Klezmer Music Blog — Klezmer Academy

On the Eighth Night of Chanukah: A Belf Extraphone Disc

When I was a child, my sisters and I got small presents on the first through seventh nights; the “big” present was saved for the last night of the holiday. In that spirit, tonight I’m sharing perhaps my most exciting recent acquisition, the only Belf Extraphone recording that has surfaced to date. It is one of ten discs recorded for Extraphone in 1914, most of which duplicate the familiar Syrena Grand titles. This recording is something completely different.

Continuing with the subject of Mendel Beilis that came up yesterday, this Belf disc represents a “theme” recording. The first side is Plach Beylisa (Beilis’s Lament), and it is a hauntingly beautiful, soulful melody in slow 3/4 time. There is the usual ensemble of clarinet, fiddle doubling the melody, secund fiddle and piano. There are a couple of surprising moments when the first fiddle actually plays a few bars of harmony.

Plach Beylisa
Osvobozhdeniye Beylisa

The reverse side of the recording is entitled Osvobozhdeniye Beylisa (Liberation of Beilis) and represents a joyous response to his acquital after his year-long imprisonment. The tune is a lovely khosidl, and as in the other side, the fiddle is playing with much more freedom to veer off the melody than is ever present in the Syrena recordings.

I hope you have enjoyed these wonderful recordings as much as I have enjoyed sharing them.

Khag sameakh and Happy New Year.

**Chanukah art from screen shots of the Menorah iPad app by RustyBrick, Inc.

On the Seventh Night of Chanukah: An Extraphone R

Jacob Gegner, from 1914 Extraphone catalog

Tonight’s record is an Extraphone disc recorded by J. M. Gegner (later known as Gegna) in 1913. Gegner is best known to the contemporary klezmer world from his one American recording, made in NY in 1921 on the Columbia label. But before he moved to the US in 1914, he made a number of recordings on the Amour Gramophone and Extraphone labels. One of his Amour Gramophone discs was reissued on Chekhov’s Band—Eastern European Klezmer music from the EMI archives 1908-1913, but to my knowledge, this is the first of his Extraphone recordings to surface. What is truly interesting is that the two tunes contained on this oh so rare disc are versions of the two tunes we already know.

Extraphone Fantasy on a Jewish Theme

This tune, under the title “Fantasy on a Jewish Theme,” was recorded for Extraphone in Poltava in 1913. It was recorded under the title “Fantasy on a Jewish Melody” for Amour Gramophone (track 7 on the Chekhov’s Band CD) that same year. The performances are very similar, both with minimal piano accompaniment, sparse but effective ornamentation and the occasional virtuosic flourish. The Amour performance differs primarily in that Gegner moves to the lower register in the latter part of the tune.

Advertisement from 1918

Taxim

The Columbia recording, made in 1921 and entitled Taxim, is virtually identical for the first part of the recording, but it truncates the fantasy and adds a lovely khosidl melody.

The other side of the Extraphone recording, entitled Evreskaja melodie (Jewish Melodies), turns out to be the same tune that Gegner titled A Tfileh fun Mendel Beilis in 1921. Mendel Beilis was a Jewish man accused of a ritual killing in Kiev in 1913. Gegner apparently attended his trial in 1914 and was moved to write this heartfelt lament by that experience. I find it interesting that he did not reference Beilis in the earlier recording, since it would have made sense to take advantage of Beilis’s notoriety, which was considerable.

Jewish Melodies
A Tfileh fun Mendel Beilis

Again, the performances are nearly identical.at least with respect to the violin. In fact, as befits a tune composed right after an influential experience, the Extraphone recording is more dramatic and emotional in the simplicity of the piano accompaniment. It opens with a low tremolo in the piano, and towards the end of each chorus of the tune ends with single notes doubling the fiddle melody. The accompaniment in the American version is much more stylized, though equally s imple, with the piano playing simple chords throughout, and during those final phrases, playing harmony notes rather than doubling the melody.

Tomorrow, for the final night of the holiday, we will continue the theme of Mendel Beilis through the lens of Belf’s Romanian Orchestra.

Khag sameakh.

**Chanukah art from screen shots of the Menorah iPad app by RustyBrick, Inc.

On the Sixth Night of Chanukah: Two More Performances by Grancowa

Tonight’s audio gift is the last of the three discs in my collection by the ensemble conducted by P. Grancowa.

The first side is a 1910 recording entitled Sem Sorok, which will be more familiar to the Yiddish world as Zibn Fertsik, or Seven-Forty. While a detailed discussion of this tune and its fascinating and mysterious history is a topic for another post, I will give you the broad outline. According to the Russian Wikipedia, the first known recording of the tune was on a Zonophone record in 1903, though I have not found any specific mention or sound file of it , in part because the recording had no title. It was just a Jewish freylekhs performed by the Zonophone Orchestra. The title and a set of lyrics (in Russian) appeared on the scene several years later. No one can agree on much about the song except the title, its obvious popularity and that it seems to be about a train or tram that arrived in Odessa at 7:40 supposedly carrying a passenger who is eagerly awaited but never arrives. The song was particularly popular among Soviet Jews, which is the context in which I first heard it, though at the time I didn’t know it had words. If you are interested in exploring further, there are many videos of both vocal and instrumental performances, many with dancing, available on YouTube.

Sem Sorok (Seven Forty)
Brass Band Seven Forty

So far, I have collected six different instrumental versions ranging from an accordion duo to a military band, and there are a couple more listed on Russian-Records.com. The Grancowa performance probably the simplest and most straightforward, consisting of only two sections. Most of the others include both an introduction and a third section. This Syrena recording by the Brass Band of the Hussar Regiment is more typical.

Anyone wishing to explore the origins and history of the song further can find links to additional sources in the Wikipedia article referenced above.

The second side of the Grancowa recording presents an equally intriguing mystery. Entitled Dojna-Rumynskaja narodnaja piesnia (Doina- Romanian folk song, it is a beautiful cornet doina followed by a lively dance tune. The accompaniment to the doina, featuring brass instruments, is quite distinctive. When I listened to this recording, that accompaniment was really familiar, so I went on the hunt and found the other recording I had remembered: a Victor recording of a cornet doina.

Grancowa Dojna
Victor Doina un Sirba

According to the Discography of American Historical Recordings, the Victor disc is a reissue of a Gramophone recording by Banda Mihai Viteazul (Band of Michael the Brave — a Romanian hero) and was actually recorded five years before the 1910 Grancowa version. The doina portions of both recordings are virtually identical. On the theory that doinas, while involving some level of improvisation, are actually shaped by each performer in a specific way that often doesn’t change over the course of his or her career, the fact that these two recordings have nearly identical doinas suggests that both were recorded by the same unknown cornet player. Interestingly, the second parts of the recordings are completely different tunes, and the Victor doesn’t have a dramatic transitional chord before going into the faster tune.

Tomorrow, for a complete change of pace, we’ll be considering an Extraphone recording of violinist Jacob Gegner/Gegna.

Khag sameakh.

**Chanukah art from screen shots of the Menorah iPad app by RustyBrick, Inc.