BAY MIR BISTU SHEYN! From Rumania to Second Avenue

The Songs of the Yiddish Theater, Vaudeville, Radio, and Other Popular Yiddish Entertainment 6 sessions, Wednesdays February 5, 12, 26; March 4, 11, 18 Tuition: $325 YIVO members: $250** Students: $150 (Must register with valid university email address) Register

Instructor: Neil Levin, Anne E. Leibowitz Visiting Professor-in-Residence in Music

Bay mir bistu sheyn! Much of the world thinks it knows this iconic song and the legend behind it. But not really! Most know only a tiny part of it, and typically not the entire Yiddish original – much less of its birth in the American Yiddish Theater as just one of many songs in a full-length 1932 Second Avenue hit musical comedy now long forgotten. They represent but a few of the many dozens of Yiddish theatrical songs in a variety of styles and moods – music as well as lyrics – that this class will address in their social, historical, political and dramatic as well as wider musical contexts. They have been selected from among the thousands of songs composed on both sides of the Atlantic for operettas, melodramas, romantic musical comedies, salty Vaudeville routines and entertaining sketches – songs that resonated for seven decades from Yiddish theatrical stages, Yiddish films, Yiddish radio broadcasts, and popular but now rare 78 records.

We will examine and discuss the cultural roots of these Yiddish theatrical songs, the forces that inspired and informed them, the dramatic plots and twists they reinforced, the creation and development of the characters who sang them, and the special allure of this music for more than three generations of immigrant-era audiences. Class presentations will offer a wealth of historically interpreted retrospective as well as rare vintage recordings, nostalgic film clips, video oral history interview with legendary star personalities, songwriters’ and playwrights’ memoirs, newly discovered playscripts, and old manuscripts and other unique documents from YIVO’s archives supplemented by updated translations. 

This class will be conducted in English.

Dr. Neil W. Levin is a leading musicological and historical scholar and authority on the music of Jewish experience and connection in both its secular-cultural and sacred-liturgical realms. He is the Artistic Director and Editor in Chief of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music and emeritus professor of Jewish music at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Dr. Levin holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University and a PHD in Jewish music from the Jewish Theological Seminary. For many years, Dr. Levin was Editor of the scholarly journal, Musica Judaica, and in addition to two books, he has published more than 300 articles, essays, and monographs on numerous aspects of Jewishly-related music and its various historical, literary, and cultural contexts. He is YIVO’s Anne E. Leibowitz Visiting Professor-in-Residence in Music.