Tag Archives: Cantor

MBS with the sanctum sanctorum of hazzanuz and the Jewish Caruso

4th September 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And Warsaw and its History of hazzanut at the Great Synagogue will guide us to a vanished time, through the voice of Gershon Yitzchok Sirota

Hello! How are you? Yes, I am a bit delayed today!!! But this is still before Shabbat! I have had very busy days and here I am again.

In this occasion, we follow the thread of Thomas La-Rue, the black cantor’s story, who performed in Warsaw at a time where the Great Synagogue at Tłomackie Street was the landmark of hazzanut. La-Rue didn’t perform there, but many other cantors did, like our protagonist of today, Gershon Sirota, whose life is connected, for better and for worse, with the city.

I won’t hide that I have a special love for Poland, that country in which, according to my dear Janusz Prusinowski, there is still the feeling of something that is lacking: it is the presence of Jews. He also considers that “Polish and Jewish cultures have quite much in common, so I can understand better Polish culture thank to Jewish music/culture knowledge.” Read more about these reflexions by Janusz, here.

I invite you to listen to a recording that takes us back in time to the Wielka Synagoga w Warszawie, with the voice of the hazzan who was its Obercantor from 1907 until 1926.

As usual, you have the video at the bottom. And if you like this, as usual, please: share it with your friends! Thank you in advance.
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The Great Synagogue in Warsaw

There isn’t any synagogue now in Tłomackie Street. According to Sztetl.org.pl “On 16 May 1943, explosives were set up around the site and the synagogue was blown up personally by General Stroop to mark the end of his mission to exterminate all Warsaw Jews”.

Nevertheless, f*** you, Stroop: the synagogue dissapeared but the headquarters of the Main Judaic Library and of the Institute for Judaic Studies, that are here in the picture on the left, are now the Jewish Historical Institute and the Jews were not erased from Polish land. This picture is from its website:

This is how it looks like today in Google Maps:
The cornerstone of the Great Synagogue was laid in a ceremony held on 14 May 1876. The architect was Leandro Marconi, who also built the Synagogue Nożyków, the only one that survived the World War II (more info, at the website of Jewish.org.pl). The grand opening and consecration of the synagogue took place on the day of Rosh Hashanah of the year 5639 (on 26 September 1878). Find much more information about the building and its history and the use by the community in Sztetl, a website by POLIN Museum. 

Let’s visit the Great Synagogue

Arik Boas Animation made a few years ago this animation you have below, for The Museum of the Jewish People (Beit Hatfutsot).

Pay attention to the face of the chazzan! Doesn’t he look like Gershon Yitzchok Sirota? In fact he does, but note that the singer in this animation is accredited to be another superb cantor, also born in Ukraine, but about whom I haven’t found references of his presence in Warsaw at the Great Synagogue: Yossele Rosenblatt, who will be our star in a future MBS –>

Anyway, immerse yourself in the Great Synagogue! 

The great chazzan at the most prestigious position in the cantorial world

Gershon Sirota became the Obercantor in the Great Synagogue in 1907. The World War II brought the end of the Synagogue and also of Sirota.

According to Rabbi Geoffrey Shisler, “Not without good reason was Gershon Sirota spoken of as the ‘Jewish Caruso.’ Even with the poor quality recordings that we have of him today, it’s quite clear that he had a most extraordinary voice and since he was a contemporary of Caruso (1873 – 1938), the comparison was bound to be made. An apocryphal story has it that Caruso would come to hear Sirota sing or conduct a service whenever they were in the same town at the same time.”

Gershon was born in Podolia in 1874. His father was a cantor in the local synagogue and, already as a child, Gershon helped his father in the services. The family moved to Odessa, where he would be cantor in Shalashner Shul. Later he gave service at the Shtat Synagogue of Vilna. His performances granted him more and more popularity and was called to make special concerts in many cities around, first in Russia and Poland, and later much further. He was the first cantor to record his voice on phonograph records and he became world famous thanks to this. 

Between 1912 and 1927 he toured in many ocassions at the USA. It made him lose his position in the Great Synagogue, because he was absent too much time, specially in the High Holy Days. No problem. He was already a very demanded star.

He toured at the USA for his last time in 1938. It is sad that he didn’t decide to stay there. He had to return to Warsaw because his wife was very ill. The start of the war found him there. The family was imprisoned in the Guetto, where he would conduct the High Holy Day services in 1941.

In the first months of 1943, a strong resistence arised in the Guetto of Warsaw and an uprising started on April 19. The bombing of our Synagogue, that was out of the Guetto, was the symbol of the end of that uprising. Sirota was murdered with his family in the last day of Pessah, during the destruction of the Guetto.

