Resource Recordings for Klezmer Music from the early 20th century,

collected, edited & produced by Kurt Bjorling.

Jacob Gegna (Gegner)
“Taxim,” and “A Tfileh fun Mandel Beilis”
– recorded in New York, 1921, with (possibly Lazar Weiner) piano accompaniment.

Abe Schwartz
“National Hora” Parts 1 and 2, “Rumanian Doina,” and “Oriental Hora”
– recorded in New York, 1920, with Sylvia Schwartz, piano.

M. I Rabinovich
“Bazetsn di Kale” parts 1 and 2
– recorded in Kiev, 1938, this is a recording of a large klezmer orchestra with stage actors performing a piece of badkhones. The piece features several extended violin solos of extraordinary virtuosity and expressivity.

Shloimke Beckerman:
1923: Trinkt Briderlakh Lekhayim, Tants-a-Freylikhs, Ot Azoy, Yismekhu, T’kias, A Galitsianer Tentsl
1924: Ayropeyishe Komarinska, Siz Freylakh Bay Yidn

Unknown date and ensemble: Ukrainian Potpurri, Russian Dances

Belf’s Romanian Orchestra – Rumynski Orkestr Belfa – Edition 2, May 2003

The ‘Belf’s Romanian Orchestra’ is a quartet consisting of clarinet, two violins, and piano. They recorded at least 60 pieces for the Syrena record company from 1912-14. Syrena was a Russian-owned record company operating in Warsaw before the First World War. These records are rare today, but they were highly influential, in both America and Europe, at the time they were made and distributed. These same recordings have also been highly influential in the ‘klezmer revival’ of today. The Belf Orchestra recorded at least 28 pieces for two other record companies, Amur and Extraphon, but none of these are yet known to exist in any collection.*
The translated label information for the Syrena disk is as follows:

Romanian Orchestra
under the direction of
Bandleader V. Belf

Most of their recordings have Yiddish titles, or Russian titles referring to Jewish themes, so the identification of ‘Romanian Orchestra’ is confusing at first. It seems, however, that ‘Romanian’ was understood (by everyone to whom it mattered) to mean ‘Jewish.’

My previous edition of this collection contained 29 pieces. This new edition contains 37 of the Belf Orchestra’s Syrena recordings plus several more pieces by a similarly configured band which recorded copies of the Belf Orchestra’s records. ALL of the recordings in this collection were edited and restored during 2001-2002 from new transfers from original disks. Most of them now sound much better than in the earlier edition and there are many entirely new pieces.

Volume 1 contains their first 20 Syrena sides, COMPLETE, all of which were originally released in 1912. The NEW pieces are: “Moldavanskaya Dudochka,” “Bolgarskaya,” “Chaban,” “Zhok,” “Rumynski Zhok,” “Rumynski Motiv” and “Bessarabski Freilekhs.”

Volume 2 contains 17 more sides released in 1912 and 1913. In addition there are three recordings from the ‘Stella Kontsert Rekord’ company of a very good band that recorded copies of the Belf Orchestra’s Syrena records. These records are even rarer than the Syrena disks and they were not even known to exist (by anyone involved with klezmer music) until very recently. As a result, we have imitaions of records that are known to have been made by Belf’s Orchestra, but for which no surviving copies have been found!

* The most extensive research into these recordings has been done by Jeffrey Wollock and his findings were published in an article, “European Recordings of Jewish Instrumental Folk Music, 1911-14” in the ARSC Journal, volume XXVIII / i 1997. (Association for Recorded Sound Collections)

Please read this if you are not already familiar with these products

Most of the collections I have assembled and offer here are specialized. Each product deals with one or two particular artists, instruments, or genres. If you are not already familiar with old recordings of klezmer music you may find it useful to sample the various possibilities by listening to some of the more general collections that are available on commercially-produced reissues. The following are some recordings which I recommend as good general samplings of klezmer music.

This is the first modern reissue of Klezmer Music – for many of us, this was THE BEGINNING. It has been reissued in cassette format and more recently as a CD, but I don’t have information about that. Try contacting Smithsonian Folkways, but I recommend the original LP with its extensive booklet of notes.

This is a revised version of an anthology which was issued first on LP in the early 1980s. It was and still is my favorite of all such collections.
In the CD revision most of the pieces have been transferred at the correct speed so they are roughly in tune at normal pitch.

