In Search of the Original Tunes: Siegmund Schul’s and Salomon Lieben’s ‘Collection of Old Prague Synagogue Chants’ (1935–1941)
In Search of the Original Tunes: Siegmund Schul’s and Salomon Lieben’s ‘Collection of Old Prague Synagogue Chants’ (1935–1941)

Summary/Abstract: This paper explores a transcription and analysis project of Jewish prayer tunes in Prague undertaken at the eve of the Shoah. From 1935 to 1941, the music student and composer Siegmund Schul (1916–1944) wrote down the repertoire known to the physician Salomon Lieben (1884–1942), who officiated regularly as a prayer leader in the Lieben Shul, a small orthodox family-based minyan in Prague. The result was the Sbírka staropražských synagogálních zpìvù (Collection of Old Prague Synagogue Chants), containing manuscript notations of more than 200 prayer chants. In addition to documenting the chants, Schul sought to determine their origin and age. On the basis of the unpublished Collection, archival material and interviews with eye-witnesses, this paper examines the development process, methods and objectives of the project, placing it in the context of period Jewish music scholarship.

• Details
• Contents