The shellac records of the Berlin Semer Labels are a treasure trove of a special kind. Back then, in the politically charged climate of Berlin of the 1930s, they showed quite fearlessly the contradictory aspects of Jewish identity. The Semer Ensemble raises the ancient treasures and refines it.
Berlin was in the thirties, an exciting and cosmopolitan place especially when it came to music, and especially the Jewish music.
"When I see what all Courageous was taken on the Semer label, because it all happened after 1933, were allowed to act as Jews anywhere anymore, then you see this multilingual and broad repertoire on this label. There are songs in Hebrew, Yiddish, German , Russian and Italian. folk music, theater music, cabaret songs, Kant Oral songs, Italian arias and Russian folk songs. All this was part of the culture. "
Sasha Lurie is a singer at Semer ensemble that is inspired by the then label Semer.
Immerse yourself in a time window
"As a European Jew, I am automatically linked to the history, there are in the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe almost no family whose ancestors were not affected by Nazi persecution, even so it was interesting for me as a violinist at Semer participate Label Reloaded . it gave me the opportunity in this time window to dive. the music that was recorded at that time in Berlin is so beautiful and diverse, that's why it is so sad that she seemed as good as lost after the war. that's why I think projects like Semer label Reloaded so important. "
Mark Kovnatskiy also part of the ensemble to Semer Alan Bern. The musicians have worked intensively with the original material that was once taken up by Semer label. What treasures they have encountered this and how they bring these in our time, is heard on the new album of the ensemble: "Rescued Treasure".
documented feverishly musical life in Berlin
The Semer label founded by Hirsch Lewin in 1932, on the eve of the Nazi dictatorship. The 1892-born Hirsch Lewin was originally from Vilna / Vilnius and was deported in World War I as a civil prisoner to Germany. After the war he remained in Berlin easy. He first worked in the bookstore Gonzer until 1930 a separate "Hebrew Bookstore" in the Grenadierstraße 28, today Almstadtstraße, opened, the Scheunenviertel of Berlin Mitte. He sold Jewish religious writings, children's books, prayer shawls and candles, as well as shellac records. And 1932-1938 he took on his label Semer hundreds of plates, for example, with Israel Bakon, one originating from western Galicia voiced cantor; or with the theater Star Dora Gerson. Because he felt that an era was ending, Hirsch Lewin documented feverishly musical life of Berlin. He was Jewish artists a platform that had been excluded by the racial laws of the Nazis from the cultural life of the capital. But on 9 November 1938 in the so-called "Kristallnacht", his work was over. SA hordes destroyed the "Hebrew Bookstore" including bearings with 4500 records and 250 matrices. Hirsch Lewin was arrested, came to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and was released only on the condition that he leaves Germany immediately. His label, which had documented so many important voices of Berlin, was forgotten.
Music "lebka travels to America - Part 1" -Pinkas Lavender
Yiddish folk song "Leybke continued keyn Amerike" tells the story of emigration to America - one since the 1880s frequent in East European Jewish families experience. And here the following happens: The father and husband who starts a new life in America, forgets his family in Europe. The only sign of life from him is a letter in which he asks for divorce because he wants to get married again in America.
These songs from Semer catalog can be heard today only therefore again because the ethnomusicologist Rainer E. Lotz has culled in the nineties, the original catalog of Semer labels, and other record companies in those years around the world. The label Bear Family has its edition "Gone ..." / published "Beyond Recall": eleven CDs with recordings of Jewish artists in Nazi Germany. A mammoth work on the Berlin music history of the pre-war years.
No cultural boundaries
For Alan Bern those old recordings were a discovery. He met them already in the nineties, and then again in 2012 in the Jewish Museum Berlin. There was "Berlin Transit" shown an exhibition of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the 1920s.
