Miksa Eisikovits's Hasidic Jewish folk music collection from Maramures

Identifier
irn671421
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2018.641.1
Dates
1 Jan 1938 - 31 Dec 1939
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • Hebrew
  • Yiddish
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

oversize box

1

Creator(s)

Biographical History

Max (Miksa, Mihály) Eisikovits (1908-1983), Romanian composer, conductor, musicologist and pedagogue; from 1946 associated with the Conservatory of Music in Cluj-Napoca. In 1938-1939 Eisikovits traveled to Jewish settlements in the Máramaros region of Transylvania (then part of Hungary; currently Maramures, Romania) to collect songs from the area's Hasidic population. Eisikovits sensed that these communities were threatened; today his field notations, comprising some 160 melodies, stand as unique documentation of the music traditions of a culture that was destroyed during the Holocaust. Resuming his career after the war, Eisikovits drew on his collection for a series of folk-based art songs and instrumental compositions; decades after his death his original transcriptions were published in the volume "És a halottak újra énekelnek ..." : Eiskovits Miksa Máramarosi haszid zsidó zenei gyűjtéses (1938-1939) (After all the dead sing again ..." (Miksa Eisikovits's Hasidic Jewish music collection from Maramureş (1938-1939)), edited by Elek Judit (Budapest, 2018).

Archival History

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Acquisition

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Judit Elek

Donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Judit Elek.

Scope and Content

Photocopy of Miksa Eisikovits's (Max Eisikovits) Hasidic Jewish folk music collection from Máramaros (Maramures, Romania) documented in 1938-39. The collection consists of four school music sheet booklets with handwritten scores, annotations, and phonetic, liturgic Hebrew and Yiddish texts. Included are four additional sheets. Miska collected 160 songs during his research in Máramaros, but was unable to capture lyrics for all of them. The collection has been published as "És a halottak újra énekelnek ..." : Eiskovits Miksa Máramarosi haszid zsidó zenei gyűjtéses (1938-1939) / szerkesztette Elek Judit ; a kottsákat megfejtette és digitalizálta Melis László = "After all the dead sing again ..." : Miksa Eisikovits's Hasidic Jewish music collection from Maramureş (1938-1939) / edited by Elek Judit ; the notes have been decoded and digitalized by Melis László. [Budapest] : Dánielfilm, 2018 (M1851 .E47 2018)

System of Arrangement

The collection is arranged as a single oversize box

People

Subjects

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.