Great Cantors In Cinema

As music videos go, this one won't be climbing the Billboard charts anytime soon. Five Jewish cantors of legend--Yossele Rosenblatt, Moshe Koussevitsky, Mordechai Hershman, Moishe Oysher, and Leibele Waldman--are seen in film clips from the 1930s and 1940s. Although narrator Martin Bookspan opens with introductory remarks about the golden age of cantors during the first third of the century, and each of the film clip carries prefatory remarks, this is primarily performances of liturgical music captured on film. The standout, Leibele Waldman playing a number of different characters applying for a cantor position in the delightful short "A Cantor on Trial," offers some comic relief, but for the most part, this collection is for serious fans of Jewish liturgical music and scholarship. University libraries may want to consider. (See ESCAPE TO THE RISING SUN for availability.)