"Part of the exhibition was sound exhibition about this Semer label. And one of the curators was Fabian Schnedler. Suddenly there was this opportunity to make a project about Semer label. I thought it would be consulted and was immediately fascinated. What I find very interesting is that cultural boundaries within the Jewish community, does not look at the time. it has on one side of a plate a cantor and he sings a prayer service and on the other side singing the same Kantor a folk song or something of the Jewish theater. What no longer exists today. "
Music "E'se Pele" Semer Ensemble
Berlin in November 2015: On the stage of Studio Я the Maxim Gorki Theater is the eight-member ensemble founded Semer, and directed by Alan Bern. He pioneered new Jewish music and has for the CD "Rescued Treasure" a very wide range of songs from the archives returned to light: long forgotten pieces, including a few songs of the Zionist movement at the beginning of the 20th century - songs with lyrics about the promised homeland, which must be seen in the historical context of their times.
Jewish music without blinkers
"There are quite a few songs in this collection that are extremely Zionist. And for some of us is not that simple. 'Biderlekh Aheym!', Then it was called 'Palestinian Melody', but of course it was about the Jewish pioneers. I think even if you say, I like the announcement always in concerts that these songs come naturally from another time, and all reflect different conditions - that time has not yet dreamed 'of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians today - but still bring those texts that so very much to express. Israel is home for Jews and no other people are there out you can not bring on stage and pretend as if the no political significance that "
It speaks for Alan Bern and his fellow musicians that they have not simply left the Zionist songs for the sake of political correctness from its program. In the concerts there is always a short categorizing comment. These artists sit down without blinkers apart with a little-known chapter of Jewish music history. They want to present the music of the pre-war Berlin in as many facets.
Berlin is again cosmopolitan
Alan Bern is happy that once again strong impetus to the Jewish scene come exactly with the singer Sasha Lurje or the virtuoso violinist Mark Kovnatskiy as in the twenties, from Eastern Europe in this country. Another reason why today's Semer Ensemble is a cosmopolitan Berlin.
"Except Lorin all musicians living in Berlin and they identify very strongly with the cosmopolitan Berlin. Some people have noticed that this diversity was gone since the thirties and has been newly restored. Only now there is this atmosphere and the cultural diversity of then. Sasha is a young European musician who can, I do not know how many languages, but definitely Russian, Latvian, Yiddish, German now and English. that is, Sasha precisely embodies this cultural and linguistic diversity. For them the very course today. "
Gloomy forebodings
The recent vote in the project is a part of the Latvian singer Sasha Lurie. She sings on the CD Semer two beautiful songs from the repertoire of famous Berlin actress. Dora Gerson, born in 1899 in Berlin, had received in 1935 a few songs. But from the songs "Gone" or "The world has become small" speaks an incredible depth, melancholy and the feeling that something is coming to an end in Berlin.
"And then she sings: We have made the electrical light and we can still see not we have devised an Esperanto and will never understand us. '. It's about all the things that the world is how it runs and develops and how we live in this world, what we see and what we do not notice. And I think the program is about, you can also beautiful in listen to this song. "
Music "The world has become small" - Semer Ensemble
Sasha Lurie interprets the original theater actress Dora Gerson, who died in Auschwitz in 1943, just like her husband and two children. Only five songs had recorded in 1935 in the basement of a Berlin synagogue Dora Gerson. However, not for Semer label, but for another small Jewish record label. Lukraphon. Of the Nazis had long been occupied at this time with stage ban and could not do at events of the "Jewish Cultural Association" or abroad occur.
Sasha Lurie has repeatedly listened to the old recording of this song. But she imitates Dora Gerson not but bring her own experiences as a singer with a: influences from the traditional Yiddish music, from opera or even rock music. Only in recent years Sasha Lurie lives in Berlin -they comes from Latvia and is already firmly anchored in the local scene. After Germany they first came for the 2006 Yiddish Summer Weimar. Today she teaches there. In Weimar she learned most other musicians from Semer know Ensemble as the Klezmatics singer and Grammy winner Lorin Sklamberg. For Alan Bern is a performer who greatly enriched the ensemble Semer.
