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Biography of A. Z. Idelsohn
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"The father of Jewish musicology".
Cantor, composer and musicologist, collector and researcher. Born 14 July 1882 in Filzburg (Felixberg), near Libau, Kurland, (now Latvia).(Britannica has his birth date as July 14; Irene Heskes as July 1). His father was a cantor and a kosher butcher. Idelsohn studied in a traditional cheder and was a choir singer.
He went to Koenigsberg in 1899, where he met Eduard Birnbaum (1855-1920) and became aware of scholarly studies of Jewish music and collections of cantorial music being amassed by several collectors in Europe. After a breif trip to London, he returned to Libau, studied with a cantor name Abraham Mordechai Rabinowitz, and sang in his choir.
In 1901, he went to Berlin and entered Stern Conservatory. Afterward he went to Leipzig Conservatory, where he also met and studied with Cantor Zevi Schneider. He also studied to be a butcher. Idelsohn married Schneider's daughter.
In 1903, he moved to Regensburg, Bavaria, and later to Johannesburg, South Africa, joining his parents.
Idelssohn made Aliyah in 1905 (Britannica says 1905; Heskes says 1906) and moved to Jerusalem, where he founded the Institute of Jewish Music (Makhon L'Shirath Yisrael) in 1910. Idelsohn's work focused on collecting and studying the traditional music of Near Eastern and North African Jews. His work becaume part of the ethnological center of Hebrew University. (The Idelsohn Archives were out of reach during Jordanian occupation of Mt. Scopus from 1948-1967. Today they are part of the Phonoteque of the Jewish Music Research Cetre at Hebrew University and have been curated by Gila Flam.)
Idelsohn studied the Yemenite Jews in Jerusalem and his first article appeared in 1907 in Luakh Luntz, in Hebrew. The article was read widely, including by members of the newly formed St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music and helped stimulate interest among them in this new material. In 1908, he published Shirey Zion (Songs of Zion).
In 1909, Gershon Ephros made his way to Jerusalem and became a friend to Idelsohn and worked for him as choir leader and assistant cantor. The two supported services in the traditional eastern European Ashkenzic of the Polish-Lithuanian minhag or custom, but they chanted in a style that incorporated elements from different traditions. In 1911, Ephros left for America and spread the knowledge he had gained in his years working with Idelsohn, starting with the two-volume Shirey Yeladim.
In 1910, with funding by the Vienna Academy of Sciences, and with help from members of the Ezra Society in Europe, Idelsohn began collecting from oral tradition the music of various European, Asian, and North African Jewish groups and recording them on cyclinders. Together with his transcriptions, and information on their customs, family and educational backgrounds and literature of his informants, this comprises one of most important Jewish musicological and linguistic collections in the world today. These 1,000 plus recordings made by Idelsohn provided a basis for the first comparative study of Jewish biblical cantillation (intoned recitation) and demonstrated an underlying unity in the religious chants even among geographically widely separated groups. The cyclinders remain even today at the Vienna Academy of Sciences.
During World War I, Idelsohn became a bandmaster in the Turkish army. After the war in 1919, he tried to reestablish his school in Jerusalem, but it failed.
In 1921, he began publication of the Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental Melodies, 10 vol. (1921- 32) which took over ten years to publish in Germany and Jerusalem. His introductions were in English, German and Hebrew.
This work, especially those of the chants of the Yemenite Jews, also led to his further research demonstrating the close relationship of Jewish and early Christian chants. He also did important early studies of the nature of the maqamat, the melodic frameworks used in Islamic music.
"In 1924, Idelsohn was appointed cataloguer and curator of the Edward Birnbaum Collection at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, where he soon became the school's professor of Jewish music and liturgy."
Idelsohn also composed the first Hebrew opera, Yiftah(1922; Jephthah), which incorporates traditional melodies; an unfinished opera, Eliyahu (Elijah); and the song Hava nagila (Come, Let's Rejoice), a setting of his own text to a melody that he adapted from a Hasidic melody. His books include Jewish Music in Its Historical Development (1929); Jewish Liturgy (1932); and Sefer ha-shirim, 2 vol. (1912-22); Book of Songs), which was the first Hebrew songbook published in Palestine. (This is the item which is available below)
Starting in the 1930s, Idelsohn started experiencing a series of debilitaing strokes that curtailed his work and productivity. By 1937, he could no longer write by hand or speak. He left for Johannesburg with his wife and daughter that summer, and
died 14 August 1938, in Johannesburg.
Material for this essay from:
"Idelsohn, Abraham Zevi." Encyclopędia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopędia Britannica Online. 19 Nov. 2006
Heskes, Irene. Passport to Jewish Music: It's History, Traditions, and Culture.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994: 12-22.
Gradenwitz, Peter. The Music of Israel: From the Biblical Era to Modern Times.
2nd Ed. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1996.
Portrait credit: This portrait hangs in the Jewish Music Research Centre, Jewish National Library, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
Photo by Judy Pinnolis.
Sefer Ha-shirim (1912),
The book opens from both right-to-left with Hebrew text, and left-to-right with German text.
The staves of the music on the Hebrew side go from right-to-left, an early attempt by Idelsohn to experiment with Jewish music following the Hebrew language. Possibly this was an influence from his neighbor Ben Yehuda, the inventor of the modern Hebrew language. At any rate, it was soon found that it is easier to teach someone to read broken text than to have everyone relearn to read music. Nevertheless Sefer Hashirim is an important historic document in the development of Jewish music. It represents not only the transplantation of eastern European and Ashkenazi culture to Israel, but the early growth of Jewish nationalism into the fabric of Jewish life. Hebrew Side-- Sefer Hashirim, I.
Sefer Hashirim Cover Pages
Sefer Hashirim Table of Contents
Sefer Hashirim Table of Contents
Sefer Hashirim Pages 10-29, Items 13-36
Sefer Hashirim Pages 30-34, Items 37-40
Sefer Hashirim Pages 36-55, Items 41-63
Sefer Hashirim Pages 56-75, Items 64-81
Sefer Hashirim Pages 76-97, Items 82-90
Sefer Hashirim Pages 98-112,Items 91-100
German Side --Liederbuch, Vol. I
Schulbucher des Hilfsvereins der deutschen Juden, Berlin. Sammlung hebraischer und deutscher Lieder fur kindergarten, Volts und hoheren schulen
Liederbuch Cover and Forward, Introduction
Liederbuch Table of Contents
Liederbuch Pages 1-8, Section I, Im Tageslauf, Items 1-10
Liederbuch Pages 9-19, Section II, Im Jahreslauf, Items 11-25
Liederbuch Pages 20-31, Section III, Marsh und Turnlieder, Items 26-40
Liederbuch Pages 32-40, Section IV, Gelegenheitslieder, Items 41-49
November 5, 2006
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