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The Jewish Week
5 August 2005

A Still-Beating Yiddish Heart
A sampler from the mamaloshen.
By George Robinson


You could write a fairly comprehensive history of the Jewish people just by tracing the languages we have spoken over four millennia, most of them dead. Yiddish is supposedly a dead language. I assume that no one had told this to the thousands of chasidim who speak it every day.

As Dovid Katz points out in his fascinating new book, "Words on Fire," this particular dead language still has an active, pumping heart. Musically, the status of Yiddish is more ambiguous. As several of this month's records testify, on one level Yiddish exists as a disembodied witness to the murder of European Jewry and the assimilation of a certain Jewish culture into the American mainstream. Yet the mamaloshen's musical heart is also beating.

"Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn: Great Songs of the Yiddish Stage, Volume 2" (Milken Archive/Naxos)

The second Milken Archive set devoted to the joys of Yiddish vaudeville and musical theater features the work of Sholom Secunda and Alexander Olshanetsky and a lot of the tunes will be familiar. As with previous Milken excursions into pop-oriented material, this is a bit studied, but Simon Spiro and Joanne Borts drag the music out of the museum and into the real world quite handsomely.

Brave Old World: "Song of the Lodz Ghetto" (Winter and Winter)

The line between memorial and entombment is pretty thin. "Lodz Ghetto," like BOW's previous recordings, is a magnificent example of how to stay on the right side of that line. This performance piece, drawing on little-known music from the Lodz Ghetto and originals inspired by the Shoah, is nothing less than brilliant, a recreation that is not merely respectful but stunningly inventive, making dramatic use of Michael Alpert's expressive singing. Harsh, dark music that rewards the patient listener.

Alberto Hemsi: "Coplas Sefardies" (Buda)

Another entry in the excellent series, "Patrimoines musicaux des Juifs de France," featuring Sephardic songs collected by the late Alberto Hemsi, performed by singer Pedro Aledo and pianist Ludovic Amadeus Selmi. Aledo has a warm, plangent voice and Selmi is an astonishing sensitive accompanist. Hemsi's settings are reminiscent of song cycles by Faure and Britten, and that is heady company. Available from Hatikvah Music (www.hatikvahmusic.com or 1-323-655-7083).

Albert Hurwit: "Symphony No. 1, 'Remembrance'" (MSR Classics)

Hurwit is a retired physician who has pursued music as a hobby. Encouraged by Michael Lankester, who conducts here, he has turned a short adagio into a full-blown symphony. Regrettably, the result is bombastic post-Romantic program music of the most derivative sort. Available from www.arkivmusic.com.

Maria Krupoves: "Without a Country: Songs of Stateless Peoples" (self-distributed)

Krupoves is an ethnomusicologist who happens also to be a superb singer with a lithe, frequently lilting soprano. This collection of songs from Eastern European nomad languages – Old Believer Russians, Roma, Tatar, Karaites, as well as Yiddish and Ashkenazi Hebrew - is beautifully performed, with deft accompaniment by klezmorim Joey Weisenberg and Travis DiRuzza. I have my doubts about how authentic it might be – surely you wouldn't find identical instrumentation and styles among all these traditions – but it is an attractive recording to hear. Available from studija@lvjc.lt.

Dobe Ressler and Di Bostoner Klezmer: "Nakhes fun Klezmer" (self-distributed)

Here's a new klezmer band with a spring in its step. Right from the opening tune, these folks play traditional klez with a bounce, lively and danceable. Even the doynas are peppy. Nicely variegated instrumentation and a whole program of unfamiliar but tasty tunes well played. Available from www.yiddishmusic.com.

Hank Sapoznik and the Youngers of Zion: "The Protocols" (self-distributed)

Another recording with more bounce to the ounce. Sapoznik, of course, is one of the daddies of New Klez, and his witty singing and rock-solid rhythm playing help to make this trio one of the most satisfying of his many aggregations. Playing his usual mix of originals and obscure oldies, he brings a jolly playfulness to a very vaudeville-inflected set, with Marlene "Cookie" Siegelstein carrying the melodies with some very adroit fiddling and tuba and bass player Mark "Doctor" Rubin creating a nicely buoyant floor. Great fun. Available from www.youngersofzion.com.

"Yiddish Balkans" (Buda)

The title of this set is rather baffling; the music is almost entirely Eastern European, including several of Gebertig's songs, and I can't find anything remotely Balkan about the music. Traditional klezmer competently played and sung, nothing startling but quite pleasant. Available from Hatikvah Music (www.hatikvahmusic.com or [323] 655-7083).

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