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Last update: 02.05.2012 |
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© 1998-2012 AUFWIND Andreas Rohde |
1 Lomir ale (Let us all) Let´s sing and party till dawn. Raise your glass and be happy, because if you are happy, you are a king. We found this song in "Antologia: evreiskaya narodnaya pesnya", published in 1998 in St. Petersburg and brought to us by Claudia after a field trip in Kiev, Ukraine. "Ukraine" is also the title of the instrumental medley, which we found in the music collection of a friend in Hamburg. The introductory doyna was written by Claudia. Lomir ale ineynem, ineynem, Lomir ale lustik zayn, Lomir zikh tsuzingen, tsuzingen, Un az es iz undz freylekh, 's iz freylekh, 2 A maysele (A story) There´s a cloud floating in the sky, but that´s just a little story, because my cloud is you. Rain is falling down and darkens the day, but when you appear there is light. There´s a windmill with turning wings that say shoo-shoo. But what moves me is you. Because you are my lover. We own a lot to writer and translator Jürgen Rennert. Aside from inspiration and encouragement, he also gave us a couple of song books containing a number of songs that were new to us. We took A maysele from a book published in 1970 at Kinderbuch Publications in New York titled "Lomir kinder singen." In himl shvimt a volkndl, Fun himl falt a regndl, Es shloft in feld a zangele, A mil, a mil a milkhele, A volkndl, a regndl, 3 Hora / Tantz Iztanbul (Dance Istanbul) A hora is a Rumanian dance in 3/8 with accent on the first and third beat. We got this one from a tape by clarinetist Bernie Marienbach that we bought in Israel.
4 Yingele nit veyn (My little boy, don't cry) A man and his son arrive in a foreign country. The boy is crying for his mother, who did not make the trip across the sea with them. The man is trying to comfort his son; he will always watch over him, always stay with him, and will never be parted from him for anything in the world. We know this song from a Victor recording by Seymour Rechtzeit (1912-2002). We bought a copy of the sheet music for 30 cents in New York, where it was published in 1942 by Henry Levkovic. A troyerik bild hob ikh gezen, Dos kind hot geshrign, az er vill zayn mamen, Yingele nit veyn, Yingele nit veyn, Eyner hot milyonen Yingele nit veyn, 5 Ketsl (Kitten) From 1938 until after WW II, Jewish ethnologist Moshe Beregovsky (1892-1961) headed several research centres for Jewish music and literature in Kiev. His collection "Evreiskaya narodnaya instrumentalnaya muzika" contains a number of pieces he transcribed and recorded himself on field trips in the Ukraine.
6 Shpil gitar (Play guitar) Play guitar until the strings will break. My sorrows will vanish once I am drunk and free from reality. Why worry about tomorrow? Fill the glasses, because wine eases the pain. Joseph und Eleanor Chana Mlotek´s three song collections "Mir trogn a gezang", "Pearls of Yiddish Song" and "Songs of Generations" contain both familiar and relatively unknown songs. Shpil gitar (from the third book) is a translation of the Russian song Tshto mnye gore by Samuel Yakovlevitsh Pokras. We don´t know who translated it into Yiddish. Shpil gitar biz mayn tsar vert oyfhern, Tsu vos-zhe zorgn farn morgn, Di tsigayner zey ruen un shlofn, Alt un shvakh, on a dakh, iz farblibn 7 Der vinter (The winter) Winter has come. Unmistakably he inhabits the land, sweeps through valleys and forests and covers everything with snow. Help me, children, I don´t have the strength to bear such cold. The son of a prominent family, Mark Varshavsky studied law in Odessa and worked as an attorney. Somehow, he found the time to write songs that became so popular that his first printed song collection was already called "Yiddishe folkslider." His popularity increased when he started to do lectures with Sholem Aleykhem (1859-1916), the classical of Yiddish writer, with Sholem Aleykhem reading from his works and Warshavsky performing his songs. We learned the instrumental piece that follows the song from a Rumanian Gypsy