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Jewish
Music in Romania II |
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Jewish
Music in Romania:
Leon Schwartz Born in Karapchiv, Ukrainian Bukovina, Leon often traveled to Vatra Dornei in the summers to play for the visiting rabbis who came to take the waters at the town’s famous spas. His CD "Like in a Different World," on Global Village Music (New York), is one of the best examples of authentic Jewish fiddling. The notes by Leon’s protégé and friend Michael Alpert (of Brave Old World) are clear and informative. It is important to note that Alpert prefers to classify Leon Schwartz’s music as that of a "Bukovina" fiddler instead of "klezmer": Leon’s range of styles and inter-ethnic repertoire reflects his region as well as his own Jewish upbringing. |
Jewish Music in Iasi When I began to record music in Romania in the late 1980s, many of the elder Gypsy musicians I approached in Transylvania enthusiastically played Jewish tunes for me, alongside the Romanian and Transylvanian Hungarian music I was asking after. I was intrigued. Where had they learned these tunes? From playing for Jewish weddings, they answered. And so I began to learn something of the styles and repertoire of Jewish music from the elder generation of Gypsy musicians such as Ferenc "Arus" and Bela Berki of Mera, Samuel "Cilika" Boross of Cluj, Bela Gaspar, Arpad Toni of Voivodeni, Vassile and Gheorghe Covaci in Maramures, and others. I made trips through Transylvania, Bukovina, Maramures, and Moldavia. Eventually I had the great pleasure of meeting Prof. Itzik Shvartz and his wonderful wife Cili in Iasi in 1991. Prof. Shvartz, born in 1905, is a prolific writer, folklorist, linguist, and former director of the Iasi Yiddish theater who at this writing is still living in Iasi. He has known all of the 20th century’s important Romanian Jewish personalities as well as many of the Jewish musicians. His wife Cili was perhaps the best living Yiddish traditional singer in Europe until her death in 1998 (her kosher soda cookies were absolutely the best….). From Itzik Shvartz I learned about the life of klezmer families in 20th century Iasi: the Bughici family, the Segal family, and the Weiss family. The Lemesh family were important musicians in the last century who also played in Avram Goldfaden’s original Yiddish Theater orchestra at the Pomul Verde wine cellar in Iasi, but that family no longer resides in Iasi – I have heard they moved to Philadelphia. The Bughici band was primarily violin-based. Many of the Bughici family were murdered in the 1941 Iasi pogrom, but several survived, including Avram, the violinist, and Dimitru, who became a renowned piano teacher and jazz composer in Bucharest and now resides in Israel. During the 1970s, Prof. Shvartz had made some cassettes of the playing of Avram Bughici and Gheorghe Bughici, both on violin. Avram Bughici sold a book of repertoire to Itzik for use in the theater. Although the manuscript may now be lost, Itzik did make a cassette recording around 1975 with the accompaniment of accordionist Izu Gott (son of Dorohoi klezmer clarinetist Berko Gott), sight-reading the pieces on accordion. (Izu, a classically trained bassist who lives part of each year in Israel, has since served as music director of the Romanian Federation of Jews, as well as its president.) From Avram Bughici’s book we can assume the nature of the family’s repertoire – lots of khosidls, to be sure, several freylachs, with some theater songs and doinas. The Segal family were considered more accomplished musicians, however, and played in the Iasi Yiddish theater as well. Unfortunately, a manuscript of their music may have been lost – we are still looking for it – but hopefully in the future I will get the chance to meet one Segal still big in the Romanian entertainment business – Gheorghe Segal, known as TV personality Gheorghe Sava – and ask if he knows anything about this. Sava’s father’s gravestone in the Iasi cemetery features a carved stone harp, as testament to his prowess as a musician. Elsewhere in Moldavia we know of other Jewish musicians. In Roman, before the Holocaust, there was Hayim "Hersko" Herskovits, a trumpeter, as well as fiddlers Moishe Musikant and Iancu Malai. The popular Romanian song composer Richard Stein was also from Roman. Jewish musicians in Roman often played alongside Gypsies, and a basic band was formed of a violin or trumpet, accordion, and drum – a very typical lineup for a modern Moldavian band even today. In modern Moldavian folk music we still find traces of Jewish repertoire in the music of the fanfara brass bands. The elder generation of Romanian and Gypsy folk fiddlers often have pieces of klezmer origin in their repertoires, although this is becoming rarer these days. Dances such as "Jidancuta", "Jidoveasca", and melodies commonly recorded by early klezmer musicians are still current among many village repertoires. |
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Jewish Music in Romania:
Part I- Repertoire
Part III- Transylvania |