The sources for this brief bio have been: Jewish Music Research Center, Music and the Holocaust.

The voice of the “Jewish Caruso”

I have chosen his rendition of Avinu Maikenu. Check also the version of İsak Maçoro in this previous edition of Music Before Shabbat.
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Click the picture to listen to the recording:

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I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

MBS with the black cantor Thomas La-Rue, through Henry Sapoznik

21th August 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

And today we travel with our imagination to the USA of one century ago with Henry Sapoznik to answer this question: How does a non-Jewish African-American boy born at the beginning of the 20th century end up making a living singing liturgical music in Yiddish?

Hello, how are you? I hope well. This week I have had two reasons to celebrate:

  • my birthday, that is on August 26th
  • and to discover the amazing blog by Henry Sapoznik and his series of posts about the black cantors in the 1920s and 1930s at the USA.
I invite you to listen to a recording that tells us so many things! It wouldn’t be available without Henry’s work.
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As usual, you have the video at the bottom. And if you like this, as usual, please: share it with your friends! Thank you in advance.
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Who is Henry Sapoznik

I have the feeling that at the USA, any person interested in Jewish culture knows Henry. Despite the globalization, there is still a big gap between North America and Europe in the field of not mainstream culture, so let me introduce him.

I took this picture from his Facebook profile. It is meaningful: he is a Jew who plays banjo. But he is much more. According with his website, he is a native Yiddish speaker and child of Holocaust survivors, award-winning producer, musicologist and performer, and writer in the fields of traditional and popular Yiddish and American music and culture.

He explained to me that he started his blog as an answer to the situation produced by the pandemic. We are experiencing much suffering because of it but at least some little jewels are being born in this dramatic conditions. He also told me that he has the idea of starting a podcast. I will be checking to update you.

Sapoznik was the founding director of the sound archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York from 1982 to 1995, as well as founder and director of KlezKamp, beginning in 1985 for the next 30 years.

Henry’s parents were both from Rovno, between Lvov and Kiev. It is the region of Volhynia, also known as Volinskaya, Wolin, Wolyn, Wolina, Wolinsk, Volinski, Wolinski, Volenskii, Wolenskj, Wolenskja, Volin and Volyn, according to the JewishGen website. It is a land that has changed from the hands of Poland, Ukraine and Soviets. Nowadays it is part of Ukraine. Apart from the extermination of the Jews of Volhynia, that began in the first days after the outbreak of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, in 1943–44 the region was the scene of ethnic massacres in which some 100,000 Poles died and some 20,000 Ukrainians were killed in revenge. The Polish film of 2016 Wołyń, in which my colaborator Janusz Prusinowski played, shows this situation.

According to JGuideEurope, on 6 November 1941, the 17500 inhabitants of Rovno’s ghetto were executed in a single day and left to rot in a huge, circular mass grave. The Sosonki memorial, on the road to Kiev, around two miles from Rovno, reminds this massacre.

Rovno has a synagogue very near the former (and bigger and newer) synagogue and Google Maps is very nice to show them to us:

You know this Music Before Shabbat uses music for the joy in itself and as the thead to learn more about history and I feel this very close to Henry’s vision. I can’t hide what a big joy it has been for me to meet this man and talk with him at the Facebook.

Toyve Ha’Cohen or the black cantor Thomas La-Rue

This amazing story is widely told by Henry in his blog in this post about Larue, and in this one about the tour he made in 1930. I strongly recommend you to check those links. Here I will just make a brief summary of Henry’s work. This poster is from his website too. 

Thomas was born in 1902, son of a single mother. They lived in Newark (New Yersey) and she faced much racism. She could make friends only in the Jewish women. With the time, she started to become into their religious believings. Her son and her daughter received a traditional Jewish primary school education. It is not clear if she converted. 

How did he start to become a professional singer in Yiddish?

According to Henry’s blog: «One anecdote about LaRue which was repeated so often it has the burnished patina of a creation myth, concerns a Sabbath service he attended as a young boy. During the service, the cantor was taken ill so LaRue quickly put on a prayer shawl and, before the congregation could orient itself, took to the lectern and in his soprano voice began to intone the prayers. The congregation was ready to storm the podium to take him down but he sang with such great feeling that they remained standing and began praying.» True or false, who knows. Thomas was hired by a manager and his career started in 1921 and soon he became usual at the stage in shows of Yiddish theatre. And the recording below is from June 1923.