recording. Oy, helft mir, kinder, unter, Er fregt keynem keyn deyes, Durkh tol un velder yogt er, Mit shney gebet di felder, 8 Es zingt zikh nit (There´s nothing left to sing) The songs of joy seem to have fallen silent. Life gets more and more bitter and difficult. My heart seems to tear asunder. There´s nothing left to sing. The collaboration of Varshavsky and Aleykhem was an immediate success, but in 1905 Varshavsky fell seriously ill and died in poverty two years later. The precice date of his death is unknown. Oy entfert mir, ikh bet aykh zeyer I do i dortn trit zikh blut, 9 Ay layk shi (I like she) I´m so in love with her that my heart´s boiling, I´m dizzy and insides are dancing. She is like a little bird, she´s my blooming flower, I can´t be without her. I once had such a vivid dream about her that I snuggled up and kissed her; I woke up with my cat by my side. I love her - and that´s all. We learned I Like She from a tape by singer Aaron Lebedeff (1873-1960), released in 1973 by Greater Recordings. Lebedeff was both a successful song writer and a great singer. Ikh bin an opgekokhter, dos ze ikh shoyn akorsht, Oy, ay layk shi, oy, ay layk shi, Leyg ikh mikh nor shlofn, kholem ikh fun ir, Ikh zog aykh mentshn do benimes, 10 Kashtnboym (Chestnut tree) Once upon a time there was a mother who had a daughter with beautiful blonde hair. The girl grew into a beauty by the time she was sixteen, and her mother, too, was still attractive at 42. In the evening the boys circled the house shouting appealing lines up to the daughter. The mother thought they were calling to her. She got herself ready and told her daughter to go to bed. But the daughter replied that she wasn´t a child anymore and that the boys were calling her, not her mother. Then the mother went to bed, and the chestnut tree knocked at her window and said, When you were young I bloomed for you, but now I´m blooming for your daughter. Katshnboym, as well as Shpil gitar, is from "Songs of Generations." It was sent to the publishers by a man who heard it performed by Lola Folman and her husband Jitzchok Perlov in a dp camp in Germany after WW II. A mame hot a tekhterl, Es tsien zikh di yorelekh. Es dreyen zikh bokhurimlekh Di mame meynt dos ruft men ir, Di mame geyt in shlofshtub arayn 11 Dobranoc / Freylekhs Both instrumental pieces are from the collection of Moshe Beregovsky. Dobranoc means "Good Night" and is a melody to welcome the bride and her female relatives and friends on the shabbes before the wedding. The freylekhs, too, is part of a traditional Jewish wedding.
12 Er hot nisht (He has not) I walk across the market, look at the stands but don´t intend to buy anything. I touch everything, pears and silk, but when the merchant asks I just tell him, You don´t have what I need and what I want. What you have I don´t need, and what I need I don´t see. I´m not that young anymore and my mother is urging me to get married. There´s a decent boy around, but there´s nothing but money in his pants. He doesn´t have what he needs to turn me into a woman, and what he´s got I can only laugh at. After a concert in France, we met Abraham Lichtenboym, head of the YIVO institute in Buenos Aires. When we visited him in the institute, he gave us a tape of the kinds of songs we´d never heard before: "Yiddish songs mama never taught me" by Patsy Abbot, released on l.p. in the sixties. Er hot nisht vos ikh darf, Vu 's iz do vos felt, dort gey ikh loyfn, Du host nisht vos ikh darf, Ikh bin shoyn a meydl in di yorn, Er hot nisht vos ikh darf, Ir veyst oy mentshn vos ikh lakh, 13 Leyg dayn kop (Lay your head) Lullaby. We found this song in a volume of an East-German poetry series called "Poesiealbum." Volume no. 166 was dedicated to the poetry of Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger (1924-1942), translated from Yiddish into German. We found the Yiddish originals in "Ale Verk" by H. Leyvik, published in 1925 by The Vilna Publishing House. Leyg dayn kop oyf mayne kni, Kinder hobn shpilekhlekh, Hob nit moyre, ikh bin do, Ongeveynt un ongeklogt,
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