom of the 19th century, as
exemplified by Lewandowski. He forged his own language, a tart
diatonicism which he treats in contrapuntal fashion, as in L'cha
Dodi, or in homophonic textures, tellingly dissonant, as in Tov
L'hodot

On the first of December 1975, I gave a lecture at the "Con-
ference on the Music of the American Synagogue", at the School
of Sacred Music in New York, which is a branch of the Hebrew
Union College. I wrote the lecture ahead of time and sent a copy to
Schalit. He answered on September 27, 1975, some three months
before his 90th birthday. It was to be his last letter to me and I shall

quote what is pertinent to our topic: "1 read your interesting essay
and I cannot tell you how deeply I appreciate your remarks about
my music and myself. I know that you were one of the first who
recognized the new style. May I tell you in brief the story of the
Freitag Abend Liturgie "In early spring of 1931, when I returned
to Munich from a visit in Rochester, N.Y ., I was already a well-known
composer in Germany, especially in Munich, Augsburg, Frankfurt,
Dresden, Berlin, etc., probably because of the performances of my
Hymn "In Ewigkat". It was then, that the capable choir director of
the Leo Baeck Synagogue in Berlin, who had at his disposal a choir
of over 30 singers, as well as a fine organ, approached me to write a
new service. Many people didn't like the German style of Lewandow-
ski anymore, and there was a vacuum in synagogue music. Wein-
baum (the choir director) came from Berlin to Landeck (Tyrol) ,
presumably on a vacation trip, in the summer of 1931, to talk it over
with me. I was enraptured by the idea and promised to compose a
service according to the Berlin prayerbook. In the fall of 1931, I
composed the service within 6 weeks and it was sung in the Temple,
in the fall of 1932 with young J anowsky at the organ. The reaction
was divided. Many liked it very much, among them Arno Nadel.
Alfred Einstein, Curt Sachs. Other people rejected it. After several
repetitions they said to Rabbi Leo Baeck, If this is to be our future
synagogue music, we'll leave the Temple'. Well, they didn't have
to leave because the Nazis, in 1933, took good care of their not
coming anymore. One of the critics said to me It will take at least
30 years until people will understand and accept your music' I didn't
believe it, but now I do. It was a most beautiful performance and I
was proud at the age of 46. But now, being almost 90, I am humble
and think that our younger generation should carry on. Again, many
thanks for your fine article, I hope they will appreciate it in New
York, too."

I have dwelt on the Friday Evening Service at such length because
it marked a turning point in the composer's life. It may be well to
remember that Schalit's name is more than a mere coincidence. We
pronounce it Schalit (stress on the first syllable), but as a Hebrew
word, Schalit (stress on the second syllable) means Leader, Master.
Could there be a better name for a man who initiated a stylistic
change in Western synagogue music and became a master of his
craft?

Much important music came from his pen in later years: A
capella pieces, a Shabbat Morning Service, song cycles, cantatas

based on Israeli folk music, anthems, etc. But I think of his Liturgiah
Shel Leyl Shabbat as his most enduring work, coloring all that was
yet to come. Schalit's favorite texts for sacred, not necessarily litur-
gical, texts were taken from the Hebrew poets of 11th century Spain :
Yehuda Halevi and Ibn Gabirol. Shortly before his death, (February
3, 1976) he wrote his last composition, based on words by Ibn
Gabirol. The music shows that noble simplicity of statement, the
wisdom, which is the result of a life-long effort for perfection. The
text begins with the words : "Forget thine affliction", and ends with
"sunlight shall glow with a sevenfold ray." Here is the rainbow
again, as in No. 4 of the "LidbesHeder". But now it has become
something else. Not the seven earthly joys of the Dauthendey poem
but the eternal radiance of a never setting sun.

Postscript

The first edition of Schalit's Friday Eve Service was not engraved but lithographed
after the script of a Munich copyist. I immediately recognized it as the hand of the
copyist who had also worked for me. My thoughts are taking a sudden turn to the
Purim song Shoshannat Yaakov, Lily of Jacob. After blessings for Mordechai and
Esther, the song ends: "V'gam Charvono zachur l'tov. " "And also Charvono shall be
remembered for good." He was the scribe who on a night when King Ahasverus
couldn't sleep, read the Chronicles of the Land with the passage telling of Mordechai' s
merits for the King's welfare. This led to Haman's downfall and to the salvation of the
Jewish people.

Following the example of the Purim song, the Munich scribe should now find a
place at the end of the essay. His name was Boehm.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
JOSHUA & WEISSER (1888-1952)

The following short memoir was recently discovered by me, quite fortuitously, among
certain unpublished music and papers left to me by my uncle after his death. Although
it was obviously written sometime in 1948, its exact intention or occasion remains un-
known to me, nor have I seen it previously published anywhere. Aside from the valu-
able autobiographical material and deep personal artistic convictions, it reflects much
of the intimate concerns and apprehensions found among the American cantorate con-
cerning the future of their profession following the Holocaust and World War II. The
translation from the original Yiddish is mine, as are the annotations.

ALBERT WEISSER

I was seven years old when I began to exhibit a love for J ewish
song. I used to stand under the synagogue window and listen to our
town cantor as he rehearsed with his choristers for the high holi-
days'. One day he noticed me, asked me to sing for him and I quickly
became a member of his choir.

The cantor's name was Shahna Kagan and he taught me sol-
f eggi o. When I was eight I could already read vocal music with great
facilty. It was about this time that Hazzan Shmuel Vaynman 2 of
Saroki, Bessarabia, came to our town as a guest cantor to officiate
on a Sabbath. After much tearful pleading and objections of my
dear mother I left my town and family to travel with him as a mem-
ber of his choir. Vaynman was a fine musician and taught me much
about music theory and gave me excellent vocal instruction. He was
also concerned about my religious education and enrolled me in the
Saroki Yeshiva 3.

When I reached the age of seventeen I began to sing as a tenor.
Learning that there was an excellent music school in the city of
Vinnitsa 4, I went therewith the intention of further study. Fortun-
ately, Professor Kortakoff, who was director of the Vinnitsa Im-
perial Conservatory, took an interest in my musical progress so I
was privileged to study various musical disciplines with him — ad-
vanced harmony, counterpoint, music history, orchestration.

