Scope and arrangement
The David and Ina Shiff WEVD music collection, dating from 1889 to 1995 (bulk dates 1900s-1960s), contains scores, parts, arrangements, and sheet music for nearly 2,000 songs and compositions that were performed for live broadcasts on WEVD. The collection emphasizes the work of 20th century Jewish composers and arrangers in New York City, while providing insight into a major radio station's music programming practices. It contains no audio recordings of WEVD broadcasts.
The majority of music in the collection was assembled or arranged by WEVD in the 1930s and 1940s. Broadcast dates are listed for hundreds of songs in the collection; all of these broadcast dates range from 1959 to 1969. It is likely the songs were performed in earlier (and possibly later) years, but only broadcast dates from this range are provided.
The collection encompasses Yiddish and Hebrew folk songs; Yiddish popular music, including theater songs; Jewish liturgical music; chamber music; orchestral music; opera arias; klezmer; piano music; and American popular music. There are also songs about the establishment of the state of Israel, and musical arrangements of Yiddish poetry.
The following information is recorded in the container list for every song or composition:
- Title
- Opus number (when applicable)
- Date(s) of publication or creation
- Language(s) (when there are no lyrics, usually the language of the title is recorded)
- Instrumentation
- Type(s) of notated music
- Lyricists or other creators (when present)
- WEVD broadcast dates (when provided)
Many scores were originally housed in folders with handwritten information on them, including song titles, composer names, estimated running times, and broadcast dates. These folders are retained in the collection. Occasionally, performer last names are listed alongside broadcast dates on the folders.
Songs and compositions are represented by some combination of sheet music, full scores, parts, arrangements, vocal scores, and lyric sheets. Much of the notation in the collection is handwritten, including instrumental parts and Yiddish vocal parts arranged specifically for WEVD performances. The vast majority of these handwritten instrumental and vocal parts date from the late 1930s and 1940s (years are indicated by American Federation of Musicians stamps). A significant portion of these arrangements have never been published.
The collection also holds a large amount of published music in the form of piano/vocal scores, scores for mixed voices, orchestral parts and full scores, and song collections. Published music often features annotations, such as additional music direction and Yiddish translations written above the original text. Published music dates chiefly from the 1900s to the 1940s.
A common set for a song will include a published piano/vocal score, and later handwritten parts arranged for WEVD's house orchestra. If the published score is in a language other than Yiddish, a handwritten or typed Yiddish translation is often provided. The published vocal parts frequently include handwritten transliterated Yiddish text inscribed beneath the musical lines.
Another scenario is to have manuscript scores and parts with no additional published version. There are also songs with published sheet music or scores and no separate handwritten notation. Often, when a song is arranged for mixed voices, several versions of the same published score are included and used as parts for the different singers.
Generally, song and composition titles are recorded in the container list in the language in which they appear on the scores. Song titles, creator names, and lyrics in Yiddish, Hebrew, or other languages in non-Latin scripts are almost always transliterated to Latin script on the scores. Transliterated titles are typically recorded in the container list as they appear on the scores. Because titles are transliterated by different people over decades - for both published works and WEVD's own arrangements - the spelling of certain Yiddish and Hebrew words may be inconsistent throughout the collection.
After Yiddish and Hebrew, the most common languages in the collection are English, French, German, Russian, and Italian.
Hundreds of composers and arrangers are represented in the collection. The vast majority are Jewish, many of whom immigrated to the United States from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sholom Secunda and Zavel Zilberts are the two most represented composers in the entire collection, with more than seventy songs each, including handwritten arrangements. Other composers and arrangers with substantial content include Abraham Wolf Binder, Samuel Bugatch, Julius Chajes, Joseph Cherniavsky, Abraham Ellstein, Joel Engel, Mikhl Gelbart, Vladimir Heifetz, Pinchas Jassinowsky, Henry Lefkowitch, Boris Levenson, Leo Low, Alexander Olshanetsky, Meyer Posner, Herc Rubin, Nicholas Saslavsky, Joseph Rumshinsky, and Mark Silver.
Highlights of the collection include handwritten and published scores for dozens of Yiddish theater songs by Abraham Ellstein, Abraham Goldfaden, Alexander Olshanetsky, Joseph Rumshinsky, and Sholom Secunda; Yiddish translations of works by Georges Bizet, Johann Brahms, Antonin Dvořák, Jules Massenet, and Sergei Rachmaninoff; three arrangements of the Holocaust survivor anthem "Song of the Jewish Partisans" (by Julius Chajes, Lazar Weiner, and O.J. Zinatow); works in less common languages, such as Romanian ("Doina Haiducului"), Greek ("Dio glinka matakia, matia zafirenia"), Croatian ("Jad Anuga" and Džunaj), Polish (Repertoire of J. Gerstein's Chorus in Wilno), and Ukrainian (Evgen Turula's Ukrainian Carols); vocal works set to music by Jewish poets Hayim Nahman Bialik, Rachel Korn, and Abraham Reisen; four versions of the popular Jewish folk song "Hava Nagila;" published collections of cantorial music (by Moshe Bick, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, A. Philip Waxman, and Zavel Zilberts); and different arrangements of Hebrew prayers, including "Adon Olam" and "Mizmor l'David."
There are numerous composers and arrangers who have only one song in the collection. Elsewhere, there are scores and sheet music for compositions by prominent 18th and 19th century non-Jewish composers, such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Giuseppe Verdi.
Arrangement
The collection is arranged alphabetically by composer or arranger last name, with songs and compositions listed alphabetically under each name. Some composers and arrangers are identified by last name only, or by last name and first name initial. When a composer or arranger is not known, songs are grouped under a lyricist. There are four cases of songs having no known creators; these songs are listed alphabetically by title.