mentalblog.com comments:
Does anyone know when and why Lubavitch abandoned this niggun? I have a partial understanding of the why of it after years of hearing it sung or played ad nauseum as the defacto International Jewish Internationale - my pardon to non-ashkenazis, but you get my point - and now this.
Another wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hav...ki/
Hava_Nagilah
Help! I've become addicted to wikipedia and I can't help myself.
We had this discussion about a year ago on this blog.I once heard that it was originally a Skverer niggun,but it might have been popular with other Chassidim in the Ukraine as well.It s a wellknown fact that the early Halutzim (many of them from chassidishe homes) "kidnapped" a lot of niggunim. Why it's not sung in Habad? Well we reverted to "yechi" as the ultimate song ר''ל.
I remember back in lubavitcher yeshiva, our rebbe told us that it was hijacked by the irreligious. It was, according to him originally a lubavitcher niggun.
just got a craving for pad thai and manischewitz
I would be surprised to learn that this was a Lubavitcher niggun.
The musician and musicologist Abraham Idelsohn recorded the niggun in Eretz Yisroel as it was sung by a group of recently arrived (from Austria-Hungary) chassidische olim led by Reb Mendel Yankelovicz. Idelsohn set the melody as an exercise for his students in a music class, and Moshe Nathanson, then a 12-year-old, chose the lyrics from Psalm 118.
Both Idelsohn and Nathansohn moved to the United States. After serving as chazzan at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, Idelsohn became a professor at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Nathanson was drafed into the Turkish army during WWI, deserted twice, and was finally liberated by Diggers from Oz. Nathanson took his place at the SAJ in 1924. He died in 1981 at the age of 82.
If you go to the youtube page with the Thailandische version, there is also a very nice rendition by a Roma brass band, adding the little Roma flourishes.
Gandalin, you mean this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_...h?
v=_l6ONNhksDY
Yes, that's it. It reminded me of the Taraf Des Haidouks.
Taraf Des Haidouks?
A Rumanian Roma (Gypsy) band, they've recorded some very beautiful music, mostly on a small French label, you might be able to buy it here as an import. Amazon has several of their albums, the one called "Band of Gypsies" is very good.
"Taraf de Haidouks" or in Rumanian, "Taraful Haiducilor" means "Gang of Bandits." Taraf also means a musical band, however. The Haidouks or Hajduks were anti-Ottoman guerrilleros in the mountains.
You know, the life of a musician is you have to work, so the bands had to be able to play all kinds of music. They might get a gig for a party at the Voivode's, so they had to know waltzes and polonaises. Then there might be a Jewish wedding, so they had to know Jewish music, too.
A group of Roma and non-Roma Hungarian musicians released an interesting album of Jewish music that the Roma had learned in this way before the Shoah, I forget the name of the album, I will look for it.
By the way, what do you think about a Roma brass band playing a Jewish niggun at a music fest in Berlin? Not what was expected by the tausendjaehrige Reich, eh?
Was that a Romanian band? I think the clip mentioned Croatian?
Gandalin,
You may be refering to a band called: Muzsikas with the singer Márta Sebestyén. They are known to 'collect' folk music in Hungary, Romania and the Balkans. I believe this is partly inspired by the work of Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly. She/they are brilliant. The two 'Jewish' albums they got are:
"Maramaros, The lost Jewish music of Transylvania" and "Szól a kakas már,
The rooster is crying".
people you got things in your heads, wow...
kushen t,
Yes, that's exactly the band I was thinking of. I don't remember which album I have. If I remember correctly, a Roma violinist played with them on the album.
Tzemach,
The band at the Berlin fest is from Serbia, I think, but they are "Roma," that is, Gypsies, not Romanian.
The Taraf de Haidouks are also Roma, but they live in Romania, and sing in Romanian, rather than Romany.
Complicated, eh?
Gandalin,
This is what they write on their site about the Roma violinist: " In our fieldtrips we indeed found two excellent Gypsy musicians who regularly played for Jews before the War: Gheorghe Covaci (known as Cioata), a "primas" (leading violinist) from Farkasrev (Vadu Izei, Rumania), and Arpad Toni, a cimbalom player from Vajdaszentivany (Voivodeni, Rumania).
As a child, Covaci used to play with his father who was a fine violinist. His father was the "primas", while Gheorghe Covaci, then as a child, accompanied him as a "kontras" (second violinist). They were invited to play at weddings and at dance parties. At Purim they went from house to house to entertain Jewish families with their performance. After the war, Covaci continued to play to those who returned from deportation."
http://www.muzsikas.hu/index2h.htm
To paraphrase the photo album of Roman Vishniac - this is music from a vanished world.
"After the war, Covaci continued to play to those who returned from deportation."
Can you imagine?
Thank you for finding this.
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