At twenty, I became Hazzan in one of the most important syna-
gogues of Vinnitsa, and wrote some of my early liturgical pieces.
It was during this period too, that I befriended the renowned scholar-
ly cantor and musician, Eliezar Mordecai Gerovitch of Rcsto/5 —

Albert Weisserlsa noted musicologist and music historian. He is a member of the
faculty of the Cantors Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

may he rest in peace. He was most kind to me and showed deep in-
terest in my work. I was to remain his disciple for several years
studying all aspects of hazzanut with him. He also performed several
of my compositions in his synagogue and published my "Ernes Ki
Atotiu Yotzrom" in his volume Shire Zimrah (Part 4, pp. 42-45).

In 1914, 1 arrived in America and was hazzan in several syna-
gogues. My first important position was in the large Allen Street
Synagogue in New York City 6.

In 1915, I finished my first volume, TtfilatYdhoshua, recita-
tives for the high holidays. There then followed Shiroh Chadasho
(1918) for choir and cantor — in collaboration with Hazzan Shmuel
Kavetzky.

I then published Rinath Yehoshua (1927-1929), two volumes,
recitatives for the entire liturgical year. Baal Tefillah (1936, 1940),
two volumes, recitatives for the entire liturgical year.

My early hazzanic works were written in the genuinely tradi-
tional J ewish spirit, and were based on the orthodox Eastern Euro-
pean style. Within recent years I observed that there developed with-
in the contemporary American synagogue a new type of worshipper
who, though he enjoyed listening to the traditional J ewish chant,
yet preferred that the cantor not repeat the words of the liturgy
without rhyme or reason. I observed, too, that there developed a new
generation of native born American cantors who had not experienced
the great European hazzanic culture, nor had they ever sung as
young choristers with learned and knowledgeable cantors. Thus they
most often knew very little of the proper corpus of traditional syna-
gogue song with which our liturgy is chanted. And what with the
recent terrible European Holocaust, I feared there was a real danger
that all these age-old and noble hazzanic creations would soon perish.

Simultaneously, there seemed to develop in many synagogues
in this land a new popular musical form, zimrah b' tzibur — or as it
came to be known, "congregational singing." However, I. observed
that what was sung for the most part were not beautiful melodies
based on J ewish musical tradition, but mainly alien and meritricious
tunes and dances. I thereupon decided to compose a complete service
in which the recitatives would be genuinely J ewish, based on our
traditional chant, with no unnecessary repetition of words, appro-
priate for all cantors (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform), and so
written that the congregation could easily participate in the service
and constructed in a modern musical manner,

Also, I decided to set the entire liturgy, excluding no prayers
for either the cantor or congregation. Quite simply, The Complete
Prayer Book'.

I finally finished and published, in 1944, the first volume of my
Avodath Hahazzan 8 for Sabbath Eve, Sabbath morning and After-
noon, and Oneg Shabbat. Also included were many hassidic nigunim
which I collected and transcribed from many oral sources.

This year, 1948, 1 finished and published the second volume of
my Avodath Hahaxxan in the same format as the foregoing volume
— cantor and "congregational singing." This volume is based on
the complete High Holiday Prayer Book, SI i hot, Rosh Hashanah,
Yom Kippur and N'eilah. Also included again are many hassidic
nigunim and ten recitatives set to texts from the Torah and Talmud.

Those who were kind enough to help me publish these volumes
were the well known music publisher, Henry Lefkowitch of Metro
MusicCompany, New York, TheJ ewish Ministers Cantors Associa-
tion of America, Moshe Erstling, President, The Philadelphia Can-
tors Association, and many other cantorial organizations and in-
dividual cantors throughout this land.

At present I am working on Part III of my Avodath Hahazzan
which will include Shlosh Regalim and all other cantorial functions
for the entire liturgical year. I plan to include in this forthcoming
volume many recitatives and material for "congregational singing." 9

For some time now, I have been acutely aware that many of
our cantors, especially our younger ones, have unfortunately de-
parted from the genuinely traditional road of hazzanut. What is,
therefore, most urgently needed at present is the founding of a
cantorial academy. Here young cantors would be trained for our
synagogues and here could be gathered a variety of J ewish musi-
cians, cantors and scholars, well versed in the hazzanic art who
would teach and explore the entire field of J ewish music, and at-
tempt to create a uniform J ewish liturgy for our contemporary
synagogue.

And since we have recently heard that the J ewish Ministers
Cantors Association of America plans to organize such a cantorial
institution in the near future, we wish it, with all our hearts,
"bekorov beyomenu" - may it come to pass in our day 10.

NOTES

1. Joshua S. Weisser (originally Pilderwasser) was born in Novo Ushitsa, a town in
the Podolia region of the Ukraine. Russia. According to many of his "landslayt"
(countrymen) I have spoken to, he was considered something of a musical prodigy.
For a fuller study of Weisser, see the fine work of Paul Kavon, Joshua Samuel
Weisser (Pilderwasser) 1888-1952: His Life nnd Works. First written as a Masters
thesis at the Cantors Institute, Jewish Theological Seminary, it was later published
in this Journal, I (January, 1968), 16-42.

2. In Elias Zaludkowski's work, Kulturtregerfun der Yidishe Liturgie, Detroit. 1930,
p. 240, he is described as the "renowned cantor of Saroki , , a splendid traditional
(Yidisher) chanter of the liturgy (davner) and the possessor of a beautiful voice."

3. Saroki is a city in North Moldavian Russia in Bessarabia, once Roumania. Accord-
ing to The Columbia Lippincot Gazefter of the World, New York, 1952, its popu-
lation before World War II was largely Jewish.

4. Vinnitsa is a city in the Ukraine, Volhynia-Podolia upland region bordering on
Bessarabia. According to the Columbia Lippincotr Gazetter of the World, its popu-
lation was forty per cent Jewish before World War II. It was during this period
that Weisser married his wife, Feyge.

