Zeitlin: Chamber Music

Lost from view and largely unperformed for over half a century, the thirty-two extant works of chamber music by Leo Zeitlin (1884–1930) are published here, most of them for the first time. All but two are Jewish in content. A superbly talented composer and arranger, Zeitlin’s career as a violinist, violist, conductor, and impresario began in St. Petersburg. There he became active in the Society for Jewish Folk Music, the catalyst for a brief but golden age of art music composed on Jewish themes. He subsequently taught and conducted in Ekaterinoslav and Vilna before emigrating in 1923 to New York, where he was a violist and arranger for the Capitol Theatre. The works date from all these periods of Zeitlin’s career and are written for various combinations, instrumental and vocal. This edition describes Zeitlin and his milieu and includes historical and analytic discussions of each of the works.