Szpilman, Bajgelman, Barsht: The Legacy of an Extended Polish Jewish Klezmer Family

The szpilmans, bajgelmans, and barshts are an extended family of professional Jewish instrumentalists (klezmorim) originating from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski (Ostrovtse) in Poland, who have been active since at least the mid-nineteenth century.¹ During the interwar years and in the aftermath of the Holocaust, the family spread out to Łódź, Toronto, Rio de Janeiro, and New York City, among other places. There they played important roles as performers and composers in genres as diverse as instrumental klezmer; Polish popular song; jazz, chamber, and symphonic music; the Yiddish theatre and vaudeville; and Brazilian dance music. The most famous family member was Władysław Szpilman, whose memoirs formed the basis of Roman Polański's Oscar-winning film, The Pianist.²

Within studies of Jewish instrumental klezmer in Europe, the contributions of the klezmer musicians of Congress Poland have thus far been neglected. Although long considered to have been central to the development of the klezmer tradition in eastern Europe,³ these musicians were never studied systematically.⁴ They also barely left a recorded legacy: only a smattering of klezmer and other related instrumental recordings were made in Poland in the first four decades of the twentieth century.⁵ Mark Slobin has spoken of klezmer as occupying a 'permanent penumbra, a shaded glimpse of a cultural body that will never emerge from the shadows of history'.⁶ This is especially the case for the Polish instrumentalists, of whom in many cases we do not even know the names. Thus, the lack of knowledge about Polish klezmer musicians is a major lacuna in our understanding not only of the development of the klezmer tradition but of European Jewish history and European musical history in general.

It is a rather strange situation for an ethnomusicologist to be in. We are so used to studying cultures where we know what the music sounds or sounded like, that I struggled to find my bearings in attempting to study what was essentially a phantom culture. The pieces for this study started falling into place from my earliest involvement with eastern European Jewish culture in the late 1970s. The iconic photograph of the Szpilman khavrusa (orchestra) in Ostrowiec from 15 January 1887 had always intrigued me (Fig. 1).⁷ In 1990 I heard from Pete Sokolow,

Figure 1.

Szpilman Orchestra, Ostrowiec, Poland, 15 January 1887.

Front row, left to right: Moyshe-Chaim Szpilman, flute; Shi-Yekl Barsht, violin; Zile Szpilman, violin; Rivn Szpilman, violin; Tratl, violin; unknown, cello; unknown, drum.

Middle row, left to right: Szymon Bajgelman, C clarinet; unknown, flute; Kopl Mutzmacher (Mutzman), rotary valve cornet; Shleyme Fleishman, rotary valve cornet; Spaismacher, rotary valve trombone. Back row, left to right: Srul-Layb Szpilman, band leader and bassist; unknown, E clarinet

Used with permission of Leo Spellman and Sam Barsh.

a New York klezmer musician, that one of the members of the Ostrowiec Szpilman klezmer family, Joe Barsh, was active as a musician in New York City. In the mid1990s the late Chana Mlotek, YIVO's music archivist, suggested I should take a look at a handwritten manuscript in the archive. It consisted of compositions by Yontele Szpilman (Yom-Tov Spilman), a famous nineteenth-century Polish klezmer violinist, who may or may not have been related to the Ostrowiec Szpilman family.⁸ In 1998 the German translation of Władysław Szpilman's memoir was published.⁹ I instantly recognized the name as belonging to the famous musical family.¹⁰ His grandfather was Srul-Layb Szpilman, the bassist and leader of the Szpilman khavrusa. During my ongoing correspondence with Bret Werb of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, it came out that he had not only had contact with Władysław Szpilman¹¹ but also with other members of the Szpilman family, including Leo Spellman (Avrum-Luzer Szpilman).¹² Leo was the youngest of the eight children of violinist Rivn (Reuwen/Rivele) Szpilman. One of the few members of the Polish branch of the Szpilman family to have survived the Holocaust, Leo...