Kolberg and Jewish Music

The world of the Jews must have attracted Kolberg, who as an educated member of the intelligentsia must have been conscious of what was happening in Judaism in his times. The nineteenth century was indeed a time of the flourishing Hasidism, the travelling hazanim, the development of the Jewish Enlightenment movement (the Haskalah), a great numbers of Jewish Tanzhaus openings. Jewish themes also appear in almost every volume of Kolberg’s Complete Works. However, Jews only formed the backdrop for the events taking place among Poles. Only in the case of a few records left by Kolberg can we surmise that the musical performers were themselves Jewish. This is most likely true of five songs with texts in the Yiddish language. More melodies set down in writing from the Jews or from the repertoire taken over by Polish musicians are probably to be found among the pieces without verbal text or referred to by Kolberg as ‘dances’. It is unknown whether Jewish musicians played Jewish melodies for Kolberg, but we cannot exclude the possibility of their performances constituting a basis for some transcriptions of pieces that were not marked as Jewish.