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nice thread.
the above posted song was composed, and the lyrics written, by Moshe Yess. it was first recorded by him on Megama, around 30 years ago. Megama was a duo of Yess on guitar, and a wonderful violinist named Ruby Harris. the whole album is a tear jerker.
actually, we did mention kapav-kagan and weider. i find kapav-kagan nice but very repititious. in his rachamana dianei he goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on….. the piece never ends. having said that, his style was indeed beautiful, love his kiddush.
kwartin was the same way, his pieces were almost all the same, but his style has become his trademark.
There’s a tape around of paul zim training with Moshe. he’s saying yehe raava.. from the end of brich shmei. Moshe corrects him on the pronunciation of the word “Libai”.
it’s interesting that Yossele says Libi instead of Libai in his brich shmei. (that’s probably why Zim said it like that.) is that a valid girsa, or did Yossele make a mistake?
On that note, does anyone know of any other mistakes that were recorded in chazzanus?
I must agree,
with Mr. Ben Levi.
It’s interesting that you pick on Yossele’s Ohr chodosh al tzion tair… That’s on one of his lesser known albums, where some of the pieces are not spectacular. but that ohr chadash is indeed a classic. it also is within the realm of nussach so it’s available for noshing…so long as you can get back to nusach for the end of the bracha.
also on that album worth noting, is Tzadik Rebbi Elazar ben Shamua.
see what happens? we start talking about sephardic chazzanut and the whole thread disintergrates……
i saw an ad for a concert with Sol Zim. where does he fall into the picture of chazzanus?
there was a sefardic chazzan, i think his name was Ben Soussan, who was into “regular” chazzanus around 15 yrs ago. he sang MK stuff basically.
what makes a sefardic baal tefilah a Chazzan? do they sing different types of songs.
i personally always love chapping a minyan by the sefardim. the way they daven together is beautiful. I used to go to bnei yosef (corner ocean Pkwy and ave P) sometimes. the aroma of strong turkish coffe was also tantalizing:-)
OK, how about chazzan weider. I love his ahava raba. i kinda think that stern noshed alot from his style.
and how about sydney shikoff. he had a gorgeous voice. such color. he has a wonderful Galei.
and lastly i’ll bring up Richard Tucker. his voice was a little too operatic for my taste, but he was a zugger. for ex. his yiru eineinu..
cantoresq, that’s insulting. i thought I was a real meivin 🙂
ah! hershman’s brocho fun halel. that’s another piece that anyone can nosh from at the amud. the Asher kidshonu.. and also the Vtzivonu..
cantoresq, where can i get the Pinchik R”H davening?
i love shomah vatismach tzion. the tune brings out the words nicely.
btw, have any of you ever heard Teleshevsky’s Vnirahu ayin bayin? It’s nicely fashioned after pinchik.
what classifies a falcetto?
some chazzanim use a voice that’s kinda in between. namely Shlisky, for example in his Uvmakhalos rivivos at the end he goes into an in between voice. he sounds like a malach. in other places he does a much thinner falcetto. (I’m not talking about the chazzanim (whom shall remain nameless) that didn’t have a proper falcetto, only a throaty squeak.)
Yankele, first of all it’s not worth going into debt to hear a chazzan, even Yossele.
second of all, this is my advice to you. get a high quality cd player with earphones. next, put in Hershman’s Modim, pintchik rozo dshabbos, Glantz’s tal etc. Next, go into a dark room by yourself and turn the volume VERY LOUD. after you’re done tell us if you’re moved.
my point is you’ll be moved by many chazzanim, and at that moment you’ll think it’s the most moving piece ever. it depends on the time, place, mood you’re in etc.
Helfgot is very nice.:-)
who composed MK’s aneinu? Hershman sang it before him, although of course MK put his signature on it. hershman’s is beautiful in a hershman way. that’s what’s nice about real chazzanim, even when they say yenem’s they put their touch on it. not like today…blah blah blah…..
actually, chaim adler sings kwartin’s ribono shel olam and besides for kinda fixing it up (he takes out alot of the kwartinisms), he also leaves his touch on it.
speaking of roitman, is it true that he composed Ashamnu mikol am & Kol birama nishma that Rosenblatt recorded? if yes, why did rosenblatt record davka those 2 pieces from someone else. are there others that are also not his. I read somewhere that Uvnucho yomar is an Italian opera composition.
i happen to like roitman’s rendition of ashamnu better.