5. Eliezar Mordecai Gerovitch ( 1844-1913) was one of the most important hazzan-
composers of 19th century Eastern-Europe. His works influenced and were greatly
admired by the composers who were associated with the Society for Jewish Folk
Music, St. Petersburg — especially Saminsky. Achron, and Gniessin.

6. It is not too well known that during this early period in America, Weisser con-
ducted and wrote for the Yiddish Theater, especially in the Philadelphia area.

7. Weisser' s phrase here is "Siddur Kol Bo."

8. In English, titled Cantor's Manual, which gives the work another, more academic,
dimension.

9. Unfortunately, this work was never completed, nor have I found any vestiges of
it among Weisser' s musical remains. In his later years his mind was taken up with
the publication of his choral works — Shirei Beth Haknesseth, 2 vols., New York,
1951, 1952, the second issued posthumously.

10. Though many high minded cantors in this organization did attempt to fulfill
Weisser' s hopes, no such institution under its auspices ever came into being. Of
course, quite- soon after, the three New York based cantorial schools opened their
doors — School of Sacred Music, Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Re-
ligion (1948); The Cantors Institute and Seminary College of Music, The Jewish
Theological Seminary of America (1952); The Cantorial Training Institute,
Yeshiva University (1954); I hope to write in greater detail of these institutions'
beginnings in the near future.

13
AlfRED SENDREY: IN MEMORIAM

Robert STRASSBURG

Dr. Alfred Sendrey, revered Jewish musicologist, composer and
teacher, died at the Los Angeles New Hospital March 3, 1976 of a
stroke, three days after reaching his ninety-second birthday. He is
survived by his son Albert and his daughter Lillian.

As a close friend and colleague, I was privileged to give the
eulogy at the memorial service held in Sinai Temple in Westwood on
Friday, March 5th.

The service was conducted by Rabbi Hillel Silverman, the "El
Mole Rachamim" was chanted by Cantor Joseph Gole. The Cantors
Chorus of Los Angeles under the direction of Cantor Samuel Fordis
participated in the tribute.

Many of the hazzanim had studied with Sendrey during his ten-
ure at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles from 1961 to 1967.
The President of the University of Judaism, Rabbi David Lieber,
and the Cantor Emeritus of Temple Sinai, Carl Urstein, reflected on
Sendrey' s achievements and nobility of spirit.

The attendance included a number of well-known Hollywood
composers and conductors. Many had been students of Sendrey.
Among them Henry Mancini, John Green, Nelson Riddle, Lyn Mur-
ray, Leo Shuken, Bob Bruner and others.

EULOGY

My dear friend Alfred Sendrey . . . My dear friend and colleague
... I mourn your passing, but rejoice in the memory of the sixteen
years we have known each other.

I grieve with your devoted son Albert, your loving daughter
Lillian, your grandson Stephen, and your entire family. I mourn
your passing but rejoice in your attainments as a scholar and teacher

Dr. Robert Strassburg. composer, conductor, musicologist is Professor of Music at
California State University. Los Angeles, where he teaches the humanities courses
"Music in World Culture." and "Contemporary American Music." He is co-chairman
of the University's Bicentennial Committee, chairman of Cal State's chapter of Ameri-
can Professors for Peace in the Middle East, and Hillel advisor. Formerly music di-
rector of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, and assistant Dean and choral director of
the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. His compositions include songs, chamber
music and liturgical compositions for the synagogue.

who has raised up many disciples . , . many composers and conduc-
tors, among them your son Albert. .. and many hazzanim serving
the Congregation of Israel.

There are many here today who can recall your service to
Temple Sinai, as its Music Director and Organist, from 1950 to 1963,
enriching this congregation, in close collaboration with this Temple's
Cantor Emeritus, Carl Urstein. Cantor Urstein always found you to
be a loving and devoted friend, as well as a sensitive composer and
arranger of the liturgy for the Sabbath and Holidays, who supported
and strengthened him on Sabbath after Sabbath with inspired music
making.

When you retired as Music Director in 1963, you left behind not
only beautiful memories, but all the manuscripts you had written
... all the compositions you had created during your long tenure.

As your colleague and collaborator in the writing of your last
three books, I rejoice in the memory of our years together, first as
your student at the University of J udaism, when we met in 1961
through Max Helfman of blessed memory, who invited you to be
Professor of Musicology in the newly created School of Fine Arts.

Those were years to which you brought the excitement of learn-
ing. Years in which you deepened and enriched our knowledge of
music and history, and the profound role music played in the life of
the J ewish people.

Many hazzanim present today recall the lectures you gave at
the University of J udaism in 1963 and 1964 when you began writing
your book on The Music of the J ba/s of the Diaspora. Your research
uncovered the existence of J ewish troubadours and jongleurs in
medieval France... J ewish minnesingers in Germany, and J ewish
musicians like Salomone Rossi, who lent lustre to the Italian
Renaissance.

We recall your lively humor.. . The way your eyes would light up
as you read from your manuscript about great cantorial personali-
ties and their deeds in the ghettos of Venice, Prague and Frankfurt.

You filled us with pride in the attainments of our resourceful
people, and communicated to us your love of your subject and of the
people whose music you discussed with such perception . . , A people
who despite the burdens and persecutions of the diaspora were able
to create a vast variety of musical forms.

In the Foreword to this volume, published in 1970 and dedicated
to the University of J udaism, Rabbi Simon Greenberg, then Chan-
cellor of the University, pointed out that you belong to the precious
company of rare, highly specialized "memory cells" of our people,
who greatly enrich our group memory by gathering up the essence
of our historic experience in the diaspora. And this is indeed true.
For your volume contains historical data drawn from thousands of
books, pamphlets and articles in every language.

I well remember the hundreds of hours we spent together check-
ing sources, preparing the voluminous bibliography and index, in
what can only be regarded as a labor of love, in your determination
to "sing a new song unto the Lord." At that time you were already
86 years of age. Many of your scholarly contemporaries had long
passed from the scene. But your energies were unabated. Your eyes
sparkled with mischievous intent as we discussed the writing of a
new and even more complex work designed to enrich the field of the
humanities, to be called Music in the Social and Religious Life of
Antiquity.

