Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 4.067 July 21, 1994 1) Prof. Nathan Susskind (Dan Leeson) 2) Zeroing in (Mikhl Herzog) 3) Oyberland/Unterland (Mikhl Herzog) 4) Zawel Kwartin (Bernard S. Greenberg) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 19:32:20 -0700 From: leeson@cedar.fhda.edu Subject: Prof. Nathan Susskind I regret to have to make the following announcement: Prof. Nathan Susskind, a retired teacher of German and Jewish studies at City College and an authority on Yiddish, died on Thursday in Overlook Hospital in Summit, NJ. He was 87 and lived in West Palm Beach, FL. Professor Susskind taught at City College from 1932 until his retirement in 1974. He was also a director of the Institute for Yiddish Lexicology at the City Univ. of New York. The institute was founded to create the Great Dictionary of the Yiddish language of which 4 volumes have appeared. His death was announced in the west coast edition of the NY Times today, July 20, 1994. A complete obituary is contained in the paper of that date. Dan Leeson 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Jul 94 11:17 EDT From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Subject: Zeroing in Dovid Braun tells us that the now famous saying "Heri Peysakh Novik" or "Heri zayn ondenk" were uttered by a speaker from Lomze. Zachary Baker congratulates the winners for recognizing the expression as "Southeastern Yiddish". They can't both be right. Lomze is in northeatern Poland, essentially an outpost of Litvish Yiddish. Who is right? Inferring from the features of the expression, we have to conclude that Dovid's information is correct. There are two features to be considered: i) the "non funcional 'h', a feature of a channel which run along the Polish)Lithuanian)Belorussian border, from about the East Prussian border in the Northeast, an area which incorporates Lomze, southeastward into the Ukraine to about Odessa (see Atlas, Vol.I, Map 66). On the basis of this feature alone, both Dovid and Zachary could be right. However, we mustn't overlook ii) the quality of the unstressed vowel in "heri". The "i" is a dead giveaway of the "Womzi" (Lomze = Womzhe) area. Likewise a neigboring shtetl "GrajEwo"))Yiddish "Grajvi". This is NOT a feature of Southeastern Yiddish. Mikhl Herzog 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Jul 94 11:17 EDT From: ZOGUR@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Subject: Oyberland/Unterland Meyshke Alpert: You DO get around. On the matter of Oyberland and Unterland, see i) Uriel Weinreich "Western Traits in Transcarpathian Yiddish" in the Festschrift _For Max Weinreich_; and ii) M. Hutterer in _Field of Yiddish_ III. I have a tape recording of Hutterer explicitly illustrating the phonological differences between the two areas. The Atlas has recordings of a couple of dozen native speakers of this rather unusual linguistic area. And, speaking of Womzi/Grajvi, as we were, perhaps you could elicit a copy of that recording we spoke of. I called the person you referred me to, thus far to no avail. Mikhl Herzog 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 23:34:05 -0400 From: bsg@world.std.com Subject: Zawel Kwartin I guess I've been elected to be the local expert on Zawel Kwartin. Kwartin was one of the pivotal luminaries of the Golden Age of Chazzanuth (cantorial singing) in the 20's and 30's, whose center was not Warsaw or Vilna, but New York; more of the great Cantors wound up there than not. Zevulun (nickname "Zavel" in English orthography, "Sawel" in German, "Zawel" in Polish) Kwartin was born in either Novoarkhangelsk, or Chonorod (depending on your source) Ukraine, in 1874. Apprenticed to a bookbinder and a locksmith, he was working in the grain, feed, and textile businesses with his family when his brother-in-law urged him to become a Chazzan. He first was discouraged from being a Chazzan, and encouraged to seek opera and concert appearances. A year after his marriage at 22, he went to Vienna to study Chazzanuth. He took a position as Chazzan in 1898 in Yelizavetgrad. He officiated in Vienna and St. Petersburg, and for ten years at Budapest (he left Russia because of the antisemitic atmosphere). In 1919 he came to Temple Emanuel, Boro Park, Brooklyn, and made his reputation and many recordings. In 1926 