"Lorin has a wonderful voice, he can and loves opera, operetta, light popular music and has a vast repertoire of Jewish music and can understand the Yiddish repertoire in this wider context and interpreted. It can differentiate between a cantoral pieces and songs, where certain techniques are important. "
Music "I dance and my heart weeps" - Semer Ensemble
Lorin Sklamberg has also recorded a lullaby with the Berlin singer Fabian Schnedler for the album "Rescued Tresure". It shows an example of how brave the musicians to Alan Bern deal with the historical material.
" 'The child is in Wigele' is the only Yiddish traditional folk song on this CD and listen to the music that we have the most alienated:. By means which otherwise only occur in contemporary music and free jazz I like very much the tension between tradition and innovation in this song. It's very emotional and all singers before coming and every musician has the opportunity to show themselves. Paul Brody plays a great solo. this is a very important moment. "
The play "The child is in Wigele" is one of the most moving songs on the album. It sings of an orphan whose mother was killed in anti-Semitic pogroms in Eastern Europe. Originally it had received Simon Berkowitz for Semer plate early thirties in Berlin ..
Music "The child is in Wigele" -Semer Ensemble
The child is in the cradle
With tearful eyes
, the mother lies on the floor
with legs stretched out
without his mother
Without consolation
The child is in the cradle
And faints Unassisted
The mother is in the grave
with shards on the eyes
Oh, who my child
Will you comb your hair
Oh, my child who
is you change the sheets?
Oh, who my child,
If you wash and dress?
Oh, who my child,
Will bring you to school?
My only child
your mother will not come
neither quickly nor fast.
Great stylistic variety
The lullaby is on the CD "Rescued Treasure" equal footing Chansons, religious songs, Yiddish theater music and popular songs from the twenties and thirties. At that time there was in Berlin a large plurality of styles and modes of interpretation, and just wants to show the Semer Ensemble. but we hear is not a historical program, but it shimmer many musical influences from the arrangements. Just as Alan Bern, who came in 1987 from New York to Berlin, formerly played free jazz. The late seventies, he worked for a year at the "Creative Music Studio" near New York. There, the students were able to work with innovative musicians, including John Cage, Ursula Oppens, Anthony Braxton, Carla Bley and The Art Ensemble of Chicago.
The open and cross-border spirit of music education, Alan Bern experienced there, he has brought to Germany, also for Yiddish Summer Weimar, Alan Bern founded 1999th In this multi-week festival can every year in July and August to discover the many facets of the Yiddish language, culture and music. There are concerts, sessions, workshops and this year for the first time both a contemporary dance as well and a theater production.
The music industry at that time was not so rationalized
In Weimar many songs were rehearsed for the first Semer concert. From the beginning, Alan Bern was clear he wants to record this CD live.
"Because I know that at a concert, each musician of this group is better than in the studio. If you're in the studio, do you think all the time of cleanliness, repeatability, all those things. And the spontaneity that I hear on this CD, and you can hear on the recordings of the day, you'll get the hard in the studio out, that is impossible. But actually has a different meaning. the purpose of recording time was partly different from today. the music industry was not so rationalized as today, had a personal level, and I wanted this plane today have again. "
Inner Familial slugfest
The Semer Ensemble has grown together closely over the years. Many of its members have known each other a long time from the Yiddish Summer Weimar. The young voices in the project, Sasha Lurie, Fabian Schnedler or Daniel Kahn describe themselves even as a student of Alan Bern, where they themselves have strong own band projects. Daniel Kahn came a few years ago from the United States to Berlin. There he founded the band Painted Bird, the Essad Bay developed program and occurs in a duo with Sasha Lurie, and together they sing strange dark love songs.
In Semer they present also funny Gassenhauer like this duet of a Yiddish theater, originally sung by Esther & Jacob Mosch Kowitz: an intrafamily slugfest begins violent and peaceful ends.
Music "Scholem Baith" - Semer Ensemble
Scholem Baith
Lomir beser shuloym zayn!
Shuloym iz git far yeydn.
Shuloym, shuloym iz dokh Fayn.
