Last night, a concert in memory of the late Cantor David Bagli was held at the Tel Aviv Institute of Cantorship, held to commemorate the acceptance of the late cantor's archive into the institute's library.
The concert featured the best students of the institute, combined with cantors who are graduates of the institute, under the direction and piano accompaniment of pianist and arranger Mr. Raymond Goldstein, a teacher at the institute who also serves, among other things, as the curator of the institute's library.
The library contains thousands of sheets of sheet music, sheet music books, and manuscripts, containing musical works from all genres of Jewish liturgical music, but mainly cantorism. The library serves the institute's teachers, students, and graduates, who extract rare and unknown cantorism gems from it, alongside frequent use of classical works.
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Cantor David Begley was born in 1932 in Vilna. At the outbreak of World War II, he fled with his family to Japan and then to Shanghai, China, where he joined the ranks of students at the Mir Yeshiva. In 1947, he immigrated with his family to the United States, where he received cantorial training from Cantor Yehoshua Lind and general musical training at the Chicago Conservatory. He served as a cantor in several communities throughout the United States.
After the Six-Day War, he immigrated to Israel and was appointed chief cantor at the Great Synagogue in Ramat Gan, while serving in the Air Force. After three years, he went down to Johannesburg, but continued to come to Israel and perform in concerts and prayers. Begley had a thunderous dramatic tenor voice, and published many works, the most famous of which are "I Believe" to the tune of Joseph Gross, and "We Sing with the Gentiles.".
After his death in 2007, the collection was transferred to the library of the Tel Aviv Institute for Cantorship.
Goldstein, who hosted the evening, told how the collection came to the institute: "The first time, I was 21, in South Africa, I was at Bagley's house and I saw his library. I thought to myself, Wow! What a library! I didn't know such wealth existed, what did we have? In South Africa, all the cantors jealously guarded their notes and didn't share them with each other, but he had everything! He always came prepared, he always had a written arrangement for every work. He invested a great deal of money in commissioning countless arrangements from Hanan Winternitz (1914-1995, an arranger who wrote hundreds of arrangements for Hebrew singing and cantorship, accompanied many cantors - B.A.).".
""When I left for Israel, I had many opportunities to perform with him," Goldstein continues, "It was always a pleasure, the man was a real artist, always prepared and prepared. A few years ago we were in Toronto, and at the time, Begley no longer performed because he was ill.
""He said to me: 'Raymond, I stopped singing. I have a library here, but it's already 'Ovis'. Who is interested in that anyway?' I told him: We, the Tel Aviv Institute, are interested in this archive. We have students who are interested in interesting works, it would have no use here. I sat with him, and I saw invaluable material. Recordings of works he had heard from all kinds of cantors, his own works, works he had heard from his teachers, many arrangements of well-known works.
""In the evening I met Naftali Hershtik at the hotel and asked him if he intended to visit Bagli, and when he replied in the affirmative I told him: 'Convince him to hand over the archive to us!' And indeed, Bagli, while still alive, ordered the archive to be handed over to us.".
When the archive was transferred, a concert was held with the participation of his widow, but what was unique about last night's concert, after several good years of researching the archive, was that many works came into frequent use among the institute's teachers and students, and all the works played at this concert were from this archive.
The concert, held in the auditorium of the Tel Aviv Institute of Cantorship, featured works that are not performed on other occasions. Cantor Ezra Meyer, a graduate of the institute and former chief cantor in Munich, performed ""The Lord is the King of the earth.""of" Joshua Lind who was Bagley's teacher, and the work ""And with a big trumpet""By Helpman.
Cantor Daniel Kol Tov, cantor of the Heikhal HaBanim synagogue in Kfar Shmaryahu, who also serves as the acting chief cantor for the IDF, performed the ""Maloch"" (Minkowski), ""Say hello."" (Carus) and Himmelstein's better known work - ""So far""Composed in November 1973 for Cantor Begley.
Yigal Han, a student at the institute, performed the ""Our brothers, the entire house of Israel"" Composed by Begley, at the request of Begley's son, who asked for a dedication to the return of the three kidnapped. Three more songs were performed in Yiddish, Vilnius (Begley) and"Maariv""(Begley) by Shmuel Berald, and""A. Pastuchel"" (Yaakov Rapaport) performed by Shmaiya Reichman.
Also carried out:"Don't be afraid."" (Gentschoff/Alter) – Yosla Klatzkin, Tal (Mendel Shapiro) – Nathan Goldman, Look from heaven (Improvisation) – Yoel Gafni, Today is a great day. (Improvisation) – Benjamin Frankel, Say hello. (Begali) Eitan Arazi and Ido Steinmetz. Ido Steinmetz closed the special evening with ""credo""The famous song composed by Joseph Gross, with the audience joining in singing the chorus.
Gallery: Yaakov Felberbaum
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