Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 6.162 December 25, 1996 1) Achron's "Stempenyu" (Ron Robboy) 2) When is one considered a Yiddishist? (Rick Turkel) 3) When is one considered a Yiddishist? (Arnie Kuzmack) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 16:25:35 -0800 From: rrobboy@cts.com Subject: Achron's "Stempenyu" I was just last week leafing through the November issue of The Strad, a British monthly devoted to violin connoisseurship and the culture of fine string instruments, and was startled to see an advertisement for a new CD by Israeli violinist Hagai Shaham entitled "Stempenyu: The violin music of Joseph Achron"; and then in Yiddish (NOT romanized), _Stempenyu: der fidl muzik fun Yosef Akhron_. The inter-war-period stylized Yiddish script stands out conspicuously in this magazine, believe me. The price given for the CD is eight pounds sterling, or twelve dollars U.S., from: Biddulph Recordings 34 - St George Street, Hanover Square, London W1R OND, England. The ad closes with the note, "This special offer for Strad readers which includes p & p expires 31 December 1996." As one looks closely at the Yiddish letters in the layout, one can see the telltale serration of digital graphics -- absent from the English-language typeface -- and one assumes that this was scanned from the 1932 sheet music edition of Achron's "Stempenyu Suite." I myself, the reader correctly infers, have never seen this music, but that is the date of publication given in Sendrey's still indispensable "Bibliography of Jewish Music." Achron, a composer and violinist, was yet one more virtuoso to emerge from the class of the legendary Leopold Auer at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Unlike many of his colleagues, however, he became involved early in the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music, and his "Hebrew Melody" (1911), as it was widely known in the West, became immensely influential in the "Modern Renaissance of Jewish Music," or so Albert Weisser calls the early twentieth-century movement among Russian-born Jewish composers in his book of the same name (1954; reprinted 1983). Weisser says that Achron originally wrote his incidental music to "Stempenyu" for a 1918 Petrograd production by Alexander Granovsky -- presumably based on the adaptation Sholem Aleichem had made a decade earlier of his seminal 1880s novel. ("Stempenyu," the book, tells of a klezmer fiddler of the same name; of his kapelye whose members speak in lexicographically footnoted authentic klezmer loshn; and of di yidishe tokhter Rokhele di sheyne, who resisted seduction by the notorious fiddler. The author famously dedicated his "yidisher roman" to Mendele Moykher Sforim.) Director Granovsky soon thereafter founded the revolutionary Moscow State Yiddish Theater, where he was eventually succeeded by the great Solomon Mikhoels. Joseph Achron settled in America in 1925, and died in Los Angeles in the 1940s. (Granovsky and Sendrey both spent their final years in Hollywood as well, for those Mendelistn who appreciate symmetry in their historical narratives.) Having said all this, I haven't received a copy of the CD yet, so I don't know for sure what's on it, whether the Stempenyu music is from the published version, or what other work by Achron is represented. In short, I don't know what I'm talking about, but hope to soon! I have no connection with The Strad or Biddulph Recordings. Ron Robboy 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 00:17:18 -0500 From: rturkel@cas.org Subject: When is one considered a Yiddishist? In Mendele 6.152, Iosif Vaisman wrote: But, on a serious note, the classical definition of an Yiddishist was offered by Sholem Aleichem in "Kasrilevke progres" (chapter XII, "Idishistn un hebreistn"). There we learn that if one pronounces _mikhnosaim_ he (or she) is clearly an Yiddishist. But, if _mikhnataim_ is your choice, then sorry. The club is closed. Since then I have received seven more issues of Mendele (not counting Personals) containing not one reference to "_mikhnataim_." This surprises me greatly because I can't believe Sholem Aleichem really wrote this as posted. By this definition there are _no_ Hebraists, since there is no such word in Hebrew - the word for "pants" in Hebrew is spelled with a samekh, not a tav. Am I missing something here, or am I the only one who posts to Mendele who knows any Modern Hebrew? Rick Turkel 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 13:57:18 -0500 (EST) From: kuzmack@cpcug.org Subject: When is one considered a Yiddishist? Re Sholem Aleykhem's use of miknosayim/mikhnatayim to distinguish Yiddishits from Hebraists, it sounds like he was poking fun at the pretentiousness of Hebraists using the "new" Sephardic pronunciation. In reality, of course, the Hebrew word uses samekh, which is pronounced [s] by members of all political parties. Arnie Kuzmack ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 6.162