YIVO Hosted Concert Performance of Reconstructed 'Shir-Hashirim'

On December 11, 2023, YIVO hosted a concert performance of the songs of Joseph Rumshinsky and Anshel Shor’s 1911 operetta, Shir-hashirim: Dos lid fun libe, also known as “The Song of Love.” A musical comedy, Shir-hashirim features several interlocking love triangles that include an aging composer along with his children and their lovers and friends. The work also touches on serious topics including mortality and women’s suffrage. Filled with impressive solos, duets, and ensemble numbers, Shir-hashirim was so popular that a 1935 film was made based on it, and, according to Rumshinsky, a teenage George Gershwin could play its score by heart.

This performance was the culmination of over a year’s work to reconstruct performance materials from a variety of archival sources by Ronald Robboy, Max Friedman, and Alex Weiser. Five sets of parts for Shir-hashirim exist in the music component of YIVO’s pre-war Esther Rachel Kaminska Museum collection (RG 7), drafts of the libretto exist in the Papers of Anshel Shor and Dora Weissman (RG 689) and a variety of published materials exist including a piano-album, various 78rpm commercial recordings, and an unauthorized published libretto (translated by Allen Lewis Rickman during the course of the project). To supplement these materials, Robboy and Weiser sought additional sources in Rumshinsky’s papers at UCLA and in a collection of radio recordings at the Library of Congress.

The December performance revealed some of the show’s incredible musical details which couldn’t be gleaned from the over-simplified piano song sheets that were sold by the Hebrew Publishing Company for amateurs to play at home or even from the 78rpm commercial recordings made by Yiddish theater stars. For example: The introduction to the title song Dos lid fun libe (The Song of Love) features a Liszt-ian piano prelude. The love duet, Hofenung zise (Sweet Hope) features a convincingly faux-Italian introduction and some comedic chatter in which the stars decide to sing in Yiddish, “so that the older folks will also understand.” The culminating Gavotte features incredibly beautiful, intricate, and virtuosic choral writing which is absent in the published sources. These and other wonderful details made palpable how Rumshinsky wasn’t just a popular songsmith, but a gifted composer with serious ambitions for music of the Yiddish stage.

The operetta was performed by students of the Bard Conservatory Vocal Arts Program, who were led in their preparation by Bard faculty: singer Lucy Fitz Gibbon—who herself has performed for YIVO many times—and acclaimed pianist Kayo Iwama. Additional Yiddish coaching was provided by Robboy as well as YIVO’s own Lorin Sklamberg. Watch the performance below and view the beautiful program booklet created for the evening (designed by YIVO’s Alix Brandwein) which includes song texts in Yiddish, transliteration, and English, (proofread by YIVO’s own Dovid Braun), and a variety of valuable essays by Robboy.