The origin of the Six Yiddish Scenes dates back to 2002, when I heard a moving recital by Andre Solomon-Glover, a wonderful black bass-baritone (he had sung "Old Man River" in the New York City Opera's 1993 production of Show Boat). I asked him to perform the recital again at Temple Shalom in Norwalk, where I was a member. He agreed under two conditions. One, that I would accompany him (“But Andre, you've never heard me play a single note.” “You're a composer. I like your music. You'll manage.”). The other was that I arrange some Yiddish songs for him. So I agreed.
To create the Six Scenes, I took twelve Yiddish tunes (found in AZ Idelsohn's collection of Eastern European Jewish music), including a couple of niguns (wordless melodies), and squunched them together. For example, in #1, the middle section of the ABA form was originally a separate song. In the Lullabies, one lullaby morphs into another. Similar processes occur in most of the other songs.
I had completed three of the six songs when Andre had a stroke, at only 40. He recovered, but his short-term memory wasn't strong enough to do the recital, let along learn new songs in a new language.
So now I had a song cycle but no performance. To make the piece more marketable, I made a version for high voice (Andre's was the low-voice version) and another one for chorus SATB, all with piano accompaniment.
The cycle was performed in 2005 by a soprano, Shirit-Lee Weiss, in a small cafe in Fairfield, CT. A choral version was performed in Vermont in 2008 by Robert DeCormier and his chorus, Counterpoint, accompanied by a guitar arrangement that I made at DeCormier's request (no piano was available). Unfortunately, there were no recordings of these performances. As far as I'm aware, there's also no documentation of these performances, so I think it would be legitimate to call the attached YIVO performance, by Cantor Maria Dubinsky and the composer, a premiere.
Most of the Scenes are self-explanatory. The third Scene, Lullabies, mentioned above, has a refrain of:
Got der giter
vet zayn dayn hiter
(God the good
will be your protector)
While composing this song, I couldn't help thinking that when AZ Idelsohn published these songs in 1929, it would be only a few years before the children would have no protection at all.
The Little Tailor in the fourth Scene is as poor as a churchmouse (I know, inappropriate simile), but has fantasies of pretending to be rich enough to snag a bridegroom for his daughter. By the end of the song, he has returned to reality.
The fifth Scene seemed pretty straightforward to me, a young adult child traveling far away (or possibly into death) saying farewell to the parents. Later I learned that this song was traditionally sung by the badchen (wedding MC); the farewell was supposed to be that of a bride about to become a member of another family; the point of the song was to make the parents of the bride cry.
Prokofiev used the melody of "Farewell" as a main theme in his Overture on Hebrew Melodies, a delightful piece for string quartet, clarinet and piano that my wife, Cathy Waldman, and I have performed in my arrangement for piano four hands.