In 1930 he made a tour in Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Germany and Poland. He was welcome in Warsaw with big scepticism. It was at the time the landmark for cantorial art, specially by the role of the Great Tłomackie synagogue, that will be our focus in a future edition of MBS. This wonderful picture below is from the website of the Jewish Historical Institute.

For that tour, the productor, Edvin Relkin, invented a totally fake story in which his mother died when he was young and his father was a high official in the local Abyssinian government, they were descendents of the Ten Lost Tribes.

Thomas’ last performance documented is in 1953 in Newark. It is not known his date of death nor where is he buried.

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The song encouraging the Polish Jews to keep the hope

From the available recordings by Thomas La-Rue in Henry’s Youtube channel, I have chossen the one that I prefer the least in terms of melody but that has very meaningful lyrics, specially taking into consideration the story of Henry’s parents. The whole lyrics are in this post by Henry and I will just copy a little part. You’ll understand what I mean:
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Don’t give up hope yet, Mr. Jew
One day it will all work out for you
Pharaoh, Haman and Amolek taught a bitter lesson
But those days are through
Czar Nikolai, has met his destiny
And from Poland, you’ll be free

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Click the picture to listen to the recording of Thomas La-Rue:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

Music Before Shabbat, with Izak Algazi Efendi. A declaration of crippling love ?

15 May 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Enjoy with Izak Algazi, born in Izmir in 1889. Let’s listen his “Reina de la Grasia”, queen of the grace, a recording from 1929, that is a declaration of a crippling love.

I first learned about Izak Algazi from Jako el Muzikante, who told me about this hazzan after a conversation about Izak Maçoro, who was our star some MBSs ago. 

So, after three editions with klezmer, I return to the Sephardic heritage and to some old music. Izak Algazi was mentioned quite recently in Ladinokomunita, a fascinating email group with participants discussing in Ladino, some natives of the languaje and other people that have learnt it, many of them quite devoted to the continuity of the languaje. They mentioned the presence of a street called Algazi in Izmir, name in his honour.

Izak Algazi was very recognized for his artistry during his life. He was the son of another well-known hazzan from Izmir, Salomon Algazi. Izak had a brilliant career in Turkey, he made many recordings for several record companies and even Mustafa Kemal, before becoming Atatürk, gave him an autographed Quran as a present.

Algazi left Turkey in 1933, as the chances for a Jewish to develope any position in public life started to dissapear in the process of turkification. He settled in Paris for 2 years to complete his rabbinical studies and moved to Montevideo in 1935, because he was invited to join the Sephardic Synagogue. Professor Edwin Seroussi, who knows his biography from at first-hand, has helped me to understand a bit better the situation that caused these events, so I thank him very much.

You can find a list of his recordings on SephardicMusic.org, website, where it is mentioned that he recorded this song in 3 occasions: 1909, 1912 and 1929. Below you can hear the last one. In this same link you can read a brief bio.

And what about the song of crippling love?

By the way, I have to thank Joshua Cheek for helping with the term of “crippling” and  some more tips of the English languaje. And I said it is a song of crippling love, because of the lyrics. And it is curious because Izak Algazi’s wife’s name was Reina!!! And reina means queen. The questions is that the lyrics say:

Reina de la grasia
Madre de la bivez
Onde ke te tope
Por verte otra vez.
Vo murir, vo murir
Si tu mas non te vez
 Queen of the grace
Mother of the life
Where could I found you
to see you once more.

I’m going to die, I’m going to die
if I don’t see you again

I wonder if Reina made him a lot of “love sorrows” before getting married and having their three kids. Anyway, with sorrows or not, let’s enjoy the amazing voice and the almost unbelievable melismata of Izak Algazi:

Clic the picture to enjoy Reina de la Grasia,
by Izak Algazi:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending … this link to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

 

Cantor Hans Bloemendal – Kaddish

3 April 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Get relief with Dr. Hans Bloemendal, chief cantor of the Main Synagogue in Amsterdam, born in 1923 in the German city of Fulda, sent by his father to Amsterdam after the rise of Nazi regime and settled there until the end of his life in 2015. Let’s listen to his Kaddish.

I have been discussing with myself between the idea of chosing something joyful to cheer up or something more introspective, for this occasion in this difficult time.

Today I complete 3 weeks of confinement. My father is at the hospital from the last night (I think and wish he will be well and at home before Pesaj) and many people have died. You are also confined and I hope you and all your people are well. The election of a Kaddish, in this amazing rendition, feels like optimal.

Dr. Hans Bloemendal was chazzan at the Main Synagogue in Amsterdam from 1949. During the war he went into hiding. His family was killed in Sobibor.

