24 April 2020 – Shabbat is almost here
Enjoy with Naftule Brandwein, benchmark clarinetist of klezmer, born in Przemyślany at the time when it belonged to the Austrian Galicia, in 1889, and recorded in 1926 in New York
It seems the havoc of the coronavirus in New York are relenting little by little during the last days. Let’s hope it will end soon! In this edition of Music Before Shabbat we will listen a recording done over there: the city that welcomed our protagonist and that allowed him to become a star and made possible that we can enjoy his music nowadays.
Naftule Brandwein left the Old World, his village of Przemyślany, that had been part of the Ruthenian Poland until the Partitions, that belonged to the Austrian Galicia at the time of his birth and that nowadays is part of Ukraine, and arrived in New York in 1908.
Over there, as he was unable to read music, it was difficult to enter in an orchestra, so he made his living playing mainly in weddings. Soon he became known for his eccentricities, like wearing extravagant clothes (sometimes he dressed like Uncle Sam with christmas lights or even with his pants down) and playing back to the audience to hide his fingers’ technique. He raised an earned reputation of gambler and a drinker and his behaviour would prevent him for keeping a regular job in any band. So, from 1920, he worked under his own name, he proclaimed himself as the King of Jewish Music and in 1926 he recorded one of my favourite pieces of the History of klezmer: Von tashlach / New Year’s Prayer at the River. Enjoy it here below.
The sources I have used for this email are Experiencing Jewish Music in America: A Listener’s Companion, by Tina Frühauf and the web of Institut Européen des Musiques Juives.
Before ending, I want to thanks the Jewish Music Institut for mentioning the edition of my Music Before Shabbat with Hans Bloemendal in their Twitter. They are broadcasting concerts in their Facebook site.
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Shabbat Shalom.
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