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Jewish Art Music
The Jewish art music movement began at the end of the 19th century in Russia, with a group of Russian Jewish classical composers dedicated to preserving Jewish folk music and creating a new, characteristically Jewish genre of classical music. The music it produced used Western classical elements, featuring the rich chromatic harmonies of Russian late Romantic music, but with melodic, rhythmic and textual content taken from traditional Jewish folk or liturgical music. The group founded the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music, a movement that spread to Moscow, Poland, Austria, and later Palestine and the United States. Although the original society existed formally for only 10 years (from 1908 to 1918), its impact on the course of Jewish music was profound. The society, and the art music movement it fostered, inspired a new interest in the music of Eastern European Jewry throughout Europe and America. It laid the foundations for the Jewish music and Klezmer revival in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secular Jewish Music
Since Biblical times, music has held an important role in many Jews' lives. Jewish music has been influenced by surrounding Gentile traditions and Jewish sources preserved over time. Jewish musical contributions on the other hand tend to reflect the cultures of the countries in which Jews live, the most notable examples being classical and popular music in the United States and Europe. However, other music is unique to particular Jewish communities, such as klezmer of Eastern Europe. Israeli music Modern Israeli music is heavily influenced by its constituents, which include Jewish immigrants from more than 120 countries around the world, which have brought their own musical traditions, making Israel a global melting pot. The Israeli music is very versatile and combines elements of both western and eastern music. It tends to be very eclectic and contains a wide variety of influences from the Diaspora and more modern cultural importation. Hassidic songs, Asian and Arab pop, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yiddish Theatre
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satire, satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; Naturalism (theatre), naturalist drama; expressionism, expressionist and modernism, modernist plays. At its height, its geographical scope was comparably broad: from the late 19th century until just before World War II, professional Yiddish theatre could be found throughout the heavily Jewish areas of Eastern Europe, Eastern and East Central Europe, but also in Berlin, London, Paris, Buenos Aires and New York City. Yiddish theatre's roots include the often satire, satiric plays traditionally performed during religious holiday of Purim (known as Purimshpils); the singing of Hazzan, cantors in the synagogues; Jewish secularism, secular song and dramatic improvisation; exposure to the theatre traditions of various European countries, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham Goldfaden
Abraham Goldfaden (; born Avrum Goldnfoden; 24 July 1840 – 9 January 1908), also known as Avram Goldfaden, was a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in Yiddish and Hebrew languages and author of some 40 plays. Goldfaden is considered the father of modern Jewish theatre. In 1876 he founded in the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia what is generally credited as the world's first professional Yiddish-language theatre troupe. He was also responsible for the first Hebrew-language play performed in the United States. The Avram Goldfaden Festival of Iaşi, Romania, is named after him and held in his honour. Jacob Sternberg called him "the Prince Charming who woke up the lethargic Romanian Jewish culture". Israil Bercovici wrote of his works: "we find points in common with what we now call 'total theatre'. In many of his plays he alternates prose and verse, pantomime and dance, moments of acrobatics and some of ''jonglerie'', and even of spi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Leib Peretz
Isaac Leib Peretz (May 18, 1852 – April 3, 1915), also sometimes written Yitskhok Leybush Peretz (; ), was a Polish Jewish writer and playwright writing in Yiddish. Payson R. Stevens, Charles M. Levine, and Sol Steinmetz count him with Mendele Mokher Seforim and Sholem Aleichem as one of the three great classical Yiddish writers. Sol Liptzin wrote: "Yitzkhok Leibush Peretz was the great awakener of Yiddish-speaking Jewry and Sholom Aleichem its comforter... Peretz aroused in his readers the will for self-emancipation, the will for resistance against the many humiliations to which they were being subjected."Liptzin, Sol (1985). A History of Yiddish Literature'. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David Publishers. p. 56. Peretz rejected cultural universalism, seeing the world as composed of different nations, each with its own character. In Liptzin's account, " ery people is seen by him to be a chosen people, chosen by its peculiar history, geography and ethnic composition"; he concei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantor
A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. Cantor as a profession generally refers to those leading a Jewish congregation, although it also applies to the lead singer or choir director in Christian contexts. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds. Overview The term itself is derived from the Latin for "singer", though it is frequently used to translate a range of equivalent terms in other languages, such as for the leader of singing on a traditional chundan vallam or snake boat of Kerala. Role of the cantor Judaism In Judaism, a cantor sings and leads congregants in prayer in religious services. They are also sometimes called a ''huzzan'', which is the Hebrew term for the role. They often come from a long line of cantors in their family; born with a natural gift of singing with extensive vocal range. The role of professional cantor is especially ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leopold Auer
Leopold von Auer (; June 7, 1845July 15, 1930) was a Hungarian violinist, academic, conductor, composer, and instructor. Many of his students went on to become prominent concert performers and teachers. Early life and career Auer was born in Veszprém, Hungary, 7 June 1845,Fifield, Christopher, in Oxford Companion to Music, Alison Latham, ed., Oxford University Press, 2003 p. 70 to a poor Jewish household of painters. He first studied violin with a local concertmaster. He later wrote that the violin was a "logical instrument" for any (musically inclined) Hungarian boy to take up because it "didn't cost much." At the age of 8 Auer continued his violin studies with Dávid Ridley Kohne, who also came from Veszprém, at the Budapest Conservatory.Schwarz, p. 414 Kohne was concertmaster of the orchestra of the National Opera. A performance by Auer as soloist in the Mendelssohn violin concerto attracted the interest of some wealthy music lovers, who gave him a scholars ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mischa Elman