How about Malavsky. Before he made his chazzanus a family business it was very pleasant. to me Maran Dvishmaya is a classic. it’s one of those that you say to yourself every day of slichos. even later he was great. i can’t stand when his tuchter skreeches kvakoros. anyone whose married understands this…:-)
all kiding aside ato yodea rozie olam, bayn maylitz yosher and shomea kol bichyos are all tear jerkers.
altermirer, as an altermirer you should really use punctuation. R’ Yerucham ZT”L was not big on texting:-)
todays crop unfortunately don’t interest me too much. however i must say, i only heard Yanky Lemmer once, by a private type kumzits thing where he sang a yiddish song from Hershman. I was very impressed with the professionalism and technique.
i heard from a reliable source that Ganchoff expressed his feeling that the Koussevitskys to an extent destroyed chazzanus, in the sense that it became High C or nothing. the hamon am lost appreciation for the finer points of chazzanus.( i can see why ganchoff would feel this way, he kinda played second fiddle to MK). while we can debate the truth of this statement, one thing it definately did was ruin many chazzanim of today, that are busy screaming instead of learning the art. i don’t want to mention names.
just wondering, where does Rosenblatt come into all of this????
altermirer, the shlisky mizmor ldovid was not his composition. cantoresq will tell us who’s it is. and for the life of me i can’t understand why he would not sing till the end of the perek. the piece stops by ki ata imadi. i once heard a chazzan sing it by a levaya, he had to improvise in the end…didn’t really shtim.
cantoresq, do you agree that the Moshe tapes are fast?
cantoresq, that’s right, i was refering to the oz leamo yetain….totally off the charts.
it sounds to me like in almost all the live MK shabbosim the tapes are running a little fast, so i don’t think he hit a D and change. there’s a recording of the first two brachos of shmone esrei where he does his famous Avos where the tape is a good note and a half fast. incidentaly i was told by a MK extremist that once a year he would do his Avos. the outstanding part in my opinion is the Mi chomocho baal gevuros… comprable to the above mentioned Oz leamo yetain.
chagy wasw magnificent, i happen to use his yishtabach all the time. it’s a nusach piece and the end fits beautifuly without repeating, especially if you daven sefard, you gain some space.
Sirota’s gadlus was lost to us through his recordings.
Karniol was like Chagy on steriods 🙂
cantoresq, when i would be by a cantorial concert i would ask the older folk who they heard live, some heard many chazzanim even hershman and chagy in beth el. they ALL said hands down noone came close to MK at the amud. they said you sat there mesmerised. just reporting what i heard. from the live friday night recording that’s around it’s possible to hear it a bit, especially by the end of mizmor Ldovid. i’m sure you know what i’m refering to.
also, i imagine when you say you don’t analyse by recordings, but rather by live stuff, it’s because that’s where the origanality comes out, if there is any. sadly today it’s hard to hear a chidush from any chazzan. the recycling has gotten way outa hand. (there may be an exception out there, perhaps chaim adler)
someone once critisized MK for stealing pieces for himself. to which he answered “ganvinin darft men oich kenen!”. aint that true.
BTW how do you analyze a chazzan by reading a review??
altermirer, it is a shame that stern screamed himself to an early demise (in chazzanus at least). he’s really a beautiful baratone. the warsaw MK just was in a rush to get to the big notes. when he got older he calmed down. his style was basically the same.
that’s facinating. i have also heard the Moshe Koussevitzky recordings, and i agree with you that the thrill was the presence and perfection, he was like a king up there.
i never heard the pintchik R”H, but it happens to be, that the first piece of chazzanus that i really heard (I was 10 yrs old),and the one that hooked me, was a snipet of Pinchik from a live shachris at the end of Ahavas Olam. Vrachamecha h’ elokeinu…….. WOW, that totally blew me away!
