Subject Guide: Performing Arts

Abraham Ellstein (1907-1963) Papers (P-32)

This collection contains Hebrew, Yiddish and English sheet music compositions, programs, playbills, photos, and reviews, with files related to the operas "The Golem" and "The Thief and the Hangman" and the musical "Great to Be Alive." Ellstein was a songwriter, composer, conductor, and director of the American Yiddish theater. He sang at the Metropolitan Opera Children's chorus, was awarded a scholarship to The Julliard School, and was a well-known accompanist to stars of the Yiddish theater. He composed over 30 scores for Yiddish theater and film and 500+ songs. Ellstein was also involved in Yiddish radio, hosting programs on WEVD for Yiddish folk music, theatrical music, and cantorial and liturgical music. He wrote and arranged English music for Broadway, radio, tv, popular music, and films.

Der Fuehrer's Face Musical Score (I-541)

This musical score is from the Walt Disney Motion Picture originally entitled “Donald Duck in Nutzi Land;” however the picture was released under the name of the song itself. The score was published by the Southern Music Publishing Company, Inc. “Words and Music" are by Oliver Wallace. The score is six pages long (3 leaves). The front page has an image of Donald Duck throwing a tomato into Adolph Hitler’s eye. His other eye is represented by a swastika.

Irving Berlin Sheet Music Collection (P-878)

Contains approximately 238 pieces of original Irving Berlin sheet music.

Jewish Music Council collection (I-331)

Organized under the the National Jewish Welfare Board, the Council provides cultural programming through music, music reviews, lectures, bibliographies, an annual Jewish Music Festival, and Jewish Week and Month. They created a bridge between Israeli and American Jewish music. Within the collection are articles, lectures, bibliographies, recording reviews, minutes, Jewish Music Festival material, handbooks, activity and progress reports, promotional flyers, programming manuals, a manual on Ernest Bloch's music, and a 1949 Jewish songster.

Papers of Ludwig Satz (1891-1944) (P-844)

The collections is primarily sheet music written or owned by Satz or Satz's children, concert programs, a catalog from a Grand Street Boys' Association exhibit where his paintings were represented, a play script for Act II of A Farvorfener Vinkel, publicity flyers relating to Satz' Roumanian Village and International Revue, an issue of the Theatre and Art Journal dated April 1926, and two volumes of Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre, with which Satz was involved in publishing

Eric Rau Collection (AR 10550) [Digitized]

An assembly of sound recordings combining traditional synagogue and High Holidays music with Yiddish folksongs. Collected by Eric Rau, a German born chemist and passionate activist for Jewish education.

Heida Hermanns Collection (AR 10183) [Digitized]

Heida Hermanns was a pianist who immigrated to the United States with her husband, fellow musician Artur Holde, in 1937. The collection documents her musical career in Europe and the US from the 1920s-1940s. It mostly consists of correspondence with her mother, Alice Goldschmidt. There are also reviews of her performances, personal documents, and photographs. A few records are devoted solely to Artur, including an unpublished ethnomusicological manuscript and some other music-related material. Together they helped found the Friends of Music, a group that presented chamber music concerts.

Judith Sander Collection (DM 309) [Digitized]

Materials by and about the opera soprano Judith Sander, including original documents, clippings, photographs and sound recordings.

Max Kowalski Collection (AR 7049) [Digitized]

Kowalski was a composer and singer who was also active as a lawyer to many clients, including Arnold Shoenberg. He left Germany in 1939 and immigrated to London, where he died in 1956. The bulk of this collection consists of correspondence with various friends, fellow musicians, and other artists. Also included are concert programs, reviews, biographical articles and obituaries. 

Abraham Moshe Bernstein Collection (RG 36) [Digitized] 

Contains Bernstein's musical works, secular and religious, in both printed and manuscript form; liturgical choral volumes and partbooks; Hasidic songs and melodies assembled for the S. Ansky Jewish Historical Ethnographic Society; unidentified musical pieces and fragments; manuscripts of Bernstein’s own writings.

Papers of Dave Tarras (RG 1280)

Clarinetist, prominent performer of klezmer music. Arrangements of popular Yiddish songs and klezmer music written by Tarras.

Papers of Eugene Malek (RG 806)

Printed and manuscript sheet music including folksongs, oratorios, cantatas, liturgical music, choral works, dance music. Programs, clippings and photographs of Malek.