This CD was produced by Joel Rubin in Germany. The notes are entirely in German, but the music selections are very good. The sound is a little over-processed and some people find it difficult or unpleasant to listen to the sterile tone of these recordings. The pitch of the recordings has not been corrected so some pieces sound in the wrong keys (and tempos!)*

This CD has several gems, but also few novelty pieces and otherwise marginal items that I could do without. The pitch of the recordings has not been corrected so some pieces sound in the wrong keys (and tempos!)*

This CD was compiled by Rita Ottens and Joel Rubin in 1999 and it was published jointly with their book on klezmer music history. The notes to the CD are in both German and English. It is an excellent and interesting collection including some of the rarest of klezmer music examples. Again, however, the sound is filtered to such an extreme degree that some people find it difficult to listen to, and the playback speed of some of the pieces has not been corrected.*

These are not the only products of this kind, but they are some of the best.

In addition a number of recordings focusing on particular artists are issued by Global Village. The quality of the transfers tends to be poor and the quality of the material chosen is erratic. But all their products are created out of love and many of them wouldn’t be there at all except for the determined efforts of producer Michael Schlesinger. Click here for their website. Click here for an interesting article about Global Village.

* Pitch and playback speed:

It is well-known that so-called “78rpm records” were not uniformly recorded at 78 rpm. In spite of this, many reissue projects fail to correct the speeds of the old disks when they are being transferred or edited. As a result, some pieces will sound faster or slower than the original performance, and consequently they also sound higher or lower in pitch. Sometimes the difference is more than a semitone in pitch, occasionally leading musicians to learn tunes in awkward keys or to have difficulty learning from the recordings. On LP reissues this is not a big problem as pitch-adjustable turntables are fairly common. But very few CD players have any kind of pitch control, so this can be an important factor in learning from the material which was improperly transferred to CD.

Sound recordings are the most important resource for learning, and learning about, klezmer music. Although the klezmer ‘revival’ has been going and growing since the late 1970s good resources have remained rare and difficult to put to practical use.

Soon after I began playing it, I came into contact with several people who had gained prominence as performers and/or researchers of klezmer music. ALL of these people relied heavily on recorded sources in acquiring their most basic knowledge about klezmer music and each of them had either actively sought out collections and archives of Jewish sound recordings or had direct access to them through others who had done this.
I was extremely fortunate in that several of these people were willing to make copies for me of some of these rare recordings. In particular, Joel Rubin, Pete Sokolow, and Henry Sapoznik, without my asking them for anything, went out of their way to send me important recordings that I didn’t even know existed. In addition, Hankus Netsky made a series of compilations on cassettes which he distributed to staff and students at YIVO’s “Klezkamp” in 1986, 87, 88, & 89. These served as a rough early model for the series of collections I now produce.

During these years I noticed two important things:

1. In spite of the growing interest and participation in klezmer music, access to valuable resources did not generally improve.
2. Those of us who taught klezmer music at workshops and ‘camps’ often made reference to these historical recordings in describing or supporting the suggestions we made – as if these resources were familiar to all our students!

I realized that if klezmer music was ever to mature as a contemporary musical style this knowledge gap would somehow have to be filled. I began bringing cassettes of klezmer music to the workshops where I taught around the world. Eventually I started receiving calls and letters from people looking for more material. This process has continued up to the present with an ongoing series of additions and refinements.

The people who use my resource collections are not just beginners at klezmer music. Many of them are leading performers and teachers, including some of the musicians who shared what they had with me when this process was just beginning.

The majority of important recordings related to historical klezmer music were made between 1910 and 1929 on shellac phonograph disks. I have a reasonably good collection of these old disks, including some rare and unique items. But most of my resource collection is on DAT, CD-Rs and cassettes – copies which I have made or which have been made for me by archives and other collectors. Over the years I have added a lot and I have vastly improved the techniques and equipment with which I handle the source recordings. Still there are some severe limitations:

1. 1. The source records, some of them one-of-a-kind, are sometimes in poor condition. Many of them were poorly recorded to begin with, so even in good condition the sound that can be got from them is poor.
2. The equipment I have is very advanced compared to home audio systems, including devices specially made for processing old phonograph records. But, as good as my equipment is, I cannot do as well as a professional working with certain extremely expensive equipment.

Some of the record companies that do issue CDs of this material will only include pieces for which a good-sounding copy exists. But some of the best and most interesting recordings of klezmer music are not to be found in such good condition! My collections are as complete as I can make them, with emphasis on material that I believe to be musically or historically important, regardless of the condition and quality of the source, so there are some almost painfully scratchy old sounds among the resources I offer.

All that having been said, however, sometimes the quality I can provide is indeed quite good and I am pleased to say that many who use these resources find the quality of some things to be superior to that of many of the CDs that are available.