I shall never forget the nightmare of assembling the staggering
bibliography and index with its ten thousand items, and reading
through the endless rolls of galley proofs. Although your eyesight
and strength were now giving way, you never yielded in your deter-
mination to bring the work to its final form, and the volume that
proclaimed you truly the "Savant of Antiquity," was published in
your 90th year.

The Kabbalistic Book of Splendor known as TheZohar says that
every sacred act requires a summoning, an evaluation. This is a
sacred hour for all of us. An hour for calling to mind what you have
given the world, and what you have given to the Congregation of
Israel.

In the course of our years together, I came to know only grad-
ually, other aspects of your achievements which reach back to the
turn of the century.

You were born in Budapest, February 29, 1884, to middle class
Hungarian parents. There was no previous history of outstanding
musical talent in your family. It was a time when the world was full
of music.

In the year of your birth, Brahms had started on his Fourth
Symphony, Mahler had completed the Songs of a Wayfarer, Bruck-

ner had begun the creation of his gigantic Eighth Symphony. Verdi
was at the height of his powers.

Your piano lessons began at the age of six. You entered the
Hochschule at the age of ten. You gave your first piano recital at
the age of twelve. At the age of thirteen you became a Bar Mitzvah
and in the same year entered the Conservatory in Budapest.

There, your abilities took wing. You became a first class tym-
panist in the Conservatory orchestra, and for five years until your
graduation, you never missed a rehearsal or concert. It was there
that you drank in the orchestral repertoire, studied and memorized
scores, absorbed the techniques of conducting and orchestration, and
became a fine accompanist.

The next phase of your career took place at the Royal Academy
of Budapest, where your classmates were Zoltan Kodaly and Bela
Bartok. At the Academy, you developed an unappeasable hunger for
opera. At the same time, in order to please your parents who wanted
you to become a lawyer, you attended the University of Budapest
until you earned your law degree. But every evening was spent,
from 1901 to 1905, at the opera or at a symphony concert or solo
performance.

Where you found time during this period to study composition,
organ, piano, conducting, violin and cello, and law, is part of the
mystery of genius. You won composition prizes during those years
for a "Stabat Mater" for solo voice, organ and chorus, a Miserere
for solo quartet and double chorus, and a Hungarian Overture for
orchestra. All of which made your parents finally realize that a law
career was not for you.

Where did you start as an opera conductor? In 1905, you were
invited to become the assistant conductor at the Cologne Opera
House. One of your first tasks was to prepare the Cologne premiere
of Salome, Richard Strauss' turbulent and masterful opera. You did
so to the composer's great satisfaction. It was during this period
that you conducted Cavalleria Rusticana at the Cologne premiere
and made friends with the composer Mascagni.

The following year, in 1907, you became the assistant opera
conductor in Mulhausen. In that year you met Eugenie Weiss, a
lovely soprano who was a graduate of the Vienna Conservatory. She
possessed an infallible memory and already knew the roles of Car-
men, Mignon, Margaret and Musetta by heart. Your love for her was

expressed in over one hundred songs, many published by Steingraber
and Universal Music Publishers.

But it was not until your 35th year, in 1909, that in a space of
five months you revealed your full stature as an opera conductor
equal in rank to Felix Weingartner and Otto Klemperer. Within a
space of five months in 1909, you conducted DieWalkure, Rigoldto,
La J uive, La Boheme, Carmen, Traviata, Don Giovanni, Tannhauser,
Fiddio, Madame Butterfly, Siegfried, Aida, The Merry Wives of
Windsor, Faust, and Cavalleria Rusticana.

As a guest conductor in Brunn, Austria in 1911, critics spoke
of an overwhelming reaction by the audience to your magnificent
interpretation of Fiddio and the entire Ring.

It seems that every European artist finds his way to the United
States. You were no exception. In 1911, you were invited to conduct
the Philadelphia and Chicago Opera Companies. Your wife, Eugenie,
was pregnant when you came to America on the steamer President
Grant. Here you conducted DieWalkure with Madame Schuman-
Heink as Fricka. It was in the United States that your son Albert
was born on December 26, 1911 in Chicago.

In 1912, you returned to Hamburg where you conducted Carmen
with Enrico Caruso as Don J ose. At the Hamburg Opera your co-
conductors were Weingartner and Klemperer. And here your second
child, Lillian, was born, November 12, 1912. It was in that year that
you coached and conducted Lotte Lehman in her premiere appear-
ance as El sa in Lohengrin.

Your reputation as a teacher of outstanding young talent fol-
lowed you to the United States when you returned to New York in
1913 to conduct the Century Opera Company. You brought to life an
inexperienced opera company launched by the famed Metropolitan
Opera House, for the purpose of bringing opera in English at popular
prices to the people of New York City. Following your successful
performances of Aida, Carmen, Lohengrin, Samson and Dal i I a, and
the premiere of Victor Herbert's opera Natoma, you returned to
Germany.

During the war years, you continued your brilliant career as a
conductor. In Vienna, you became friends with Ernest Korngold,
following one of your brilliant performances of Salome I n 1922, the
young composer entrusted you with the premiere of his most success-
ful opera DieToteStadt — TheDead City.

Your life as a conductor of opera was filled with triumphs.
From 1924 to 1932 you became conductor of the Leipzig Symphony
Orchestra, as well as the Musical Director of the mid-German radio
station Ml RAG. During this period you conducted all the symphonies
of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler. You explored the en-
tire symphonic repertoire plus introducing new works by Bartok,
Bloch, Casella, Hindemith, Kodaly, Stravinsky and Toch. An as-
tonishing record of achievement.

But when did you turn your genius in the direction of J ewish
music? In your article "Adventures of a Bibliography" published in
they ournal of Synagogue Music in 1969 (Vol. 2, Cantors Assembly),
you related that

"It all began when I lived in Germany during the birth of
the Nazi movement. This nefarious and evil cult. , . threatened
to destroy in its entirety not only the J ewish people, but all
evidence of the centuries old culture. I was one of the fortunate
few to escape the holocaust. I felt that it was the duty of every
educated J ew to participate in the intellectual struggle against
Nazism, by utilizing his skills and experience to the full est ex-
tent. My field had to be, of course, the domain of music. But at
that time I had not the vaguest idea as to what phase of music
I could best apply my abilities, in order to keep alive the J ewish
heritage.