he moved to Israel. He gave concerts and conducted services there, and acquired property. In 1937, he returned to the US and took a position in Newark, New Jersey. He published three volumes of cantorial improvisations, -Zemiroth Zebulon- (1928, 1938), and an autobiography in Yiddish, -Mein Leben- (1951), which seems pretty hard to find (I couldn't at the Hebrew Teacher's College Library, Brookline/Boston). He died in either '52 or '53, depending on source. So much for Encyclopaedia Judaica and the carefully-photocopied backs of ancient record albums. Kwartin, Josef Rosenblatt, and Mordecai Hershmann were the three biggest names of the Golden Age of Chazzanuth. There were many others. NY Jews of my parents' and grandparents' generations (in the 20's and 30's) would admire and adulate these precentors as people do today's rock stars. Each had their own advocates and partisans. While Rosenblatt, surely the most famous (Jewish) Cantor of all time (I can think of a more famous person who held that title in Leipzig once), was without doubt the possessor of the most dazzling array of virtuosity and techniques, I, for one, find much in Kwartin's recorded legacy I find lacking in Rosenblatt's, and earnestness, directness, and from-the-heartness which cuts right to my center. Kwartin was a lyric bass-baritone who sang with great strength, sincerity, and majesty, sounding more like sincere Jewish prayer where Rosenblatt sounds more like art music. Kurt List wrote in -Commentary- in 1946 that Kwartin had "the best voice of the three and the best followed cantorial style." There is plenty of Zawel Kwartin on record, although, like all recorded Cantorial repertoire, shoddily-produced re-issues provide for much disappointment. In particular, the 1961 release "The Days of Awe" (S'lichot, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur selections) (surely a collection of early 78's), Collector's Guild CG-620 (available on reissue tape but wholly without the excellent documentation of the original), is rated (by other recent CD liner notes!) as one of the most magnificent of all works of recorded Cantorial art and still an inspiration to all aspiring Chazzonim; it is surely my favorite of my many Cantorial recordings. His composition/rendition of the -very- theologically difficult Aramaic S'lichoth prayer, "Moron d'Vishmayo" (which addresses the Deity as one holding Israel hostage), starting on G in Basso and climbing up the G minor scale with increasing fury and harmonic intensity is a gut-wrenching piece worthy of any opera; His setting of Psalm 24 ("L'Dovid Mismor") following, drenched in the pain and agony which are the bitter fruit of the Diaspora, relates the plight of Jewry in unmistakable musical terms. Others of his most famous compositions fill out the disk. His "Umpnej Chatoeijnu", one no-less theologically difficult text ("on account of our sins we were exiled from our land and cannot pray in our Temple") appears on several collections, and once more gives the feeling "this is what Chazzanuth is about," an ineffable mixture of awe, fear, and sadness that arises only when Chazzanuth is IMHO "done right." Unlike Rosenblatt and Hershmann, Kwartin seems to have recorded no folk songs or secular repertoire -- one thinks of Palestrina, Lasso, and the intense mystic Victoria in almost the same relationship. If Rosenblatt was Nat King Cole, Kwartin was Ray Charles. OK, you get the idea, I really like the work of Zawel Kwartin and have collected quite a bit of it. I will be incommunicado for about a week, and will not be able to follow up on this discussion until then, so keep it warm for me. For a discussion of "why is this style of Chazzonuth no longer popular", wait until then. Anyone with more info or corrections or improvements or even first-hand recollections, please contribute... Bernard S. Greenberg ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 4.067 A Table of Contents is now available via anonymous ftp, along with weekly updates. Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files Archives available via gopher on: gopher.cic.net Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a meaningful Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. Send articles to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@mail.trincoll.edu