The Cantorial manuscripts, mostly dating from the early 20th century, include music for solo and choral compositions for weekdays, Sabbath and holiday services, weddings and other occasions. The manuscripts are associated with twenty individual cantors from Europe and the United States. It was not always possible to ascertain whether the cantors were the composers, compilers or transcribers of the musical works. Anonymous compositions comprise more than half the Collection. In addition, the Collection includes a minimal amount of printed material, such as sheet music (some in Yiddish), booklets and a poster. The manuscripts are generally in Hebrew and in romanized Hebrew; some are in bound volumes and others are loose leaves.
The manuscripts were transferred to the Yeshiva University Archives from the University’s Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music. Cantor Noah Schall worked on the manuscripts, created tables of contents for many of them, and provided additional information about them for this project.
About the Cantors:
- Juda Appel
- Samuel D. Falk
- Abraham Frachtenberg
- Manuel Gribetz
- Emanuel Hollander
- Morris Kantor
- Chaim (Charles) Kupferschmidt
- Adolf Landmann
- Nahum of Goniadz
- Karl Neumann
- Chaim Pashkowski
- Paul Reiss
- Zeidel and Elias Rovner
- Elias Schnipelisky
- Dov Stein
- Unknown