"After much consideration, I decided to devote my re-
search to the history of J ewish music. From the very start, how-
ever, I discovered that there was a woefully inadequate docu-
mentation of reference material. The library of the Alliance
Israelite in Paris, where I started my research and expected to
get the most help, was thread-bare in this area of musical litera-
ture. It was only when I came to the United States in 1941, and
saw the wealth of documentation available in New York, that
I could proceed effectively to put my plan for making a thorough
study of J ewish music into effect.

"As to its final form, I had as yet no idea. At first I con-
sidered writing small or extended articles, but this gave way
to plans for treating the history of the J ewsasa whole. It was
only when I started to assemble the material for the project
that I fully recognized the need for creating a reference book
listing the sources of J ewish music. I finally arrived at the de-
cision to provide musicology with a major tool in the form of a
comprehensive Bibliograpny, which would also serve to stimu-
ulate general scholarship in this somewhat neglected area of
J ewish learning."

The scope of your labors were Herculean in fulfilling this re-
solve. Having no funds, you could not afford clerical help. You

devoted every waking hour to scouring public and private libraries
hunting down items and recording them in longhand on about 20,000
cards. I n pursuit of your objective, you went to Cincinnatti where
you catalogued and described the entire "Birnbaum Collection" in
the Library of Hebrew Union College, within a brief span of time.

Unfortunately, many important items were unavailable since
they had just arrived from Germany and were still unpacked on the
top shelves.

After many years of research difficulties the Bibliography of
Jewish Music reached its final form, and was published, in 1951, by
Columbia University Press. It contained 10,682 items, listing litur-
gical music, folk music, Yiddish and Chassidic music, music for the
theatre, songs of the working classes, music for children, music
mentioned in the Bible, music mentioned in early rabbinical works.

It has been for these many years, and will long continue to be
the central source book of J ewish musicology, invaluable to musi-
cologists, librarians and historians. It is today the basis for the
building of a comprehensive Library of J ewish music at the Univer-
sity of J erusalem.

I n 1944, you brought your family to Los Angeles where you
taught composition and conducting at Westlake College. In 1950,
you became Music Director and organist of Temple Sinai. In 1961,
you joined the faculty of the University of J udaism, and in 1967, in
recognition of your scholarly attainments, the University conferred
on you the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa. I n
1971, the Cantors Assembly presented you its tenth annual Kavod
Award in recognition of your unique and original contributions to
the development and enhancement of the J ewish music as a teacher,
conductor, composer and musicologist.

In 1974, at this Temple, your students, the American Confer-
ence of Cantors, the Cantors Assembly of Los Angeles, the Ministers
and Cantor's Association and the Southern Guild of Temple Musi-
cians, Organists and Choir Directors, and the City of Los Angeles,
by proclamation, honored you for your contributions to our com-
munity.

It was truly a joyous occasion. For in your ninetieth year you
were surrounded by those who knew and loved you. Your son, Albert,
and Hazzan Samuel Fordis of Valley Beth Shalom performed some
of your lovely songs. Cantor J oseph Gole and the Temple choir, sang

some of your liturgical settings. Your daughter Lillian, your
daughter-in-law, Ann, with your new grandchild Christopher, and
your grandson Stephen, graced the occasion.

Hazzan Samuel Kelemer of Temple Beth Am, Chairman of the
event, and Henry Mancini, honorary Co-Chairman, renowned TV
and film composer, one of your most gifted students, spoke loving-
ly of what your presence meant to each one of us personally. It
was my privilege to give the key address and recount your epochal
achievements. The former President of Sinai Temple, Mr. Lippert,
and Hazzan Carl Urstein added to the warmth of the occasion with
their recollections. Gathered before you were the many men whom
you had guided to productive careers in the world of motion pictures
and television, among them Bob Bruner, J ack Hayes, Leo Shuken,
Marty Paich, Bob Armstrong, Lynn Murray, and, of course, your
own son, Albert, whose career as a composer you so lovingly guided.

You have exerted an influence on many other composers, con-
ductors and scholars, as well as hazzanim and teachers through your
scholarly writings. Miklos Rosza is indebted to you through the first
book you wrote on the technique of conducting, published in Leipzig
in 1931. Hazzan Philip Model I, a graduate student of yours, wrote
his book on J oseph Achron thanks to your knowledge and guidance.

You have justly been called by Henry Roth, music critic of the
B'nai Brith Messenger, in his review of your latest work "Music in
the Social and Religious Life of Antiquity" a "Savant of Musical
Antiquity." But you are more than a savant of music. You have
been, during seven decades, a man of restless energy and indomitable
courage, filled with passionate devotion to the loftiest standards of
the art. And your writings express unquestioning allegiance to the
area of Jewish musicology which you have endowed with vitality,
investing it with a new body, and animating the field of J ewish
research with a new and pure spirit.

On this day of community mourning, we are blessed through
having known you as a friend, a scholar and teacher whose imperish-
able legacy, time shall not erase.

FADING FOOTPRINTS

Max Wohlberg

"Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sor-
row that I shall say good night till it be morrow/'

Keeping in mind the sensuous circumstances of that scene in
"Romeo and J uliet", where these words are uttered, and remember-
ing the expectation of the lovers of a speedy reunion one can well
understand the sentiments expressed by Shakespeare.

However, at other occasions of parting, the adjective "sweet"
is, I fear, out of place. The sorrow is undiluted and surely unsweet-
ened when we are fated to part with loved ones whose "souls were
bound" with ours.

Through the years, on an incomparably inferior degree, we also
become attached to objects whose loss is painful. To part with a
scuffed pair of slippers, a frazzled sweater or a favorite cup is, at
least, an upsetting experience.

But, as Mendele would say : "Nit dos bin ich oysen" (That's not
what I am driving at.) Between these extremes : the beloved person
and the familiar object, there is a wide spectrum, a large group of
items which may, in a literal sense, be considered lifeless but are,
nonetheless possessed of endearing, instructive and inspiring qual-
ities, and to part with these is almost as painful as to part with a
cherished friend. I am, of course, speaking of books.