Mischa (Mikhail Saulovich) Elman (; January 20, 1891April 5, 1967) was a Russian-American violinist famed for his passionate style, beautiful tone, and impeccable artistry and musicality. Early life Moses or Moishe Elman was born to a Jewish family in Talnoye, Umansky Uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire (today Talne, Ukraine). His grandfather Yosele Elman was a klezmer, a Jewish professional traditional musician who played the violin, and his father Saul Iosipovich Elman was a melamed and amateur violinist. It became apparent when Mischa was very young that he had perfect pitch, but his father hesitated about a career as a musician, since musicians were not very high on the social scale. He finally gave in, and gave Mischa a miniature violin, on which he soon learned several tunes by himself. Soon thereafter, he was taken to Odessa, where he studied at the Imperial Academy of Music. Pablo de Sarasate gave him a recommendation, stating that he could become one of the great ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Efrem Zimbalist
Efrem Zimbalist (April 21 [O.S. April 9], 1889 – February 22, 1985) was a Russian and American concert violinist, composer, conducting, conductor and director of the Curtis Institute of Music. Early life Efrem Zimbalist was born on April 9, 1889, O.S., equivalent to April 21, 1889, in the Gregorian calendar, as reported in many newspaper obituaries, in the southwestern Russian Empire, Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the son of Jews, Jewish parents Maria (married and maiden names, née Litvinoff) and Aron Zimbalist (Цимбалист, ), who was a conductor. By the age of nine, Efrem Zimbalist was first violin in his father's orchestra. At age 12 he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and studied under Leopold Auer. He graduated from the Conservatory in 1907 after winning a gold medal and the Rubinstein Prize, and by age 21 was considered one of the world's greatest violinists. Career After graduation he debuted in Berlin (playing the Violin Concerto (Brahms), Brahms C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathan Milstein
Nathan Mironovich Milstein ( – December 21, 1992) was a Russian and American virtuoso violinist. Widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time, Milstein was known for his interpretations of Bach's solo violin works and for works from the Romantic period. He was also known for his long career: he performed at a high level into his mid-80s, retiring only after suffering a broken hand. Biography Milstein was born in Odessa, Russian Empire, the fourth child of seven, to a middle-class Jewish family with no musical background. Milstein’s mother recognized Nathan’s early interest in music and forced her young son to take violin lessons, hoping it would keep him out of trouble. In 1909, Milstein began to study with Odessa’s most prestigious violin teacher, Pyotr Stolyarsky, with whom he studied until the summer of 1914. (One of his fellow students was six-year old David Oistrakh.) When Milstein was 11, Leopold Auer invited him to become one of his students a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jascha Heifetz
Jascha Heifetz (; December 10, 1987) was a Russian-American violinist, widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time. Born in Vilnius, he was soon recognized as a child prodigy and was trained in the Russian classical violin style in St. Petersburg. Accompanying his parents to escape the violence of the Russian Revolution, he moved to the United States as a teenager, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received. Fritz Kreisler, another leading violinist of the twentieth century, said after hearing Heifetz's debut, "We might as well take our fiddles and break them across our knees."Nikolaus de Palezieux, Jascha Heifetz – The Supreme (2000 RCA Victor compilation) By the age of 18, Heifetz was the highest-paid violinist in the world. He had a long and successful concert career, including wartime service with the United Service Organizations (USO). After an injury to his right (bowing) arm in 1972, he switched his focus to teaching. Early life Heifetz was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikhail Gnesin
Mikhail Fabianovich Gnessin (; sometimes transcribed ''Gnesin''; 2 February .S. 21 January18835 May 1957)Sitsky, Larry. (1994) ''Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900–1929,'' pp. 242–243 & 247 Westport, CT: Greenwood Press was a Russian Jewish composer and teacher. Gnessin's works ''The Maccabeans'' and ''The Youth of Abraham'' earned him the nickname the "Jewish Glinka". Early life and education Gnessin was born in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, the son of Rabbi Fabian Osipovich Gnessin and Bella Isaevna Fletzinger. His grandfather Y'shayah was also a famous singer and Badchen (wedding entertainer) in Vilnius. Each of the Gnessin children appears to have possessed musical talent, and Gnessin's three elder sisters, Evgenia, Elena and Maria, all graduated with distinction from the Moscow Conservatory.Phillips, Anthony & Prokofiev, Sergey. (2006). "Sergey Prokofiev Diaries, 1907–1914: Prodigious Youth", p. 498 Ithaca: Cornell University Press. His sisters went on to fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory () is a higher musical educational institution located in Moscow, Russia. It grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in musical performance and musical research. The conservatory offers various degrees including Bachelor of Music Performance, Master of Music and PhD in research. History Background In 1766, the future site of the conservatory was bought by Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova (1743-1810), later president of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy. The building was completed in the 1790s. Its author was Vasily Bazhenov, the design of the building was corrected by the hostess herself. Toward the end of her life, she spent winters here. In 1810, the building was inherited by her nephew, Count Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov, a future war hero, participant in the Battle of Borodino, then governor of Novorossiya and Bessarabia, governor of the Caucasus. He was r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
