Paraphrase of popular Aramaic folk song, Chad Gadya
Lyrics: I. Lukowsky; Melody: M. Gelbart
Choral arrangement: Binyumen Schaechter (2017)
Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus
דער ייִדישער פֿילהאַרמאָנישער כאָר
(formerly Jewish People's Philharmonic Chorus / JPPC)
Binyumen Schaechter, Conductor
בנימין שעכטער, דיריגענט
Filmed live in performance
October 14, 2018, Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
at the encore concert of
"To Everything There Is a Season: The Year in Yiddish Song"
(World Premiere: June 10, 2018, Merkin Concert Hall)
Videography: Asaf Blasberg: asafblasberg.com
Post-Production: Avi Eisen, Leyzer Gillig, Libi Miransky, Binyumen Schaechter, and Paulette Schneider
"Liner notes" (below): Binyumen Schaechter
Website: www.YiddishChor...
Contact: info@YiddishChorus.org
Facebook: / yiddishphilharmonicchorus
You can view this video either with subtitles in English plus transliterated Yiddish (the default) or with Yiddish in the Yiddish alphabet. For the Yiddish only, click on Settings in the lower right corner of the RU-vid video player. To disable subtitles, click on CC.
Chad Gadya is a popular Aramaic folksong traditionally sung at the conclusion of the Passover seder. It has many verses. Starting in the 1930s, a shortened (8-quatrain) Yiddish paraphrasing of the original was sung at the annual secular Third Seder of the Workmen’s Circle / Arbeter Ring. This shortened text, attributed to I. Lukowsky (with a new melody by Mikhl Gelbart), was used for the choral arrangement performed here.
The first six of the eight quatrains follow a similar structure: they each take their time telling one part of the story, and they use perfect rhymes. The last two quatrains rush the story ahead and use, instead of perfect rhymes, an identity (rhyming “oys” with “oys”) and an imperfect rhyme (rhyming “glantst” with “tants”). Binyumen Schaechter, creator of this choral arrangement, reasoned that these last two quatrains couldn’t have been part of the original Yiddish adaptation and must have been concocted by someone later on to tie up the story neatly. But he found no proof of this until after the arrangement was created and rehearsals were underway for its World Premiere, when he discovered the original and complete 16-quatrain Yiddish version that Lukowsky created (first published in the magazine גרינינקע ביימעלעך, on Sunday, March 15, 1914). Schaechter’s suspicion was confirmed: the last two quatrains sung at the Third Seders (and used in this choral arrangement) did not exist in Lukowsky’s original. But they will now be “engraved” on RU-vid for posterity.
Below, for the enjoyment of those who can read Yiddish, are two versions of Lukowsky’s original text.
A scan of the original published version from 1914:
jpress.nli.org....
An easier-to-read computerized version:
yi.wikisource....
#Passover #Seder #Yiddish
14 окт 2024