When it becomes necessary to diminish our possessions, our
libraries, alas, are among the first casualties. This act of pruning
and elimination is, as some of you must know, a painful and pro-
longed process. One does not discard books lightly and at random.
Every book is examined and fondled. The pages are slowly turned
and re-read; the contents are reviewed. After careful scrutiny and
critical deliberation, one decides (and later often regrets the de-
cision) whether to part with it or to retain it.

The slow tempo required for this delicate operation is evidenced
by the fact that it took me three years to discard approximately

Dr. Max Wohlberg is Professor of Nusah at the Cantors Institute of the Jewish Theo-
logical Seminary, and a frequent contributor Of articles on Jewish music.

1,500 volumes not directly related to my profession. These books
went to a J udaica Department of a university, a rabbinical school,
two synagogue libraries, members of my family and to friends.

In this continuing and increasingly difficult process I just picked
up a volume :"B'ikvei Hador" ("Footprints of a Generation") pub-
lished in 1957 by the Histadrut Ivrit and graciously inscribed by the
author : J acob Zausmer. And I simply cannot go on without dwelling
for a moment on the venerable author.

He was "Mr. Hebrew" of Philadelphia. His energies were inex-
haustible and his smile irresistible. No Hebrew event took place in
Philadelphia without his presence and without his supervision. He
was also a fine scholar, the master of a beautiful Hebrew style.

Soon after its founding, the State of Israel, wishing to establish
contact with those J ews in the Diaspora who were likely to be in
sympathy with the emerging cultural and social needs of the country,
organized under the auspices of the Hebrew University, an annual
international examination to be given in the larger cities and cover-
ing (as I recall) such subjects as : Hebrew Language, J ewish His-
tory, the Bible, followed by the writing of a free composition in
Hebrew.

Mrs. Wohlberg and I volunteered to be in the first group to be
so tested. When, in March 1949, at a public reception (either at
Dropsie or Gratz) we were to receive our certificates, Mr. Zausmer
lovingly hovered over us I ike a proud parent over a Bar Mitzvah.

Although he considered all of Philadelphia and its far-flung
suburbs as his domain, he normally attended services at Mikveh
Israel, one of the first congregations established in this country. And
it was from him that I first heard the Sephardi tune for Eil Norah
Alilah, the poem preceding Neilah service, now found in several
Mahzorim, but then included only in the J astrow prayer book in my
congregation. I promptly substituted it for a tune I had composed
for the poem previously, (He relates this incident on page 330).

But, as I said before: Nitdosbin ich oysen. Zausmer devoted a
whole chapter of this book to Pinchos Minkowsky and this leads me
to another digression.

I arrived in the United States in the latter part of 1923 -before
my 17th birthday — and soon decided to become a cantor. Having
begun to read everything pertaining to hazzanut, I ultimately ac-
quired three idols. One, Edward Birnbaum, who passed away in 1920

in Konigsberg. The second, Abraham Z. Idelsohn, was then in Cin-
cinnati. (I was, years later, to see him off on the ship taking him
away from the United States. But he was, by then, almost completely
paralyzed and unable to speak.)

The third was Pinchos Minkowsky whose "Der Sulzerismus" I
began to study and to copy, (I still have my notes) and whose many
articles, in particular, his Entwickelung der Synagogalen Liturgie
bis nach der Reformation des 19ten Yahrhunderts (Odessa 1902)
impressed me immensely. He was a scholar writing with authenticity
and with equal facility in Hebrew, German, Yiddish and Russian.
The year was 1924. He was then, for the second time, in the United
States and was to appear in a grand concert arranged by the Haz-
zonimFarband on February 3rd, in the old Madison Square Garden,

I , of course, purchased a ticket for the concert. Unfortunately,
on J anuary 18th (Erev Shabat Shi rah) he passed away in Boston, in
a seedy hotel where he had been preparing for a concert. Three days
before the onset of his illness he finished, in Yiddish, a five-page
autobiography.

A black, crepe covered chair, with his robe, cap and tallit draped
over it indicated his place of honor on the stage of Madison Square
Garden. The atara on his tallit had the words Vehaya k'nagein
hamnagein vathi alav yad Adonai (2 Kings 3:15) embroidered on
it. The aged Karniol chanted theE// Maleh Rachamim.

At the turn of the century, Minkowsky expressed in no uncer-
tain terms his opposition to commercial recordings of liturgical
music and I was in complete agreement with his views. Today, I
would gladly exchange my second copy of his Entwickelung der
Synagogalen Liturgie for a recording of his voice. But Minkowsky
deserves more than an incidental comment. The complete Zausmer
article should be translated and reprinted.

Another name mentioned in passing by Zausmer, launched me
on a train of thoughts. It is Yisroel Kuper, formerly Chief Hazzan of
Vilna, who died here poor and forsaken. To my knowledge he was
one of two cantors who committed suicide.

I could understand, though not justify, the neglect in this coun-
try of an old cantor, past his prime. But since he occupied an exalted
position in Vilna he must have been endowed with uncommon mu-
sical and vocal gifts. I picked from my book shelves a volume : Wilna
(1012 p. published by Workmen's Circle in 1935 and edited by

Ephim H. Jeshurin) . Recalling the many star-hazzanim who served
as Chief-Cantor in Vilna (we are fortunate in having one of these,
J oseph Ei del son, in our midst) I wondered how many are named in
this "a 1 1 -en compassing", massive volume.

Scanning through the eight pages of Contents, I noted the ex-
pected articles on the Vilner Balebeisel, the Gaon of Vilna and
Elyokum Zunser. Others — on rabanim and maskieim, artists, ac-
tors, writers, labor-leaders etc. etc. No article on hazzanim. I did
find a stray reference to a concert celebrating the inauguration of
a new library where Si rota and a choir sang Mah Tovu and Psalms:
30 and 127. In a large group-photograph I located Hershman sitting
between Abe Cahan and Leo Low.

There is an article on Rumshinsky and one by him. In neither is
there adequate mention of the early hazzanic influences on Rumshin-
sky so well delineated in his later autobiography : Klangen Fun Mein
Leben.