His contributions to the world were not only his art: he developed an initiative of books for kids and he was also a teacher and a researcher in biochemistry and molecular biology. This info is available in the bio here. I really recommend to read it. And the picture is from here.

The picture that illustrates the video below, with the recording, is of a grandfather with his blind granddaughter in Warsaw in 1938. The author is Roman Vishniac, who travelled across central and Eastern Europe, photographing the Jewish communities, both in the cities as well as in rural areas, before de II World War. If you didn´t know him (I confess I discovered him yesterday, thanks to this picture in the video, and I spent hours looking at his works), his bio is also worth of reading. It is curious that he was also a biologist.

One last thing. Next week this email won’t be sent before Shabbat, but before Pesaj.

Clic the picture to enjoy the recording of Dr. Hans Bloemendal:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending this link to sign up.

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of Jewish music for joy in this playlist.

To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path. 

These is our artistic offer for live show:
Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

Cantor İsak Maçoro – Avinu Malkenu

27 March 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Enjoy with İsak Maçoro, Sephardic cantor, born in 1918, in Hasköy, a quarter in Beyoğlu, in the European side of Istambul, where many Portuguese and Spanish Jewish settled from the end of XV century. Let’s listen his rendition of Avinu Malkenu.

I know this is not the time to pray with Avinu Malkenu. We are not in the Yamim Noraim, but I feel the message is perfectly suitable for our current situation. If you read this at some moment of the future, today we are finishing the second week of confinement in Spain because of the crisis of Covid-19. Most of the world is suffering this threat, that is costing many lifes and changed our everydayness overnight.

I got to know Cantor İsak Maçoro at the Youtube some years ago, searching for Sephardic piyyutim. The picture of him and a short bio can be found in the website eSefarad. And in the channel of Youtube of Janet & Jak Esim, of which I talked in the previous Music Before Shabbat, there are many more videos of him. You can even see him singing live.

For this occasion I have chosen this recording from 1960, from the Youtune channel of Ozkan Sagliksunar.

Clic the picture to enjoy the recording of Isak Maçoro:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending this link to sign up.

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

May you always find the light in your path.

Jako el Muzikante – Gulaza – Janusz Prusinowski Kompania Jewish Memory

Chazzan Moshe Bazian – Rachamono D’onay

13 March 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Enjoy with the outstanding Chazzan Moshe Bazian, born in Chișinău, current capital city of Moldova (region of Bessarabia), in 1925, and settled in USA in 1949.

The first time I listened a chazzan was he, more than 20 years ago. I don’t remember how did that happen. Maybe a compilation of world music? Maybe in one of those P2P programs in which other users could send you music? The true is that I don’t remember but, in the opossite, I never forgot this piece and this voice, the amazing micro melismata, the dynamics, and all of this, serving a message that I was able only to imagine. Even today I don’t know what does Rachamono D’onay mean (any kind soul could explain it to me?).

I felt like looking back to that time… The whole world is in the biggest crisis I’ve seen in my life. In my country it is quite likely that, from tomorrow, we won’t be even allowed to go out to the street. Nevertheless, the standards of life and security of nowadays are much better than in Moshe Bazian’s time. We all are going to suffer but we will recover, you know. In the meantime… 

…clic the picture to enjoy the recording Rachamono D’onay and let yourself go in the spell of his voice:

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us.
It is as symple as sending this email with… …. this button to sign up

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.

 

Moshe Band – Klein un Grosser

21 February 2020 – Shabbat is almost here

Enjoy with Jewish music from Slovakia by Moshe Band (Mojše Band in Slovak).

Listen their piece Klein un Grosser, from the album Zipserim, and read these statements about the piece by the leader of the band, Michal Paľko.

CLIC THE PICTURE TO LISTEN THE SONG
“Klein un Grosser is not only the tittle of story about relationships between two members (one rich, one pure) of former Jewish comunity in small city in northern part of Autro-hungarian monarchy, for me its at first funny song about wisdom and satira.

Its very typical music for celebrating Purim because in fact Klein un Grosser story is former famous Purimspiel in ZIPS region. Also the stylisc and plystilistics feeling and sound of track its all that time oscilationg between Hungarian opereta, with deeply klezmer influancies and modern disco=pop=rock song. Enjoy!”

I hope you’ll like it and, if so, feel free to share it and invite your friends to join us. It is as symple as sending us an email saying: sign me up for the Music Before Shabbat. 

Shabbat Shalom.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

May you always find the light in your path.
And we share with you one hour of music for joy in this playlist.
To know more about our artists, click here.