Kiddush Hashem

Kiddush Hashem (A Heroic Deed [Sanctification of God’s Name])

Music and lyrics: anonymous; transcription and arrangement: D. Zisl Slepovitch.

This is another song remembered by Moshe B. from one of the several death camps he survived. He sang it as a tribute to Zhelazny, possibly a former synagogue cantor, a talented singer, in Moshe’s own words. While one can define this piece as a ballad, due to its great dramatic intensity it can be also categorized as an operatic scene, which is not untypical of the sophisticated cantorial repertoire. Such songs would typically be performed in cantors’ concerts on motz’ei Shabes (after Shabbat). Dramatis personae include the Congregation (der gantser oylom), the Old Cantor (der alter khazn), the (evil gentile) Sailor (der proster matros), the old Rabbi (der alter rov), and an Old Blind Jew (a yid a zokn a blinder) who ultimately sacrifices his life to save the community in the face of the sailor’s slander. This is one of a series of dramatic (and dramatized) Ashkenazic Jewish ballads that are not coincidentally set on the eve of Yonkiper (Yom Kippur), the Day of Atonement. This piece demonstrates nuanced registers of speech, language, and musical expression. The narration and the Jewish characters’ lines are both conveyed in Yiddish. Their musical style is expressed via the Eastern European synagogue chant (cantorial recitative) that can be heard on numerous recordings of the ‘Golden Era’ cantorial recordings by Gershon Sirota, Yossele Rozenblat, David Roitman, Moshe Koussevitzky, Zawel Kwartin, and others. The sailor’s lines, by contrast, are either spoken or move between speech and recitation, being resemblant of Sprechstimme/Sprechgesang developed in the works of Arnold Schoenberg and, simultaneously, Mikhail Gnessin, termed as Muzykalnoye Tshteniye (Musical Narration, or Reading). Another characteristic feature is the switching to German – as the ‘goyish’ language – in the sailor’s speech, which per se, and with added actor’s expression, noticeably switches the register. However, some of the ‘German’ words remain Yiddish, which is not atypical for the German folk texts created by Yiddish-speakers. Finally, the extraverbal theatrical element, the heavy knocks on the doors, complement the picture of this comprehensive operatic scene that, while fully belonging to the Eastern European Jewish musical tradition, suddenly resonates with the Brechtian theatre and plays scored by Kurt Weill at that same period. One curiosity in this text is that in the morning that followed the night of the massacre, the old cantor is reciting Kol-Nidre, although this prayer is only recited in the evening service of Yom Kippur.