"Shalom Comrade" CD release - Yiddish music in the USSR, 1928-1961
From Joel Rubin:
We are pleased to announce the US release today (Feb. 14, 2006) of "Shalom Comrade!: Yiddish Music in the Soviet Union 1928-1961" (Schott Wergo SM 1627-2), the 10th production in the Jewish Music Series of CDs edited by ethnomusicologists Joel Rubin and Rita Ottens. "Shalom Comrade" and other productions of the Jewish Music Series are distributed by Harmonia Mundi USA.
For more information:
www.wergo.de
The anthology "Shalom Comrade" tells the history of Yiddish music in the Soviet Union via rare recordings from the archive of Ottens and Rubin. This carefully edited production documents the enormous variety of Yiddish music performed in the Soviet Union, from rollicking klezmer dance tunes to the interwar Polish-Jewish cabaret songs of the Galician troubadour Mordkhe Gebirtig, 19th century Yiddish folk songs, music of the Soviet Yiddish theatre, to art songs with revolutionary texts by composers such as Samuil Polonskii, Lev Pul'ver, Vladimir Shainskii and Moses Mil'ner, and texts by the poets B. Bergol'ts and Iosif Kerler. Rubin and Ottens' 40-page booklet in English and German includes a detailed essay about the political-ideological impact on Yiddish language, culture and music and in the final analysis on Jewish life in the Soviet Union.
Yiddish music played an important role in the cultural and political life of the Soviet Union's several million Jews throughout the 74 years of communist rule. Stalin's cultural ideologues planned to deploy the music of the Yiddish-speaking Jews as a building block for the new Soviet music; at the same time, the "outmoded" Jewish religion and its traditional way of life was being branded as counter-revolutionary in show trials. The recording of Jewish music in the Soviet Union was limited, with only 100-150 78 rpm discs released from 1917-1967. The importance of artists like Solomon Mikhoels and Nechama Lifshitsaite was immense for the Jews of the Soviet Union: celebrities of international significance, they were as well known for their roles as political figureheads as they were for their performances.
"Shalom Comrade" features some of the great performers of the Soviet and world stage: Misha Aleksandrovich, Sof'ia (Sonya) Druker, Mikhail Epel'baum, Solomon Fayntukh, Sara Fibikh, Marina (Masha) Gordon, Emil' Gorovets, Anna Guzik, Irma Iaunzem, Solomon Khromchenko, Nechama Lifshitsaite, Saul Liubimov, Solomon Mikhoels, the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre, Debora Pantofel'-Nechetskaia, M. I. Rabinovich, Zinovii Shul'man, Sidi Tal', Tatiana Vayntraub, and Klara Vaga.
For more information:
www.wergo.de