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The first klezmer revival band, "The Klezmorim" claimed the formerly-derogatory term for the musicians as their own. Yet, on their first album, the music was "authentic Yiddish music". Naming the music after the musicians who played it is generally credited to pioneering Russian Jewish ethnomusicologist Moshe Beregovski.
Klezmer ( Yiddish: קלעזמער or כּלי־זמר) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. [1] The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these would have been played at weddings and other social functions.
Klezmer music, genre of music derived from and built upon eastern European music in the Jewish tradition. The common usage of the term developed about 1980; historically, a klezmer (plural: klezmorim or klezmers) was a male professional instrumental musician, usually Jewish, who played in a band.
The first records – in Europe in 1897, and especially in United States – also influenced the composition of the orchestras. The first known recordings of klezmer music are mainly small ensembles, like two violins and a cymbalum, with sometimes an accordion.
But by 1707, the year the first Yiddish song book, Simkhat HaNefesh, was published in Fürth, Germany, its author, Rabbi Elkhanan Kirchen, was referring to the Jewish musician as a klezmer, using the Yiddish word that now refers to a musician who plays klezmer and other genres of folk music. His book’s title, which translates from Hebrew to ...
Kapelye became the first klezmer band to tour Europe, appearing in Britain, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Germany (playing one of its best-received concerts in a Berlin mansion that had been used as a Gestapo headquarters during the Second World War).
Feb 6, 2022 · Over time it came to signify the musicians themselves, and in current usage it also refers to the musical genre of East European Jewish dance music. This lecture will look at the development of klezmer from medieval times through the 20th century, with the inclusion of photos, video and musical examples (some from Yale Strom himself).