Lazar Weiner Papers (RG 711)

Music manuscripts and publications of Weiner's works: cantatas, an opera, piano music, a ballet, orchestral scores, choral works, art songs, liturgical music. Musical settings by Weiner for poetry by various Yiddish authors. Musical works by other composers. Programs and reviews of concerts of the Workmen's Circle Chorus.

Leo Low Papers (RG 1140)

Low was a composer, arranger, choral conductor, teacher, lecturer; one of the first to collect, arrange, and popularize Yiddish and Hebrew folk and art songs. The Papers contain: correspondence, original musical works and arrangements by Leo Low, printed sheet music of compositions by Leo Low, personal documents. 

Leon Schwartz Papers (RG 1273)

The papers consist primarily of printed Jewish music for the violin and manuscripts of music composed or arranged by Schwartz. His repertoire centered on the traditional klezmer string-band style. There are also personal documents, letters, and announcements.

Music Collection (RG 112)

The collection consists of published and unpublished works of Yiddish and Hebrew, art, popular, and theater music, Holocaust songs, liturgical and Hasidic music, and instrumental compositions.

Music (Vilna Archives) (RG 7) [Digitized]

The collection consists of the manuscripts of instrument parts of Yiddish operettas and musical plays that were part of the Esther Rachel Kaminska Museum of the YIVO Institute in Vilna (from 1927). It includes the works of composers and authors of musical works who were involved in the earliest history of Yiddish theater in Russia and Poland (and formerly Romania).

Recordings of Sunday Simcha Program (RG 2303)

Consists of 272 audiocassettes of Art Raymond's radio program "Sunday Simcha" aired on New York's WEVD. WEVD was founded in 1927 by the Socialist Party of America, using initials of leftist leader Eugene V. Debs, and later operated by the Forward from 1932 - late 1980s. These tapes were recorded from the radio by Valerie Schneer in 1991-1996. Shows featured mixes of cantorial, Israeli and Yiddish music.

YIVO Folksong Project (RG 2299) [Partially Digitized]

This collection consists of an estimated 320 hours of 2,000 folksongs and oral histories from 75 informants who participated in the YIVO Folksong Project directed by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (BKG) from 1973-1975. This collection is a one-of-a-kind, large-scale gathering of oral histories centered around traditional Yiddish music.

The Max and Frieda Weinstein Archive of YIVO Sound Recordings houses over 15,000 recordings, including 78, 45, and 33 rpm discs; cylinder recordings; open-reel and cassette tapes; piano rolls; and compact discs. It includes both music and spoken word recordings, record catalogs, and other materials related to the history of recorded Jewish music. The earliest item in the collection is a wax cylinder, dating from 1900.

The Sound Archive also has custody of spoken word and field recordings including 200+ recordings of Jewish radio programs spanning the years 1936 to 1955, oral histories of the American Jewish labor movement, and interviews for the YIVO Dialect Project.

For reference questions, to make an appointment, donate sound documents or order sound reproductions, call (212) 294-6169 or write to soundarchives@yivo.org. Due to a high volume of inquiries it may take up to a week to receive a response.

Papers of Ben Stonehill (RG 533)

Tapes of 1,078 Yiddish folksongs registered by Stonehill as sung by informants in various localities in the U.S. List of taped songs. By appointment only.

Ruth Rubin Collection (RG 620)

Contains 2,000+ Yiddish songs performed by some of the most extraordinary traditional singers of the 20th century, including vocalist and scholar Ruth Rubin herself. Her entire life's work can be found in this collection: field recordings recorded by Rubin between 1946-1970s on 78rpm acetate discs, reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes, lectures, concerts, radio interviews, videos, notes, correspondence, manuscripts and published materials.

Sound Archive Collection of Commercial Recordings (RG 1500)

This collection consists of recordings of music and the spoken word. Included are folk, cantorial, theater, music. It contains some 15,000 78, 45, and 33 rpm discs and cylinder recordings; over 1,000 open reel and cassette tapes; piano rolls, record catalogs and other related ephemera. The earliest item in the collection is a wax cylinder, dating from 1900. The most recent is a 1987 compact disc of klezmer music. There are over 1,000 78 rpm discs including literary readings and theater performances. The series of analog LP records covers both new recordings as well as reissues of classic 78 rpm records.