In 1930s Berlin, bookstore owner Hirsch Lewin started his Semer record label in response to a ban on Jewish musicians performing in Nazi Germany. But when synagogues and businesses were destroyed during Kristallnacht, so were the label’s arrangements and records. That is, until the ’90s when musicologist Rainer Lots spent nearly a decade tracking down more than 250 recordings from the catalog. Led by Alan Bern, the Semer Project brings those cabaret hits, Italian arias and German folk and klezmer songs to life, and the Jewish Arts Collaborative brings the ensemble of contemporary Jewish musicians to Tufts University’s Granoff Music Center on Nov. 14.
What was the music scene like when Hirsch Lewin founded his record label? Well, if you’ve ever seen a film about Berlin in the 1920s, you know that everything in the world was happening here. There was high art; there was cabaret; many of the world’s most major composers were living here at that point. There was a very vital opera scene; there were several orchestras; there were musical theaters. There was a very vital Yiddish culture scene here. So there was everything under the sun that you can imagine. And it was partly because it was so colorful that the Nazis shut down the parts of what they thought were degenerate. If we look at the moment when Lewin starts making these recordings, in 1932 before Hitler came to power and until 1938 when Kristallnacht happens, what we’re seeing is the echo of this colorful scene from the 1920s that really had probably no precedent in Western Europe.
How incredible is the nearly 10-year search that musicologist Rainer Lots went on to find the surviving recordings? Amazing. Amazing. And especially when you think of the fact that one record in those days weighed a few pounds. They were made of shellac; they’re extremely fragile. And the thought that people took those records with them when they were fleeing Nazi Germany is just in itself incredible, and that any of those records survived any of that journey.
Can you describe one song you’ll perform that resonates with you? One of them is called “Vorbei,” which means it’s over. It was sung by a young actress named Dora Gerson. It’s the ending of a love relationship song. You know, it’s “I thought it would last forever and then all of a sudden you say goodbye to me and how is it possible that it’s over.” But of course, knowing that she sings this song in the 1930s and that a few years later she was arrested and sent to Auschwitz with her family and killed there gives the whole song a poignancy and historical weight that your normal love song doesn’t have.
There’s a lot of layers to this: musicians creating their music, Lewin starting his label, Lots tracking down the recordings, and now you interpreting it all for a modern-day audience. How did it all come about? I feel very lucky that this project kind of fell in my lap. One of the singers in the ensemble, Fabian Schnedler, works at the Jewish Museum and he’s been a student of mine. So when the Jewish Museum decided that they wanted to do an exhibition about this period of time—the late ’20s and early ’30s—they ran across these recordings and Fabian said to them: “Look, you can have these recordings sitting in a dark room with little MP3 recordings of it that people can listen to when they put on headphones. Or you can have somebody create a live program with musicians who are living today in Berlin, and audiences can hear and feel what this music would have sounded like 70 years ago when young people were doing it.” In fact, the director of the Jewish Museum was sitting in the audience and after the concert she came up and said, “I agreed to put on this concert because I thought I should, you know, morally, or something like that, but I didn’t think I was going to like the music. But I loved so much what you did, and it feels to me like you are all playing this music because you really love it and you live it.” And that was the greatest thing to hear because we don’t want this to be a museum piece. We want audiences to hear us and to understand that this is real music made by real people and not to think of it as from that time and place only, but to also see it as relating to the present as well.
You’ve studied and have an interest in pop, jazz and classical. What draws you to Yiddish music? We tend to look back at Yiddish culture and think of it in terms of nostalgia, but it was a booming, very edgy culture in the beginning of the 20th century with connections to very deep folk traditions as well. And I would say that the edginess of Yiddish culture, as well as the deeper levels of Yiddish culture, all sort of got sugarcoated in a kind of a nostalgic picture of what it was. And that was an injustice to the millions and millions of people who lived that culture. I also think that Yiddish culture is not unique in this, but it was not only the six million Jews and dozens of other millions of people who were lost because of the war, but it was all of the social and cultural impulses that were coming from them and that would have continued if they had been able to continue to live.
57 orchestra members will take the Boch Wang Theatre stage alongside a 20-person choir on Oct. 21 for The Legend of Zelda—Symphony of the Goddesses. The two-hour concert—which includes a video collage that plays out a few of the game’s scenes—recreates Nintendo composer Koji Kondo’s original music, from the soundtrack of Link settling on his colored tunic to slaying dragons and racing through the forest.
THE IMPROPER’S 2017 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: DANCE | BOOKS | COMEDY | MUSIC | PERFORMING ARTS | VISUAL ART
Show Up and Tune In
An eclectic mix of concerts are hitting the stage this fall. Here's what you can't miss.
