With its five thematic sections covering genres from cantorial to classical to klezmer, this pioneering multi-disciplinary volume presents rich coverage of the work of musicians of Jewish origin in the Polish lands. It opens with the musical consequences of developments in Jewish religious practice: the spread of hasidism in the eighteenth century meant that popular melodies replaced traditional cantorial music, while the greater acculturation of Jews in the nineteenth century brought with it synagogue choirs. Jewish involvement in popular culture included performances for the wider public, Yiddish songs and the Yiddish theatre, and contributions of many different sorts---technical and commercial as well as creative---in the interwar years. Chapters on the classical music scene cover Jewish musical institutions, organizations, and education; individual composers and musicians; and a consideration of music and Jewish national identity. One section is devoted to the Holocaust as reflected in Jewish music, and the final section deals with the afterlife of Jewish musical creativity in Poland, particularly the resurgence of interest in klezmer music. The essays in this collection do not attempt to to define what may well be undefinable---what ‘Jewish music’ is. Rather, they provide an original and much-needed exploration of the activities and creativity of ‘musicians of the Jewish faith’.
JEWS AND MUSIC-MAKING IN THE POLISH LANDS
Table of Contents
Introduction François Guesnet, Benjamin Matis, and Antony Polonsky
Cantorial and Religious Music A Chestnut, a Grape, and a Pack of Lions: A Shabbos in Płock with a Popular Synagogue Singer in the Early Nineteenth Century Daniel S. Katz
Moshe Koussevitzky (1899--1966) in Vilna, Warsaw, and Russia Akiva Zimmermann
The Art of Cantorial Singing in the Polish Territories Bożena Muszkalska
JEWS IN POPULAR MUSICAL CULTURE IN POLAND
Musical Afterthoughts on Shmeruk’s ‘Mayufes’ Bret Werb
Servant Romances: Eighteenth-Century Yiddish Lyric and Narrative Folk Songs Michael Lukin
Broder Singers: Forerunners of the Yiddish Theatre Amanda (Miryem-Khaye) Seigel
Gimpel’s Theatre, Lwów: The Sounds of a Popular Yiddish Theatre Preserved on Gramophone Records, 1904--1913 Michael Aylward
The Polish Tin Pan Alley, a Jewish Street Robert A. Rothstein
On the Dance Floor, on the Screen, on the Stage. Popular Music in the Interwar Period: Polish, Jewish, Shared Tamara Sztyma
The Jews in the Band: Anders Army’s Special Troupes Beth Holmgren
Szpilman, Bajgelman, Barsht: The Legacy of an Extended Polish Jewish Klezmer Family Joel E. Rubin
Władysław Szpilman’s Post-War Career in Poland Filip Mazurczak
Abraham Ellstein’s Film Scores: Some Less Obvious Sources Ronald Robboy
JEWS IN THE POLISH CLASSICAL MUSIC SCENE
The ‘Lust Machine’: Recording and Selling the Jewish Nation in the Late Russian Empire James Loeffler
Leo Zeitlin and the Flourishing of Jewish Art Music in Early 1920s Vilna Paula Eisenstein-Baker
‘Jewish Composers are the Crowning Achievements of Foreign Nations’: Jewish Identity and Yiddish Nationalism in the Writings of Menachem Kipnis Julia Riegel
Ostbahnhof Berlin: Jewish Music Students of East European Origin at the Berlin Music Conservatory, 1918--1933 Adam J. Sacks
Jewish Music Organizations in Interwar Galicia Sylwia Jakubczyk-Ślęczka
Jewish Composers of Polish Music after 1939: A Story in Lists and Numbers Maja Trochimczyk
Tadeusz Zygfryd Kassern’s American Years Sławomir Dobrzański
THE HOLOCAUST REFLECTED IN JEWISH MUSIC
‘My Song, You Are My Strength’: Personal Repertoires of Polish and Yiddish Songs of Young Survivors of the Łódź Ghetto Joseph D. Toltz
Singing Their Way Home Eliyana R. Adler
The Nazi Confiscation of Wanda Landowska’s Musical Collection and Its Aftermath Carla Shapreau
Music as a ‘Paper Bridge’ between Generations before and after the Holocaust Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota
KLEZMER IN POLAND TODAY
The Klezmer Revival in Poland as a Contact Zone Magdalena Waligórska
The Sound of Change: Performing ‘Jewishness’ in Small Polish Towns Eleanor Shapiro