Proceeds of a recital given by Ossip Gabrilowitsch and Mischa Elman, amounting to over $10,000 will be expended in Palestine for research in religious folk-music, lectures on musical appreciation, training of choruses and classes in chamber and other music, according to a report delivered at a meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Music in Palestine by Sidney Matz. Mr. Matz, who is vice-president of the Ex-Lax Company of Brooklyn, recently returned from Palestine, where he investigated the possibilities of promoting musical activities in Palestine at the request of the Society, which is headed by Felix M. Warburg, honorary chairman; Laurence N. Levine, chairman and Mrs. Jonah J. Goldstein, treasurer.
Committees will be organized immediately in twenty cities of the United States for the purpose of raising funds in support of the Society’s work, according to Mr. Matz. For the present year the Society will subsidize lectures in musical appreciation, to be given by Professor David Schorr, formerly of the Conservatory in Moscow. Professor Schorr, who was engaged by Mr. Gabrilowitsch, who is an adviser of the society, gave a course of lectures in music under the auspices of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, last year. They will be repeated in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and in three rural settlements in Palestine.
A special problem in the interpretation of “Tropps” or musical signs in the Bible will also be provided for through funds expended by the society this year. S. Rosovsky, formerly of the Conservatory of Riga, who was engaged in Biblical musical research last year at the Hebrew University, will undertake to translate into modern musical notes the signs in the Bibles which represent the musical melody which should accompany the reading of the text. Mr. Matz stated that this work, which is considered of the utmost importance by musical experts, had never been undertaken before. Mr. Rosovsky will endeavor to examine all available musical manuscripts
Modern Jewish folk music will be recorded on special phonographic records by Mr. Rosovsky, by representatives of the Jews in Palestine who have emigrated from various lands in Europe and Asia, to determine the relationship between the folk-music of the Dispersion, covering the last two thousand years, and the modern folksongs of Palestine.
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