(Author: Alan Jacobs, Vol. 64, #1, Pesach 2009)
- Feature image: Israeli clarinetist Giora Feidman (Zionist Record, 2 February 1977)
Klezmer is Yiddish Music par excellence. It is the music of the Jews of Europe and America, a music of laughter and fears, of weddings and festivals, of dancing and prayer. Born in the Middle Ages, it came of age in the shtetl, where “a wedding without Klezmer [was] worse than a funeral without tears.” Most of the European klezmorim were murdered in the Holocaust; in the last 25 years, however, Klezmer has been reborn, with dozens of groups, often mixing it with jazz or rock and gaining large followings throughout the world.
‘Klezmer’ is derived from two Hebrew words: Kley (vessels or tools) and Zmer (melody), hence “vessels of the music.” The term does not denote a particular kind of music, nor is it a reflection of a musical style. Rather, it refers to the natural ability of a human being to express him or herself through song.
In 15th Century Europe, there were organized Jewish music bands, which performed music of Jewish and non-Jewish origin. Sometimes, the government authorities imposed restrictions on performances by such bands.
The Chmielnicki massacres of 1648 led to some Jewish musicians fleeing south to Greece and Turkey. These teamed up with Rom (Gypsy) musicians and toured the Balkan Peninsula and Black Sea regions. The new music they composed, with its different influences and playing styles, influenced the Klezmer style and repertoire to such a degree that it is now some of the most popular Klezmer performed.
By the middle of the 19th Century, the klezmorim had nearly disappeared from Germany, Austria, Moravia, Bohemia and Holland. However, they flourished in the Yiddish speaking centre of Eastern Europe – Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Romania, Carpathian Hungary, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Klezmer had become indispensable to all Jewish celebrations (particularly at weddings in Eastern Europe) and this lasted until the eve of World War II.
Most of the traditional Klezmer music performed today is based on the klezmorim of Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine from the late 19th Century to the eve of World War I. The earliest sound recordings (1895), the published and unpublished sheet music, and the oral histories from klezmorim who lived at that time all help to give us a more complete picture of Klezmer.
Much of what we know about the repertoire the klezmorim played comes from the few surviving collections, manuscripts and single sheets of music. Most klezmorim did not read or write music. The largest of these collections comes from the research of Soviet ethno-musicologist Moshe Beregovski (1892-1961), conducted in the years 1928-1936. During the difficult years under Hitler and Stalin, Beregovski tireless collected Jewish folk music.
Mikhl Joseph Guzikow (1809-1837) was the most famous and admired klezmer in Europe of his day. He was born in Shklov, Belarus, to a family of klezmorim, learning the flute and also playing some clarinet and oboe. Because of his weak lungs, he learned to play the hakbreydl, a kind of hammer dulcimer. His music was reputedly admired by Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn.
The Klezmer was very important in shtetl life as shown by a few of these Yiddish sayings: Vos far a klezmer, a za khusene (the wedding’s only as good as the Klezmer), Az tsvay Kapi-Sonim gayen raysn zikh bay di Klezmorim di strunes (when two paupers go dancing the Klezmorim play harder) and A Khasene on Klezmer iz erger fun a kale on a nadn (a wedding without a Klezmer is worse than a bride without a dowry).
Jewish communities in Russia had to supply an annual quota of young men for the Czarist army. In the army, Jews learned to play wind instruments and to read and arrange music. Their years of playing military music changed the make-up of Klezmer bands in Europe in the late 19th Century. Some of these musicians went to America and influenced the repertoire and make-up of Klezmer bands there.
Traditional Klezmer music performed today can be put into two broad musical styles. One is the Polish–Ukrainian (with some Belorussian, Slovakian and Russian influences) sound and the other is the Romanian-Turkish (with some Hungarian, Galician and Carpathian Ukrainian influences). The capital of the Polish–Ukrainian sound was Barditshev–Ukraine, where there were several Klezmer virtuosi who led bands that became legendary throughout the Ukraine, parts of Poland and Russia. The capital of the Romanian–Turkish sound was Yas, Romania, which from the turn of the century through the eve of World War II, was the home of several virtuosi and their bands that were famous throughout Moldavia and Bessarabia.