J oseph P. Katz in an interesting but all too brief article: "Fa-
mous J ewish Musicians and Artists" speaks of J osef Vinogradow
who sang in the choirs of cantors Feinsilber and Michailowsky. No
mention is made of Kuper anywhere in the volume.

Incidentally, Vinogradow, notwithstanding poverty, prejudice
and virulent antisemitism achieved fame as an outstanding Russian
operatic baritone. After years of eminent success he left for the
United States where he became an observant, pious cantor.

Speaking of J oseph Katz — do any of my readers remember
him? He was a kind and friendly man, the owner of a music store
next to the Forward Building on East Broadway which was the
meeting place of musicians. He was also a publisher of J ewish music
and sang in a high holiday choir. After more than half a century,
I clearly recall the first two items I bought from him : Ah si, ben mio;
coliessere (I Trovatore) and Rossini's La Danxa. I still have the
last item.

I was delighted to observe that Samuel Chotzinoff in his nostal-
gic A Lost Paradise (published some twenty years ago) made numer-
ous reference to J oseph Katz and to his unforgettable store. Years
later, Katz found a worthy successor in Henry Lefkowitch. The
latter, incidentally, used to conduct a choir for the high holidays. His
store, alas, is no more.

Regarding hazzanim, it must be noted that in some (exception-
al?) cases they were not forgotten. Thus in: Bialystok, a Photo Al-
bum of a Renowned City (N.Y. 1951. edited by David Sohn) three
pages are devoted to photographs of its hazzanim. Among these are
the renowned N. Wilkomirsky (later in California), Moshe Bass,
Meyer Podrabinek, Ely Boruchowitz, Zvi Grochowsky, E. Zalud-
kowsky, A. Boniufka, N. Stolnitz (he was a chorister there) and
David Katzman (later, I believe, in Cleveland). (Do any of my
readers recall this fine cantor and lovely person ?)

Deserved tribute is given toj acob Berman, for forty-five years
choir leader of the large synagogue and music instructor in all of the
local schools. According to Rumshinsky, (in his autobiography)
Berman was the finest conductor he ever encountered.

In the April 1947 issue of "Die Zukunft" there appeared an
article by Cantor Moshe Levinson on "Hazzanim and Hazzanut in
Minsk." This article is reprinted in Hebrew translation, in "Minsk,
IrVa-eim" (Tel-Aviv 1975). The book, edited by Shlomo Iben-
Shoshan, is one of the finest examples of the so-called "memorial",
or Holocaust-literature. In addition to the Levinson article, which
is of limited historical value, there are three brief articles of interest
to musicians. One : "Muzikaim B 'Minsk" preserves the memories of
two first-rate violinists : J ulius Zachovitzky and Herman Solomonow.
The latter served as concertmaster in Leipzig (under Nikisch) and
with the New York Philharmonic. Both of them perished in the
Holocaust.

The article: "Nigunim Zakim" contains fond recollections of
the music (and musicians) heard at weddings and in the shtiblech.
Moshe Bik writes of Hazzan Shlomo Kupchik and enumerates a
goodly number of hazzanim who hailed from Minsk. Among these
are: Abraham Shapiro, Nachum Gorelik, IsaacS. Katzman, M. Dorf-
man (he, I believe, was a choir-leader who once conducted for me on
Yamim Noraim), Reuben Kazimirsky (I knew him — as a choir
leader — approximately forty years ago), Samuel Segal, Aaron
Hurwitz, Simcha Dai now and Moshe Levinson.

"Arum DerVdtMit Yiddish Theater" by Herman Yablokoff
(quoted in this article) contains considerable information on haz-
zanim and synagogue life in Minsk and in Grodno.

In passing, I believe that a review of the enormous multilingual
Holocaust literature, with a view of hazzanim, artists and musi-
cians, would be a rewarding and historically justified undertaking.

While writing these lines it occured to me that perhaps my
reminiscing and dwelling on matters of the past is merely the result
of my inexorably advancing age. However, on second thought, I am
aware that the wish to be remembered is, in J udaism, a legitimate
concern. The ultimate curse is to have one's name blotted out and
one's name erased. Thus we are impressed by : "I will utterly put out
the remembrance of Amalek" (Exodus 17 :14) and 'Thou shalt blot
out the remembrance of Amalek" (Deuteronomy 25 :19).

Conversely, our final, fond farewell finds expression in Yizkor
- the act of remembering. "Z'khor yemot olam, Binu sh'not dor
vador" (Deuteronomy 32 :7) is a command that applies to each one
of us. Remembering the days of old may give us a better understand-
ing of evolving generations.

A dimly remembered quatrain composed by the poet, Thomas
Gray, born two and a half centuries ago, comes to mind:

"On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E v'n from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires."

27
MUSIC OFTDDRDSGREENBERG

Richard Neumann

Hazzan Todros Green berg was born in 1893 in a village near
Berditchev. His biography is part of the introductory pages of
Volume One of "Heichal Han'ghina V'hatfilah" the anthologies
which the Cantors Assembly has just released. It is indeed appro-
priate to make this music avail able to the general public. It is a
living example from the rich heritage of Eastern European J ewry
at the turn of the last century, and of the evolving musical style
which the J ewish community in America witnessed during the first
half of this century.

H azzan Green berg toured the cities and towns of Austria-H un-
gary as a boy with his uncle, Cantor Chayim Shmuel Bogomolny,
and later studied under the renowned cantor-educator Abraham Ber
Birnbaum, in Russian Poland, before settling in the United States in
1913. He served as Hazzan in Kansas City, until 1919, when he be-
came permanent cantor in the Anshe Sholom Synagogue of Chicago.

The Cantors Assembly is to be commended for making available
the art of Hazzan Greenberg to younger generations of cantors, who
need to be steeped in the kind of traditional nusahhatfillah which
was the living environment for the young Todros Greenberg, just
as it was the natural musical surrounding for so many other East
European J ews of the generations of Abraham Ber Birnbaum Nisi
Belzer or Zeidel Rovner.

