Professor Jenna Weissman Joselit writes in The Forward on the importance of revisiting the works of the influential composer Lazare Saminsky:
Once a household name within sophisticated, European musical circles, Saminsky, a polymath if ever there were one — whose talents extended to composing, conducting and beating the drum for a transnational Jewish culture — deserves a second hearing. After all, growing numbers of American Jews are paying more and more attention to their musical patrimony. Witness the warm online reception given to the forthcoming documentary “‘Hava Nagila’ (The Movie).” Or consider the exhaustive efforts of, among others, the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation and Pro Music Hebraica to retrieve, maintain and perform the compositions of an earlier era. To deepen our understanding of the historical context in which this music was embedded, we would do well to reckon with Saminsky’s passionately held views on what constituted genuine Jewish musical expression. At the very least, they are certain to raise an eyebrow or two.