Description
Book SynopsisWith 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’.
CONTRIBUTORS: Eliyana R. Adler, Michael Aylward, Sławomir Dobrzański, Paula Eisenstein-Baker, Beth Holmgren, Sylwia Jakubczyk-Ślęczka, Daniel Katz, James Loeffler, Michael Lukin, Filip Mazurczak, Bożena Muszkalska, Julia Riegel, Ronald Robboy, Robert Rothstein, Joel E. Rubin, Adam J. Sacks, Amanda (Miryem-Khaye) Seigel, Eleanor Shapiro, Carla Shapreau, Tamara Sztyma, Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota, Joseph Toltz, Maja Trochimczyk, Magdalena Waligórska, Bret Werb, Akiva Zimmerman
Trade Review"The essays in
Jews and Music-Making in the Polish Lands offer rich examinations of a vast and under-studied scholarly terrain. [...] Future scholarship that embraces both the particularity of the Polish-Jewish context and the broad resonance of its themes will best advance the admirable work of this volume’s editors and contributors."J. Mackenzie Pierce,
Music and LettersReviews"This is an essential contribution to the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, Jewish studies, cultural studies, and European studies. The publication indeed explores Jews and music-making in Poland that is engaging and accessible."
Mark Kligman,
Yearbook of Traditional MusicTable of ContentsIntroduction
François Guesnet, Benjamin Matis, and Antony Polonsky
PART I. 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 Katz
Moshe Koussevitzky (1899–1966) in Vilna, Warsaw, and Russia
Akiva Zimmerman
The Art of Cantorial Singing in the Polish Territories
Bożena Muszkalska
PART II. 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 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, and 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
PART III. 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 musicians 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 Conservatory, 1918–1933
Adam J. Sacks
Jewish Music Institutions and 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
PART IV. THE HOLOCAUST REFLECTED IN JEWISH MUSIC
‘My song, you are my strength’: Personal Repertories of Polish and Yiddish Songs from Young Survivors of the Łódź Ghetto
Joseph Toltz
Singing Their Way Home
Eliyana R. Adler
The Nazi-Era 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
PART V. 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
Ellie Shapiro
