the thickening plot of Smyrneiko Minore

[ianna...@gmail.com]

curious thing:

a customer walked into my shop today as I was playing Marika
Papagika's "Smyrneiko Papagika" (recorded mid-1919 by Greek immigrants
to New York) and mentioned to me that, being in a klezmer band, he
knew the closing (instrumental) melody as the "Expectation Waltz,"
which he says have words in Yiddish. He also said that the tune is
also found in Russian under the name "Ozidanie Vals." And sure enough,
a quick google search bore out the Expectation Waltz, for instance
this YouTube clip of a six-year-old girl playing it rather
beautifully:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhujMCwys5E

One source credits the author as Chaim Shmuel Tauber (1901-1972) for
the Yiddish version and Ivan Ivanovice for the Russian but having the
same melody as the anonymous traditional "Khasene Vals" ("Anniversary
Waltz") which opens with the line "Oh, let us dance while the music
will play, A toast to..."
Does anyone have lyrics to those?
[side note: is the word "Ozidanie" common to both Russian and
Turkish?]
Being as Smyrnceiko Minore is one of all-time favorite songs, I can't
believe I'd never known this before. But there's something
particularly nice about this thickening of the plot...

How can we begin to parse this incorporation of a mid-19th century
Russian/Jewish melody (also famously played by Lawrence Welk) in an
early-20th century Greek/Turkish/late-Ottoman performance? Thoughts?

thanks to Steve Shapiro, I now also have this 1901 Russian rendition
of the Anniversary Waltz:
http://www.russian-records.com/details.php?image_id=2617
and this rough translation of the lyrics:
Years distant! Years past!
Memoirs usnuvshie forever.
The first meeting, trails dewiness,
Old garden shady trees ...

I remember how the night tatwio stars in the sky,
Waltz something that sounded sad, it cheerfully.
Wait-Waltz, Waltz-promise,
Gentle, pensive waltz at the farewell.

Sounds familiar - again they expected,
All that fallen asleep, whatever alarmed
The heart knows no neglect and cold,
Vechno and it troubled young.

Night, as then, stars in the sky tatwio
Waltz something that sounds sad, then cheerfully.
Wait-Waltz, Waltz-promise,
Gentle, pensive waltz at the farewell.

Wait-Waltz, Waltz-promise,
Gentle, pensive waltz at the farewell.
Brave as the first in the life of a date.

[tambouras]

Ian this is really a fascinating discovery. I quite agree that the
tunes are virtually the same, which poses the question how it got to
Papagkika's musicians by 1919. I note that the record calls the
musicians 'Romanian orchestra', which according to Kurt Bjorling's
notes on Belf's Romanian Orchestra
http://www.muziker.org/resrec/details.html#belf
was, as it were, a code for "Jewish orchestra" at that time in Russia.
A relevant book in this context could be The Orientalist by Tom Reiss,
a biography of the fascinating figure Lev Nussimbaum (1905-1942) -
pseudonyms: Essad Bey; Kurban Said, who was the author of among other
books the adopted Azerbaijani national love epos "Ali and Nino".
In "The Orientalist" there are lively descriptions of Russian emigré
environments in Istanbul and Berlin after the Russian Revolution. The
question is how the tune could have migrated so rapidly of course, or
if it was already standard fare in those parts of the world.
According to the Ellis Island website Papagkika arrived at Ellis
Island on April 21 1915, and thus perhaps not 1913 as David Soffa
writes in the notes to his Papagkika CD. Either way that's before the
Revolution, but my knowledge of the history of the period isn't
sufficient as regards the presence of Russian/Russian Jewish emigrés
in Asia Minor before the Revolution. But there must have been plenty
of Jewish emigrants in the USA after 1903-6 who might have had this
music with them:
http://www.jewishmuseum.net/collections/oje.html
On with the search....
T

[Tiffany D]

I, for one, would love to hear the Papagika version. This is one of
those really early songs that I don't have. Btw, may I pass this info
onto Spiros? He may be able to shed at least some light on this,
given his musical background, though I'm not sure how well he could
answer the question of the migration. But here's some food for
thought. What about records? I mean, could it be that Papagika heard
it on a phonograph and picked it up that way? I know that O Boufetzis
by Batis (sorry for bad spelling) has the same tune as How Dry I Am
from America and I can bet my bouzouki he didn't go there at that
time. Who has that record with the two together? Really neat
comparison.

--
http://tiffany.yourpassionconsultant.com
(Adults only. Parties and products for your sentual needs!
Educational, tasteful and fun!)

[eva.b...@gmail.com]

Hi everyone,

There are many interesting connections between klezmer music and
rebetika/Asia Minor music. Here is a tidbit about Martin Schwartz, a
collector of klezmer and Greek/Asia Minor music:

http://berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2003/03/12_klez.shtml

And a piece about Jewish-American klezmer musician Dave Tarras:

http://www.nea.gov/honors/heritage/fellows/fellow.php?id=1984_14

A bit more about the cultural affinities:

http://worldmusiccentral.org/article.php/20030807171404234

As I have written before, Greek (and Turkish) music is very popular in
Israel, especially among Israelis who have their roots in Arab
countries. So the cultural borrowings continue, as in this video,
which features an Israeli version of a Greek song (though I don't know
which one!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV9pXqJxL4s

An instrumental version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxlGEvTsbdc

Best, Eva

On 23 Aug, 15:44, "Tiffany D" <tiffani...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I, for one, would love to hear the Papagika version.  This is one of
> those really early songs that I don't have.  Btw, may I pass this info
> onto Spiros?  He may be able to shed at least some light on this,
> given his musical background, though I'm not sure how well he could
> answer the question of the migration.  But here's some food for
> thought.  What about records?  I mean, could it be that Papagika heard
> it on a phonograph and picked it up that way?  I know that O Boufetzis
> by Batis (sorry for bad spelling) has the same tune as How Dry I Am
> from America and I can bet my bouzouki he didn't go there at that
> time.  Who has that record with the two together?  Really neat
> comparison.
>

> --http://tiffany.yourpassionconsultant.com

> (Adults only.  Parties and products for your sentual needs!

> Educational, tasteful and fun!)- Dölj citerad text -
>
> - Visa citerad text -