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It is well known that tunes of songs, no less than their texts, often provide an historical mirror of an exceedingly sharp focus. A special category of such songs are the so- called “migrating” or…
Fanny Hensel (1805–1847), the granddaughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and financier Daniel Itzig, and sister of the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, was born in Hamburg into a wealthy…
“Shir ha-ma‘alot (Song of Ascents),” Psalm 126, is customarily recited or sung before the Grace After Meals on the Sabbath and festivals. There are many different tunes for the song. A Yiddish…
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel wrote numerous songs, piano compositions, cantatas, and other musical works, which were not published in her lifetime. The illustration on this hand-written manuscript…
Leehee woke me up at a quarter of four in the afternoon and asked me to come with them to Ein Hod for the Seder, despite everything.
“Don’t do this to me,” I said. “You know I’m not…
This illustration depicts three Polish Jewish soldiers taking part in the Polish uprising of 1830 and 1831. The rendering of an “Israelite National Guard in Warsaw” alongside solemn, patriotic music…
Charles-Valentin Alkan was the first composer to incorporate Jewish melodies in art music. His “Ancienne melodie de la synagogue,” a prelude for solo piano or organ, was published in 1847, along with…
What we now routinely call klezmer in the United States—“Do you play klezmer?” “There’s a new klezmer album out”—is a truly American construct in three ways: the word sidesteps aesthetic and political…