The violin as we know it today was invented in the mid–16th Century and it became the leader and symbol of Klezmer music. The Klezmer violinist was an extension of the Chazan’s voice. The Chazan made a krecht (groan) from the neck up and a Klezmer made a krecht from the neck down. His ability to imitate the crying, moaning and laughing cantorial techniques he had heard since he was an infant was shaped into specific Klezmer ornamentations. The Klezmer’s conservatory was the synagogue, his lessons the daily prayers.
The famous Klezmer violinist Stempenyu (1822– 1879) was immortalized by the great Yiddish writer Shalom Aleichem in his novel Stempenyu. He wrote:
The public sits with great respect as the Klezmer plays a cheerless maralne [Yid., Moral, a display piece played with a great deal of improvisation], a tearful one. The violin – tiokh – tiokh – tiokh called out to the wedding guests and continued to echo in their hearts. In every heart, but especially in the Jewish heart. Such a violin. He squeezed the different strings and mostly sad and tearful songs came out… For such a mood one only needed the right musician, a skillful one, a Klezmer; such a skilful one as Stempenyu was.
The krechtsn (groans, moans) were the moaning, achy long notes that gave Klezmer music its distinctive sound, used usually by the violinist and clarinetist to evoke a lament.
The kneytshn (fold, wrinkle and crease) were short notes with the achiness of the krechtsn but which were swallowed sharply as if squeezing the tip of the sound. The tshoks (lavishness, splendor, swagger) were ‘bent’ notes (purposely noting concert pitch but just slightly under or over the actual note) with a laugh-like sound. Flageoletts (Italian: small flute) were harmonics generally played on the violin. Their use allowed the Klezmer to create rapid whistling sounds evoking the heavens. The root of Klezmer music – what made it sound Jewish – was not to be found in the folk music of Central or Eastern Europe, but in the meditations and prayers of our Middle Eastern ancestors and neighbours. By the end of the 19th Century, many young Klezmer and other violinists had obtained permission from the Czar to study in the music conservatories of St. Petersburg under Leopold Auer (1845 – 1930) and in Odessa under Pjohr Stolyarsky. Some of these Klezmer violinists went on to become world famous virtuosi. They included Bronislaw Huberman (18821947, of Poland, who in 1936 founded the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra), Efren Zimbalist (1889– 1985, Russia), Mischa Elman (1891–1967, Ukraine), David Oistrakh (1908–1972, Ukraine), Jascha Heifetz (1901–1987, Lithuania) and Nathan Milstein (19041992, Russia).
The last two may not have played Klezmer but they had heard plenty of it. The Klezmer’s repertoire during the interval years still consisted of many of the traditional wedding melodies, dances, military marches, and light classical overtures. But it was significantly changed. The popularity of Yiddish theatre was on the rise both in Eastern Europe and America. Sheet music and recordings were available. Yiddish films from America and Eastern Europe were screened. People had radios and listened to popular European and American tunes. Yiddish songs like Roumania, Roumania, Mayn Shtetle, Papirosen and Vu Zaynen Mayne Zibn Gute Yor were all written in the United State yet became very popular in Central and Eastern Europe during the 1920s and 1930s – so popular, in fact, that many Jews and Rom living in Eastern Europe, who sang and played these tunes, thought that they were originally from their countries.1
By 1902, the Yiddish press in the USA was advertising Catskill resorts catering specifically for the Eastern European Jewish immigrant. The Catskills hotels hired klezmorim, mostly for dances and background music during dinner. Some of the popular tunes were Yosl Yosl, Shabbes Tzu Nakht and Hu– Tzu–Tza.
David Tarraschuk (1897 –1989, Ukraine), known as David Tarras, could transpose and sight-read music and was soon recording with bands. Tarras was the most popular Klezmer clarinetist from the mid-1930s to end of 1950s. His style of playing has influenced a generation of Klezmer revival clarinetists, most notably his protégé Andy Statman.
Some klezmorim attempted the crossover to American popular music by arranging, composing, and performing Klezmer music in jazz style. One of the simpler novelty tunes was Lena from Palestreena, written in 1920 by Conrad and Robinson. Other popular tunes were Sheyn Vi Di Levune, Matzo Balls and Bay Mir Bist Sheyn.
Probably the most successful of the klezmorim, who performed in the Klezmer and jazz worlds, was Sammy Muziker (1916–1964). He played clarinet and saxophone in Gene Krupa’s band in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He married Dave Tarras’ daughter.
