Stempenyu

This article is about the violinist Iosif Druker. For the novel by Sholem Aleichem, see Stempenyu: A Jewish Novel.

Stempenyu (Yiddish: סטעמפּעניו, 1822–79) was the popular name of Iosif Druker (יוסף דרוקער), a klezmer violin virtuoso, bandleader and composer from Berdychiv, Russian Empire.^[1][2] He was one of a handful of celebrity nineteenth century Jewish folk violinists from Ukraine; others included Aron-Moyshe Kholodenko "Pedotser" (also from Berdychiv) and Yechiel Goyzman "Alter Chudnover" from Chudniv.^[3][4][5] Sholem Aleichem loosely based his 1888 novel Stempenyu: A Jewish Novel on the real-life Stempenyu; it was adapted into various stage and film versions in the twentieth century.^[6]

Berdychiv Old Synagogue

Biography

Iosif (Yossele) Druker was born in Berdychiv, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire in 1822 (now located in Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine).^[2] His father, Sholem Druker, was a musically literate klezmer clarinet player and bandleader; according to Joachim Stutschewsky their family may have come from somewhere else in Kiev Governorate, possibly Hornostaipil or Radomyshl.^[7][2][1] Iosif was sent to Kiev to study violin as a youth.^[2] He then returned to Berdychiv and rejoined his father's klezmer orchestra at the age of twelve, although at age fifteen he is thought to have left and spent several years developing his craft in various other towns.^[2][1] When he returned to Berdychiv he eventually took over his father's orchestra.^[2] He was said to have masterful control over the violin and to be able to deliver a wide range of emotions and interpretations to his performances.^[1] Berdychiv was a large enough to have several competing klezmer ensembles in the late nineteenth century, all with a high level of musicianship: Stempenyu's, Pedotser's, and that of another bandleader named Moyshe-Abe.^[4][1]

Stempenyu is generally said to have died in 1879, although the details are not specified anywhere.

Legacy

The most recognizable legacy of Stempenyu, which has made him a household name for the past century, is that he was fictionalized in Sholem Aleichem's novel Stempenyu: A Jewish Novel, a work rich in ethnographic detail about the klezmer world.^[8][9] Sholem Aleichem traveled to Berdychiv in the 1880s (after Stempenyu had already died) to collect information for his novel.^[10][11] He claimed to have been mostly faithful to the facts he gathered about Stempenyu from older people and fellow musicians in Berdychiv.^[12] However, Stutschewsky and others have said that it is difficult to know which parts of the novel were true to the historical figure and which were artistic license.^[1][13] Even Moisei Beregovsky, who visited Berdychiv during the Soviet period, found that Druker's grandchildren took the novel as a factual account of their ancestor's life.^[14]

After Druker died, his klezmer ensemble was led by his relative Wolf Cherniavsky (himself a relative of Joseph Cherniavsky and other American musicians).^[1] Although his compositions were never published in his lifetime, and Druker died before the age of sound recording, some of his works were passed on and written down by other musicians.^[1] A number of these manuscripts have ended up in the collection of the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine.

References

1. Stutchewsky, Joachim (1959). הכליזמרים : תולדותיהם, אורח-חיים ויצירותיהם (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. pp. 113–6.
2. Beregovski, Moshe; Rothstein, Robert; Bjorling, Kurt; Alpert, Michael; Slobin, Mark (2020). Jewish instrumental folk music : the collections and writings of Moshe Beregovski (Second ed.). Evanston, Illinois. p. I7. ISBN 978-1-73261-810-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
3. Feldman, Walter Zev. "Music: Traditional and Instrumental Music". YIVO Encyclopedia. YIVO. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
4. Beregovski, Moshe; Slobin, Mark (1982). Old Jewish folk music : the collections and writings of Moshe Beregovski. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 536–7. ISBN 081227833X.
5. Гойзман, Шимон (2018). "2". Воспоминания незнаменитого. Живу, как хочется (in Russian). ЛитРес. ISBN 9785041227975.
6. Walden, Joshua S. (2014). "The 'Yidishe Paganini': Sholem Aleichem's 'Stempenyu', the Music of Yiddish Theatre and the Character of the 'Shtetl' Fiddler". Journal of the Royal Musical Association. 139 (1): 89–136. doi:10.1080/02690403.2014.886428. JSTOR 43303359. S2CID 162236197.
7. Rubin, Joel E. (2020). New York Klezmer in the Early Twentieth Century: The Music of Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-78744-831-5. Project MUSE book 77384.
8. Feldman, Zev (2016). Klezmer : music, history and memory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-19-024451-4.
9. Wollock, Jeffrey (December 2000). "The Soviet klezmer orchestra". East European Jewish Affairs. 30 (2): 1–36. doi:10.1080/13501670008577918. S2CID 162298144.
10. Frieden, Ken (1995). "4. The Grandson: Trials of a Yiddish Humorist". Classic Yiddish fiction : Abramovitsh, Sholem Aleichem, and Peretz. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. p. 112. ISBN 978-1-4384-0333-5.
11. Coben, Lawrence A. (2007). Anna's Shtetl. The University of Alabama Press. p. 185. ISBN 978-0-8173-8131-8. Project MUSE book 6463.
12. Briṿ fun Sholem-ʿAleykhem (in Yiddish). Tel-Aviv: Bet Shalom-ʿAlekhem. 1995. pp. 204–22.
13. Rubin, Joel (2009). "9. 'Like a String of Pearls': Reflections on the Role of Brass Instrumentalists in Jewish Instrumental Klezmer Music and the Trope of 'Jewish Jazz,'". In Weiner, Howard T. (ed.). Early twentieth-century brass idioms : art, jazz, and other popular traditions : proceedings of the international conference presented by the Institute of Jazz Studies of Rutgers University and the Historic Brass Society, November 4-5, 2005. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press. p. 92. ISBN 978-0-8108-6245-6.
14. Sholokhova, Lyudmila (2013). "Yehiel Goyzman (Alter Chudnover, 1849-1913): A Klezmer Violinist in Transition From Folk Music To Classical Style Performance.". In Nemtsov, Jascha (ed.). Jüdische Musik als Dialog der Kulturen (Jüdische Musik Band 12) (PDF). Weisbaden: Harraswitz Verlag. p. 2.