By Sarah Hagman | Photo Credit: Adam Berry | Sept. 15, 2017
Matter of Records
In 1930s Berlin, bookstore owner Hirsch Lewin started his Semer record label in response to a ban on Jewish musicians performing in Nazi Germany. But when synagogues and businesses were destroyed during Kristallnacht, so were the label’s arrangements and records. That is, until the ’90s when musicologist Rainer Lots spent nearly a decade tracking down more than 250 recordings from the catalog. Led by Alan Bern, the Semer Project brings those cabaret hits, Italian arias and German folk and klezmer songs to life, and the Jewish Arts Collaborative brings the ensemble of contemporary Jewish musicians to Tufts University’s Granoff Music Center on Nov. 14.
What was the music scene like when Hirsch Lewin founded his record label? Well, if you’ve ever seen a film about Berlin in the 1920s, you know that everything in the world was happening here. There was high art; there was cabaret; many of the world’s most major composers were living here at that point. There was a very vital opera scene; there were several orchestras; there were musical theaters. There was a very vital Yiddish culture scene here. So there was everything under the sun that you can imagine. And it was partly because it was so colorful that the Nazis shut down the parts of what they thought were degenerate. If we look at the moment when Lewin starts making these recordings, in 1932 before Hitler came to power and until 1938 when Kristallnacht happens, what we’re seeing is the echo of this colorful scene from the 1920s that really had probably no precedent in Western Europe.
How incredible is the nearly 10-year search that musicologist Rainer Lots went on to find the surviving recordings? Amazing. Amazing. And especially when you think of the fact that one record in those days weighed a few pounds. They were made of shellac; they’re extremely fragile. And the thought that people took those records with them when they were fleeing Nazi Germany is just in itself incredible, and that any of those records survived any of that journey.
Can you describe one song you’ll perform that resonates with you? One of them is called “Vorbei,” which means it’s over. It was sung by a young actress named Dora Gerson. It’s the ending of a love relationship song. You know, it’s “I thought it would last forever and then all of a sudden you say goodbye to me and how is it possible that it’s over.” But of course, knowing that she sings this song in the 1930s and that a few years later she was arrested and sent to Auschwitz with her family and killed there gives the whole song a poignancy and historical weight that your normal love song doesn’t have.
There’s a lot of layers to this: musicians creating their music, Lewin starting his label, Lots tracking down the recordings, and now you interpreting it all for a modern-day audience. How did it all come about? I feel very lucky that this project kind of fell in my lap. One of the singers in the ensemble, Fabian Schnedler, works at the Jewish Museum and he’s been a student of mine. So when the Jewish Museum decided that they wanted to do an exhibition about this period of time—the late ’20s and early ’30s—they ran across these recordings and Fabian said to them: “Look, you can have these recordings sitting in a dark room with little MP3 recordings of it that people can listen to when they put on headphones. Or you can have somebody create a live program with musicians who are living today in Berlin, and audiences can hear and feel what this music would have sounded like 70 years ago when young people were doing it.” In fact, the director of the Jewish Museum was sitting in the audience and after the concert she came up and said, “I agreed to put on this concert because I thought I should, you know, morally, or something like that, but I didn’t think I was going to like the music. But I loved so much what you did, and it feels to me like you are all playing this music because you really love it and you live it.” And that was the greatest thing to hear because we don’t want this to be a museum piece. We want audiences to hear us and to understand that this is real music made by real people and not to think of it as from that time and place only, but to also see it as relating to the present as well.
You’ve studied and have an interest in pop, jazz and classical. What draws you to Yiddish music? We tend to look back at Yiddish culture and think of it in terms of nostalgia, but it was a booming, very edgy culture in the beginning of the 20th century with connections to very deep folk traditions as well. And I would say that the edginess of Yiddish culture, as well as the deeper levels of Yiddish culture, all sort of got sugarcoated in a kind of a nostalgic picture of what it was. And that was an injustice to the millions and millions of people who lived that culture. I also think that Yiddish culture is not unique in this, but it was not only the six million Jews and dozens of other millions of people who were lost because of the war, but it was all of the social and cultural impulses that were coming from them and that would have continued if they had been able to continue to live.
Numbers Game
57 orchestra members will take the Boch Wang Theatre stage alongside a 20-person choir on Oct. 21 for The Legend of Zelda—Symphony of the Goddesses. The two-hour concert—which includes a video collage that plays out a few of the game’s scenes—recreates Nintendo composer Koji Kondo’s original music, from the soundtrack of Link settling on his colored tunic to slaying dragons and racing through the forest.
