Lev Mikhailovich Pulver (

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

pronunciation: Leib Pulver, , European spelling: Leo Pulver, ; 18 December 1883,

Verkhnodniprovsk Verkhniodniprovsk (, ) is a city in Kamianske Raion, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (province) of Ukraine. The city is located at confluence of the into the Kamianske Reservoir at the Dnieper. Verkhniodniprovsk hosts the administration of Verkhniodnipr ...

– 18 March 1970,

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

), was a Soviet and Russian-Jewish composer and musician.

Early life

He was an offspring of a renowned klezmorim's family. Pulver studied violin since early childhood, at first with his father; later on, he studied with his brother-in-law, a disciple of

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

violinist

Otakar Ševčík Otakar Ševčík (22 March 185218 January 1934) was a Czechs, Czech violinist and influential teacher. He was known as a Solo (music), soloist and an Musical ensemble, ensemble player, including his occasional performances with Eugène Ysaÿe. ...

. Pulver graduated from

Saint Petersburg Conservatory The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory () (formerly known as the Petrograd Conservatory and Leningrad Conservatory) is a school of music in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 faculty member ...

, where he studied violin and

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

under

Anatoly Lyadov Anatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov (; ) was a Russian composer, teacher and conductor. Biography Lyadov was born in 1855 in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire, into a family of eminent Russian musicians. He was taught informally by his conductor s ...

. Initially, he was a violinist and composer in a wandering Ukrainian theatre group. Later on, he was a symphonic concert-master and conductor, a founding member of the Stradivari Quartet. He was the musical director of the State Jewish Theatre in Moscow (the

GOSET The Moscow State Jewish (Yiddish) Theatre (Russian: Московский Государственный Еврейский Театр; Yiddish: Moskver melukhnisher yidisher teater), also known by its acronym GOSET (ГОСЕТ), was a Yiddish theat ...

Compositions

Pulver composed

incidental music Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as th ...

for works including

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's ''

King Lear ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...

'';

Sholem Aleichem Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich (; May 13, 1916), better known under his pen name Sholem Aleichem (Yiddish language, Yiddish and , also spelled in Yiddish orthography#Reform and standardization, Soviet Yiddish, ; Russian language, Russian and ), ...

's ''200.000'' and ''The Man of the Air''; ''Adventures of Benjamin the Third'' after

Mendele Mocher Sforim Mendele Mocher Sforim (, ; lit. "Mendele the book peddler"; January 2, 1836, Kapyl – December 8, 1917 .S. Odessa), born Sholem Yankev Abramovich (, ) or S. J. Abramowitch, was a Jewish author and one of the founders of modern Yiddish and Heb ...

;

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. Goldfad ...

's ''The Sorceress'' (in collaboration with

Joseph Achron Joseph Yulyevich Achron, also seen as Akhron (Russian: Иосиф Юльевич Ахрон, Hebrew: יוסף אחרון) (May 1, 1886April 29, 1943) was a Russian composer and violinist, who settled in the United States. His preoccupation with ...

); and Zalman Shneyer's ''Freylekhs'' (in collaboration with

Maximilian Steinberg Maximilian Osseyevich Steinberg (; – 6 December 1946) was a Russian composer of classical music. Though once considered the hope of Russian music, Steinberg is far less well known today than his mentor (and father-in-law) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsa ...

). He also composed

operetta Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs and including dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, and length of the work. Apart from its shorter length, the oper ...

s (''Gulliver'', ''Inside the Big Top'', ''What is her name?''), movie scores, songs, and Yiddish folk-song

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...

s. Some of his tunes have been considered as Jewish

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

. He was one of the important musicians bridging the traditional Eastern European

Jewish music Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish people. There exist both traditions of religious music, as sung at the synagogue and in domestic prayers, and of secular music, such as klezmer. While some elements of Jewish music may origina ...

with the Western classical music forms.

Artists about Lev Pulver

L.M. Pulver has a sophisticated sense of incidental music's essence./ ... /.Pulver is especially aware of those moments in scenic plots when a direct calling for the music to sound is there. Moreover, this is not surprising: he started playing since nine years of age as a wandering weddings-musician. Thereafter, while being an already accomplished musician, he went on with playing in theaters, first at the orchestra of the Ukrainian Opera, then at the

Bolshoi Theatre The Bolshoi Theatre ( rus, Большо́й теа́тр, r=Bol'shoy teatr, p=bɐlʲˈʂoj tʲɪˈat(ə)r, t=Grand Theater) is a historic opera house in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové. Before the October Revolutio ...

in Moscow. His theatrical experience left a lasting impression on all of his works. His music is effectively theatrical. /

Solomon Mikhoels Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels ( lso spelled שלוימע מיכאעלס during the Soviet era , – 13 January 1948) was a Soviet actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the Jewish ...

/ ... (My) father started a job at Mikhoels' Jewish Theatre .That theatre might have been considered as a musical one. In charge of the orchestra and of all the musical life (there) was an energetic gifted man – Lev Pulver. All of the music was written by him, and he conducted as well. Their productions reminded of the today's musicals. /

Kirill Kondrashin Kirill Petrovich Kondrashin (; – 7 March 1981) was a Soviet and Russian conductor. People's Artist of the USSR (1972). Early life Kondrashin was born in Moscow to a family of orchestral musicians. Having spent many hours at rehearsals, he ma ...

Recordings

A few recordings of his music are available featuring the performances of the

orchestra with

and

Benjamin Zuskin Benjamin Zuskin ( (Veniamin Lvovich Zuskin); April 28, 1899 – August 12, 1952) was a Soviet and Russian actor and director of the Moscow State Jewish Theatre (GOSET). Zuskin had the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR. Biography Zuski ...

, as well as by singers Solomon Khromchenko, Mikhail Alexandrovich, Nechama Lifshitz, Marina Gordon and actors

Emil Gorovets Rahmil "Emil" Yacovlevich Gorovets (Russian: Рахмиль Яковлевич Горовец; 10 June 1923, in Haisyn, Ukraine – 17 August 2001, in New York City) was a famous Soviet Ukrainian singer of Jewish origin, Gorovets standing for Ho ...

and Boris Landau.

References

* 1.Музыка: Большой Энциклопедический словарь. М., 1998 * 2.КЕЭ, том 6, кол. 885–886 * 3. Leyb Pulver, "Epizodn fun mayn lebn" (עפיזאדן פון מיין לעבן), in '' Sovetish Heymland'' ("סאוועטיש היימלאנד", Moscow), 1970, no. 1-2 {{DEFAULTSORT:Pulver, Lev 1883 births 1970 deaths 20th-century Russian classical composers Soviet classical composers 20th-century Russian conductors (music) People from Verkhnodniprovsk Saint Petersburg Conservatory alumni Honored Artists of the RSFSR People's Artists of the RSFSR Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Male operetta composers Yiddish-language music Jewish classical composers Russian Jews Russian male classical composers Russian male conductors (music) Soviet conductors (music) Soviet Jews Soviet male classical composers