PS now i see you’re really a maven 🙂
cantoresq, that’s a good way to put it, bread and butter. the truth is, the way he would “get into” the davening was amazing.
i’m not a big Ganchoff maven, his chazzanus was very musical,(as was Glantz). I’ve heard his Hashir shehaleviim, which is beautiful. I also know his v’liyerushalayim ircha and Habet mishomayim. He was definately a masterful chazzan, but he doesn’t give me the same rush as stern does.
Another chazzan i enjoy very much is Leibele Waldman. his Baavur David is a classic. He was a zugger as well, he has a very nice Hineni Muchan from before sfiras haomer. also a haunting but beautiful Sarfei Maalah from Yom kippur.
what do you think of him? have you ever heard him live?
Mod,Why thank you very much!! that was very kind!!
I think Moshe stern deserves to be counted among the “old” chazzanim. meaning those that defined the way we know chazzanus today. as much as he was busy copying M Koussivitsky, his style was uniqe. stern, in his good days, at the amud was something special.
maybe cantoresq can fill me in on where that style of chazzanus came from.
my favorite stern pieces are his vhu rachum, his midnight slichos and brach dodi (which helfgot resings on one of his albums. also stern would use that composition to the words of shir hamaalos before mariv)
chanie t, my uncle told me that another song they banned at that time in torah vdaas was…….Al hanisim val hapurkon….now they sing it Everywhere. go figure
my point is, if you enjoyed the art you would be more tolerant to them. i’m not saying you’re wrong in your appraisal of them, i’m just saying you would still enjoy it.
halfagirl, i agree, you can tell the difference
mod, do you think people are not interested in chazzanus because the davening takes too long and the chazzanim weren’t frum?
if anything it’s oppisite, since they don’t like chazzanus, they think it takes too long. i’ve been able to sit through hours of davening listening to stern, adler, miller, herstik, motzen and others….
the frumkiet issue is an indipendent one and does not affect it someone likes chazzanus in general.
can we keep this thread on the topic it was started as, and not get pulled down into the old, typical,stale debate of chazzanim that weren’t frum? let’s keep it fresh.
anyone have a favorite chazzan or shtickel………ANYONE?
it’s one thing if he approaches the amud humbly. here we’re talking about a grandiose performance at the amud, for someone who’s not shomer mitzvos it’s making a mockery of tefilah.
it’s a pretty unsettling feeling when the baal tefilah is lacking in shmiras hamitzvos and he’s getting all hartzig at the amud. unless the chazzan is an ehrliche yid, such as chaim adler, i’d rather hear him on tape or in concert…
i LOVE the analogy!! i happen to know a few people who have this minhag. although they never expressed it so elequently.
similarly, on erev yom kippur, my father would listen to Malavsky’s Ata yodeia rozey olam… just to get into the mood. what a piece!
what makes them special is that besides being beautiful, they also have a wonderful setup (for lack of a better word) meaning a very defined beginning, rising emotion, a climax and an ending. while all pieces basically have this, in these pieces (and others) it is done beautifully.
i agree. in general five of the greatest cantorial selections in my opinion: 1) hershman- modim 2) Pinchik- rozo dshabbos 3) M. koussevitsky- Aneinu 4)Yossele- yaaleh 5)Shlisky- ana bikoach.
would love to here someone else’s favorites.
dok36 what happened to you, you started this thread!
cantoresq, do you go for Glantz’s super interpritive/artsy stuff or just for his more standard pieces like shema yistoel, birchas kohanim and tal?
cantoresq, you’re over my head with the geographical aspects (although i appreciate the new info), i was refering to their sound as opposed to koussevitsky and co.
cantoresq, i notice your favorites were glantz, ganchoff and pintchik. if you appreciate their style, you would enjoy listening to chazzan Joseph Shlisky. perhaps you have heard him already. he passed away many years ago after a career that was cut very short due to a stroke. he recorded two albums, both of which are beyond phenominal. a lyric tenor with alot to say.
I agree that davening in a shul with a real chazzan at the amud is not davening. Actually when my chevra wanted to go hear chazzan hershtik in the great synagouge in yerushalayim, we would first daven at six, then go to the great synagouge.
that being said, chazzanus in general is a facinating art. i was raised with chazzanus playing in my house almost constantly.