THE IMPROPER’S 2017 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: DANCE | BOOKS | COMEDY | MUSIC | PERFORMING ARTS | VISUAL ART
By Sarah Hagman
Listen Up!
Show up and tune into this eclectic mix of must-see concerts hitting the stage this season.
Emmanuel Music
Emmanuel Music pays tribute to the poetry of Allen Ginsberg with two-late night performances of Howl! on Sept. 23 in Emmanuel Church’s Parish Hall. Performed by the Arneis Quartet, the evening’s titular work gets into the Beat Generation founding father’s stay at a psychiatric institution with friend Carl Solomon and also includes Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California,” which imagines a conversation with Walt Whitman. Meanwhile, principal guest conductor John Harbison also debuts Schwartzsongs, three pieces written in the past three years to mimic the reading voice of Fresh Air classical music critic and UMass Boston professor Lloyd Schwartz.
The Boston Pops. Photo Credit: Marco Borggreve
The Boston Pops have played alfresco in Franklin Park twice before—with Arthur Fiedler in 1968 and again in 2000—but it’ll be a first when the Boston Symphony Orchestra joins on Oct. 1 for a free outdoor concert at the Playstead. Andris Nelsons is on hand to conduct the fourth movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, with Keith Lockhart leading John Williams’ favorites such as the Main Theme from Star Wars and Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, but not before a pre-concert festival filled with art exhibits, crafts and musical demonstrations.
Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield, John Medeski and Larry Grenadier. Photo Credit: Nick Suttle
Jazz greats Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield, John Medeski and Larry Grenadier joined forces for a 2014 Woodstock Jazz Festival gig, but the musicians had crossed paths before while working with legends like Miles Davis and Keith Jarrett. Now the Hudson Valley residents are touring a just-released album that taps into the background of their new hometown. In addition to original tracks, the master improvisers bring a jazz twist to Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix Experience and other classic rock hits, including Joni Mitchell’s 1970 anthem “Woodstock.” Hudson’s Celebrity Series appearance hits Berklee Performance Center on Oct. 8.
Julie Rhodes. Photo Credit: Roberto Terrones
Songwriters and authors come together for the Earfull series, established in 2001 by owners of Q Division Studios, Newtonville Books and Kendall Cafe with past guests such as the Dropkick Murphys and Dennis Lehane bringing down the house. The recently revived fall edition includes three dates at Mosesian Center for the Arts’ Black Box Theater, including Oct. 17, when 100 Days of Cake novelist Shari Goldhagen and Marblehead native and National Book Award recipient Julia Glass team up with Ron Sexsmith touring partner Kim Taylor and Americana up-and-comer Julie Rhodes.
T-Pain
T-Pain fell in love with his stripped-down NPR Tiny Desk Concert in 2014 and then showed off his synth-free chops when he opened a Dodgers game with the national anthem. Now the chart-topping rapper is taking his unplugged show on the road to just six cities, including Cambridge. For his Acoustic Tour’s Oct. 25 stop at the Sinclair, expect greatest hits like “Buy U a Drank” and “I’m Sprung”—minus the Auto-tune.
John Carpenter. Photo Credit: Philip Cosores
John Carpenter revisits some of his greatest film scores from Halloween, Escape From New York and other cult classics in his October release,
Anthology: Movie Themes, 1974-1998. The creepy chorus comes alive on Nov. 15 at Royale, when the legendary director and composer is joined by his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies—whose father, Kinks guitarist Dave Davies, played the lead for Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness theme more than two decades ago.
THE IMPROPER’S 2017 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: DANCE | BOOKS | COMEDY | MUSIC | PERFORMING ARTS | VISUAL ART
Stay a step ahead with our newsletter on the latest in Boston living.
Sign me upView All Events
Related Articles
Fountain of Youth
A record industry icon and trumpet idol spreads his rich influence...
Live Review: Nostalgia takes very different forms
Mott the Hoople and Trey Anastasio contrast the old and new at Orpheum...
Full Course
Amanda Palmer unapologetically plunges into the personal and political...
Live Review: Fleetwood Mac keeps rolling at Garden
Stevie Nicks shines, while Neil Finn and Mike Campbell flesh out band's lineup...
Winter Olympics - Feb. 11
Weekend Ideas: January 8, 2014
Standing Tall
Troy Andrews credits New Orleans mentors for fueling his own mission...
Boozy Bonds
Meryl Streep tanks in John Wells’ adaptation of August: Osage County...