Hazzan Greenberg has bequeathed to us some authentic gems.
The first volume contains six sections: 1) Hanukah Blessings and
Songs; 2) Songs Purim, Havdalah and a Shehecheyonu; 3) Liturgi-
cal selections for weddings ; 4) Memorial Prayers ; 5) Recitatives
for Cantor and Piano and 6) Yiddish Songs.

As a sample, which should only whet a J ewish music lover's
appetite, we are quoting the MooxTxur for Choir, Cantor and Piano.
It is a refreshing setting which is saturated in musical Yiddishkeit,
even if one does not compare it to the conventional tune of Moox
Tzur. It speaks for itself.

*Richard Neumann is director of Music Education for the Board of Jewish Education
of New York, and conductor of the New York Metropolitan Concert Ensemble of
the Cantors Assembly.

MOOZ TZUR

us nun

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Volume two "Neginot Todros" was originally published in 1970
by the Chicago Region of the Cantors Assembly, with a foreword by
Hazzan Moses J. Silverman. It contains compositions for Friday
night, including some Z'mirot, for a-cappella, mixed choir.

The liturgical compositions are in settings for Tenor/Cantor
and a-cappella mixed choir. The cantorial passages, which are well
integrated with the choral lines, reflect the feeling of the kind of
Hazzanut which we pointed out in the first volume: the real ex-
pression of kavanah, the very devotion of Hazzan Greenberg, which
should be perpetuated in the younger generations of hazzanim of
today.

Again, to whet the reader's appetite, we are reprinting one
example from the second volume, Adonoy Moloch Here it becomes
evident that Hazzan Greenberg has used musical skills learned in
the American J ewish community, utilizing the medium of the mixed
choir as an extension of his own hazzanut. He blends both choral and
solo elements into one graceful piece, filled with the traditional
nusah hat'fllah and some rhythmic hassidic influence.

The two volumes stand out only as a memorial to the late, be-
loved teacher-hazzan, but as a well of living waters from which the
hazzanim and composers of our day may well drink to the full.

Adonoi Moloch

Todros Gretnberg

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MUSIC SECTION

Moses Milner (Melnikov) , probably the finest composer of the
art song in J ewish music was born December 29, 1886 in Rakitno,
Kiev Russia. He sang, as a boy, in the choirs of Nissie Belzer and
Abram Dzimitrovsky and studied at the St. Petersburg Conserva-
tory from 1907 to 1915. His early important works, "In Kheder",
"I berdi Hoyf'n", "Unter di Grininke Beymelakh" (all in 1914) and
the large liturgical fresco "U'nesane TokeF" were published by the
historically significant Society for J swish Folk Music, St. Peters-
burg, an organization formed by his fellow students, at the Con-
servatory. After the revolution, among numerous activities, he
conducted the choir, in the large Leningrad Synagogue, when
Hazzan Pierre Pinchik officiated there. It is heartening to note,
that he continued to write J ewish works of great beauty and power:
"El Hatxipor" (1922), "Ad Ana" (1922), "Shulamith" (1929). He
died October 25, 1953 in Leningrad.

"Br&tdle', "Der Shifer "and "Tanz, Tanz" are from a group of
ten songs called 'Vocal Suite", text by Y. L. Peretz, published in
Kiev, in 1921, by the Kultur Liga Belonging to a musical genre
depicting the fantasy world of the child, they are enormously sensi-
tive, refined and psychologically acute. They also exhibit some of
the salient qualities which make Milner such a unique J ewish com-
poser — namely a remarkable manner of welding Yiddish folk song
elements and the various substances of Eastern European nuskhaot
into a moving and individual musical totality.

ALBERT WEISSER

iBreitele.)

canto.

Piano.

M ode rat o.

Brei , te . Je, brei.te _ Je, brei.te _ k:
«ij — yc — yi "ii - yo -,y^ :*m - yo _ y^

klein! a brei.te - ie so] docb. kaj- Je.chig sain;

un zino ge.schwind

p* iv* 3>J -i:'iw

inei-we-Je a . rain, ge- nug in ei.we - Ie ge, scss'ti ham,ham,ham, oif. ge.gejss'n!
]** "» yn-yV p — ,pn ys — m p« «k— yn - y y; — yi :jo ,c»n ,a»n iBitn t^it » y* • j» - ■?*>

(Der schifer.)

Canto.

An dan

iino.

> S'hot der

re . gn

oif , ge.hert, 4ex

Piano.

* ^

-n

I— J JL-> l_

'■

hi. ml is schojn ojs _ ge.kl«rt, nor di de.cher s*i_nen nass ri.neu tai.che.

CtThobmainschi, fe
iin'a ptj *» — yc

_ Je ge - fu _ nen, 01 - fn was , ser
y"> yi — ib - jyj vr— id |n — iyo

et> _ ge . lost,
oy yi_,ctf*

un es kumt der wint uti Most

pK o y pap iyi B3*n p* ,ot|V»

jogt majn schi fe . Je ge-sehwind
Dif* po *» — — yc y^ yj - .ii'iir

oif di fJig _ lua fun dem wint
«p« *t vVa — jy^ pc oyi om

f FHhdir, flih, majn schife.le! un wu.hin flih _ st^majn
ir^s ,tt ,ivSs p*a ys-*«r— >y^> px '*n pn rv^o— >oo po

(Tanz, tanz, meidele, tanz .)

Canto.

Piano.

Xr~ fc.

Tans, tanz, mei _ de . le, tanx mi.rn bliunen
,fji« ,fa|B **o — n— »»* pi* *»-|» i*»— |j*

mei.de. Je, tanz mi.t'n blu.men kranzJ
**d~»t-^ rub *o~io lVi-jro jpnp

lacht mit tre . rn, west in gi . ch'n a ka _ Je we. rn,; tanz mei _ de _ le

tan . zn wil main mei. de . Ie, tan.zn wil main mei . ie.)e

jits — n w) ;"D -^ - vi — iyS ape ]* vn po «o — n - iy*

i . nem fftj.nem kleLde . le, tan it es

*» — k *e — oy* •»*•? - it • y* vsifB oj

mil ff«.fiJ, schpiJ, kles-mer,

era yi-,Sn-c >** istyofo

i k«

schpiJ

Tani.tani, mcLdeJe,t*ni mi-tn bJunen kraul

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