Month: May 2024

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18 Klezmer, Romanian and Tango pieces by Joseph Moskowitz (1921-40)

These are some copyright scores by cimbalom player Joseph Moskowitz which I got from the US Library of Congress back in 2023. In a way, these scores were how I first realized that the LOC had a much larger collection of handwritten klezmer copyright scores which they hadn’t posted online, as I mentioned in my first post last year. The exception among these pieces was Adjuder Chusid which the LOC did add to their digital collection a while ago. Ordering these was an early test for whether it could be done, how much it would cost and how long it would take. Unfortunately, no one knows what happened to Moskowitz’s personal music files, so his recorded output and these scores are pretty much all the documentation we have of his decades of performing and composing.

I would separate these into two main groups: a set of mostly Romanian-style pieces from 1921, which he never recorded, and another set of Romanian-style pieces from 1928, which he recorded with Alexander Olshanetsky’s orchestra. (The best way to stream those excellent recordings would probably be here on the Mayrent Collection.) And then there are a few pieces from other years which he didn’t record. Here are the scores; if you prefer PDF format you can access them here in my Google Drive.

Thanks to Christina Crowder, Yoni K., Dan K.-T., Pete Rushefsky, and Paul Gifford who helped me sort out and order these scores from the LOC a few years ago. And, if you end up recording or performing some of these unrecorded pieces, once again I’d love to know about it, feel free to reach out or post it in the comments here.

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Research Summary

15 Klezmer pieces by Isidore Moscovitz (New York, 1925-27)

I recently received another batch of digitized klezmer copyright scores from the U. S. Library of Congress. (You can see the whole batch here on google drive, which includes some other scores by I. J. Hochman.) I was pleased to finally get 15 of the 16 scores by Isidore Moscovitz, a klezmer from New York. (The LOC couldn’t locate the 16th, a 1926 piece called “Rumanian folks dance; by I. Moscovitz.”) As I mentioned in my post about US klezmer copyright scores, I was especially curious about Moscovitz since he wasn’t a known recording artist or bandleader from the 78 rpm recording industry.

I was hoping that the scores would contain some extra information that would help me identify Moscovitz, but unfortunately there was nothing beyond the music and title info. A friend suggested comparing his signature on the music to ones in immigration documents, which is an interesting idea I’ll have to look into later.

My basic assumption is that he was a klezmer born in Romania in the late nineteenth century, who emigrated to New York and became a citizen by the 1910s. Based on some of the place names in his tune titles (Iași, Galați, Brăila), maybe he was from the Eastern or Moldavian part of Romania, like his more famous New York contemporaries Joseph Moskowitz and Max Leibowitz. Like the tunes copyrighted or recorded by those two, they consist of a mix of husids, sirbas, bulgars, etc. I have no idea if he composed these, if he learned them in Romania or New York, or what motivated him to copyright pieces without apparently recording or publishing them.

Here are the pieces. The scans are not particularly high quality, but if you want the original scans go find the PDFs in the Google Drive I linked at the top. I’d love to know if you play or record them, feel free to get in touch.