Micky Katz (1909–1985), a Jewish clarinetist who lived in Los Angeles, became very well known to Jews and non-Jews. He sold a lot of records and was listened to by many of the Klezmer revivalists. He was able to play his style of music into the mid– 1960s, even though most Klezmer musicians had retired a decade earlier.
During World War II, klezmorim performed in various ghetto ensembles, playing popular and Jewish music. Many klezmorim were sent to concentration camps and often had to play in the camp orchestra. In addition to slave labor, they had to perform for the Nazis at their dinner parties and other events. Leopold Koslowski was such a Klezmer. The S.S. Commandant said to him that if he could teach him to play Strauss’s “Blue Danube” in seven days, so that he could perform it on his accordion at an S.S. Party, he would not have to work as hard as the other prisoners. If he did not succeed, he would be shot. The SS man was very unmusical, but he managed to play the waltz.
Klezmorim in the camps often had a prolonged life but most were eventually murdered. It would take fifty years after the holocaust for Yiddish culture in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union to be revived.
By the 1960s, Klezmer music had been all but relegated to the Hasidic enclaves of Brooklyn. Jewish musicians now followed different paths in music – jazz, pit orchestras, film orchestration and the like. The immigrants’ children and grandchildren were now active participants in the 1950s beat generation and eventually the 1960s counter culture movement.
The third generation of East European immigrants to America were the first “Baalei Kulturniks” (masters of culture), Klezmer revivalists who began playing Klezmer in the 1970s. They learned from recordings and first hand from those first and second generation klezmorim that were still alive. This generation includes Michael Alpert, Zev Feldman, Giora Feidman, Henry Sapoznik and Andy Statman.
The fourth generation Baalei Kulturniks, who began playing Klezmer in the 1980s, had learned from three previous generations and began to push the boundaries. Klezmer bands began to experiment with elements from jazz, rock ’n roll and ethnic genres like Rom, Balkan and Arabic music.
By the late 1980s Western Europe, particularly Germany, became more receptive to the growing interest in Yiddish culture and brought several Klezmer bands from America to tour. Some of the musicians were David Buchbinder, Frank London, Deborah Strauss and Yale Strom.
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, born into an illustrious rabbinical family in Berlin, is credited with having started the Neo–Hasidic folk song genre in the US. Carlebach’s simple, melodic tunes, which he sang while accompanying himself on guitar, were based on one of the building blocks of 19th Century Klezmer music, the Nigun. These nigunim, some wordless, most with Hebrew text, are still sung by many thousands of Jews around the world today. Before any Baalei Kulturnik band played in Eastern Europe, Carlebach had toured the Eastern Bloc, the former Soviet Union and Poland, and played to sold out audiences in 1988. He thus sowed some of the early seeds of the Klezmer revival movement that became a regular part of the Jewish cultural renewal.
Klezmer music in Israel is associated with and played only among Hasidim. One of the best known Klezmers in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th Century was drummer Moyshe Poyker. An important Klezmer clarinetist in Israel was Avram Segal (1911 – 1995), born in Tsfat. He played Hasidic nigunim and Arab tunes. Another influential Klezmer musician is clarinetist Moshe Berlin, born in 1938 in Tel Aviv. An International Klezmer Festival is held annually in July in Tsfat.
Klezmer, the musical language of the Jews, and Yiddish, the spoken language of the Jews, have traveled together down the same road for nearly the same length of time. Just as Yiddish has incorporated new vocabularies based upon new cultural trends, so have the many Klezmer revival bands infused new musical forms, like free jazz and rock ’n roll, into a 19th and early 20th Century East European Klezmer sound. Klezmer must always stay grounded in Yiddish, as it is the musical abstraction of the Yiddish language.
The earliest descendants of today’s klezmorim were the medieval Ashkenazic minstrels who played and sang in Yiddish. For the Klezmer revival scene to continue to develop and flourish, whether it be neo traditionalist or Avant-Gardist, the Yiddish component will need to be explored, examined and exploited to help us better to understand the past, present and future world of the Klezmer.
Alan Jacobs, a frequent contributor to Jewish Affairs, is a clarinettist who performs regularly in concerts and recitals in Cape Town.
NOTES
1 Roumania, Roumania was composed by Aaron Lebedeff (1873-1960), born in Gomel, Belarus. Mayn Shtetle was composed by Alexander Olsha Netsky (1892 – 1940) born in Odessa – Russia. Papirosen (cigarettes) was composed by Herman Yablokoff in 1932.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