Shuloym it makht tsufridn.
Shulem zol shoyn zayn!
Oy, zoln zikh di sonim krign
HUBN ot Deym fargenign
Gotenyu liber, Gotenyu giter,
Shuloym zol shoyn zayn!
Oy Gotenyu, mayn harts baglikn,
Makh a sof fin zayn farbisn,
Gotenyu liber, Gotenyu giter,
Shuloym zol shoyn zayn!

Peace in the Home
Let join us prefer peace!
Peace is good for everyone.
Peace, peace, is a beautiful thing
Peace makes you happy
Let's make peace
Oh, let the enemies fight
you this pleasure have
Dear God, good God
let finally be peace
, O God , make my heart happy
Mach this bitterness to an end,
Dear God, good God,
Let finally be peace!
The diversity of voices and genres is a particular strength of the CD "Rescued Treasure". It also shows that many of these songs were relevant not only for the Jewish inhabitants of Berlin in the twenties and until the beginning of the thirties. The audience was then mixed: Jews and Gentiles met in the concert halls, bars or nightclubs and until such time as the Nazis destroyed this open society with its racial laws.
Yiddish culture was not at that time exotic
For Alan Bern, this CD is therefore not only a statement for a broad concept of culture, the lives of pulses that give immigrants. These songs show a culture that is produced only by ethnic diversity. And it gives a picture of how course Jewish artists were integrated into German culture, until the beginning of Nazism.
"Despite a lot of reflection since there was still a tendency to regard Jewish culture as exotic. And if on this CD a song like, the inn of the Golden Snail 'besides, Czardas', The child is in Wigele' and a liturgical song is heard, then you're gonna get, I think, a very different picture. For me it is also important to say that it is not about Jewish or Yiddish music and certainly not to klezmer music. But it is about the music, the Jewish have made artists in the thirties. and from the perspective of the Nazis it was all Jewish music, because the Jewish artists have made. from today's perspective one can not say so, and I would like to not see that. "
Alan Bern has assembled an excellent ensemble to sign up for his Semer project. Since beating sparks between the American trumpeter Paul Brody and veteran jazz bassist Martin Lillich, between Alan Bern on piano and accordion and violinist Mark Kovnatskiy with roots in Moscow. And there are very intense moments, as in a funeral prayer for a Jewish soldier.
Music "Kaddish" (The Jewish soldier) - Semer Ensemble
Fabian Schnedler - the duo partner of Lorin Sklamberg - works as a museum educator at the Jewish Museum Berlin, fluent in Yiddish and was last published Yiddish songs crooks. "Ganovim" is the album that has been released at the Berlin label Oriente: A tribute to Franka Lampe, one of the great Klezmerakkordeonistinnen Germany, who died early 2016th The singer Fabian Schnedler is not insignificant role in the success of the project Semer. Because he was the one who had the idea for a concert with songs from the catalog of historical Semer label of Lewin Hirsch. premiered this first concert with Semer songs related to the exhibition "Berlin Transit" 2012 at the Jewish Museum Berlin.
Eastern European-Jewish-German Music
"There has arisen a very nice ensemble from, we are all delighted when we see ourselves and together can make music. We are excited about this music. They say there's always so waves. Since Romanian and Bulgarian music is researched, then yiddish-Romanian and yiddish-Bulgarian music, but no one had to research the idea osteuropäisch- Jewish-German music. In this respect I see here before me this CD cover and think beautiful! and it is the place Berlin, the twenties and thirties that sound as a presence suddenly. Berlin is again a place that has become very diverse and international. What it for a while and was not like. Neither the West Berlin island, yet the East Berlin main town. "
On the cover of "Rescued Treasure" album no band photo, but a picture of Ruth Landshoff be seen. She was a Berliner IT Girl in the twenties. Born in 1904 as Ruth Levy in Berlin it was founded in 1933 driven by the Nazis to emigrate. But she was lucky and was able to continue its cosmopolitan artists living in New York. The songs of their youth are rearranged on the album and alive again.