Metadata: Sheet Music Collection of the LSSR Ministry of Culture
Collection
- Country:
- Latvia
- Holding institution:
- National Library of Latvia
- Holding institution (official language):
- Latvijas Nacionālā Bibliotēka
- Postal address:
- Mūkusalas iela 3, Rīga, LV-1423
- Phone number:
- +371 67 806 100
- Web address:
- www.lnb.lv
- Email:
- lnb@lnb.lv
- Reference number:
- RXA307
- Title:
- Sheet Music Collection of the LSSR Ministry of Culture
- Title (official language):
- Latvijas PSR Kultūras Ministrijas Nošu Kolekcija
- Creator/accumulator:
- Ministry of Culture of Latvian SSR
- Date(s):
- 1950/2000
- Language:
- Latvian
- Yiddish
- Russian
- Extent:
- 847 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- This fonds contains the sheet music collection of the former Latvian SSR Ministry of Culture. The collection comprises 12 folders with Maksis Goldins's original writings (sheet music and lyrics) that represent his work on Jewish folk songs. The writings described are dated from the 1960s to the early 1990s, totalling 480 leaves. Goldins collected Jewish folk songs and orchestrated or adapted them so that they could be performed by professional musicians. The present collection comprises Jewish folk songs prepared to be played and sung by choirs (female or mixed voice), ensembles, duets or a single vocalist with instrumental (piano) accompaniment, orchestra or a capella. The lyrics are written in Yiddish. Some of the songs contain a Russian translation on separate sheets. Some of the manuscripts also have notes made by a unknown author. Examples include an incomplete list of Jewish folk songs prepared for a voice and piano accompaniment: A lidele in idiš, Bleser a mlamed, Der balagole, Di mame hot mir gešikt, Feigele ļuļi, Gej ix mir špacirn, Gevald, vu nemt men, In Ades, in Ades, In rod arain, Ver hot aza ingele, Zuntik buļbe.
- Archival history:
- The sheet music collection was gathered by the Ministry of Culture of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Ministry of Culture was founded in 1953 and functioned until the end of the Soviet occupation. Later the documents preserved by the Ministry were rearranged in the Latvian archives, including the sheet music collection that is now kept in the National Library of Latvia.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Maksis Goldins (1917-2009) was a Latvian Jewish composer and musicologist. He was born in Riga and from 1935 to 1939 he studied theory of musical composition with Jāzeps Vītols (1863-1948) at the Latvian Conservatory. During the Second World War Goldings was injured and evacuated to Kirov (Russia) in 1942. In the same year he moved to Ivanovo (Russia) where he worked with the State Art Ensemble as an accompanist. In 1944-1948. Golding studied at the Moscow Conservatory and defended his dissertation in 1952. He continued to work in Latvia. In 1970 Goldins attained his PhD with a thesis on “The main musical stylistic features of the Latvian folk songs and links with folk songs of the East Slavic people”. Besides Latvian folk music, Goldins was very interested in collecting, arranging and orchestration of Jewish folk songs. From the 1950s Goldins worked on instrumental and vocal pieces based on original Jewish folk songs. He collected, systematised and arranged about 80 Jewish folk songs for piano and voices and about 40 songs for choir. He also popularised Jewish folk songs. In the 1980s a number of recordings were made based on the Jewish folk songs arranged by Goldins (two LPs for voice and piano (or violin), one for choir). At the same time Goldins and his colleagues performed Jewish folk music concerts throughout the European part of the USSR. In 1994 Goldins published “The Anthology of Jewish Folk Songs” (in Russian) where he collected more than 250 songs in Yiddish and Hebrew.
- Subject terms:
- Jewish languages
- Jewish languages--Yiddish
- Music
- Music--Composers
- Sheet music
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of one inventory.
- Finding aids:
- The inventory is available in the digital Database of Rare Books and Manuscripts of the National Library of Latvia.
- Links to finding aids:
- https://kopkatalogs.lv
- Yerusha Network member:
- Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
- Author of the description:
- Antonina Martynenko