Everybody knows how to sing 'Ein Kamocha.' In the UK there's hardly a Shul that doesn't sing it more-or-less the same way and yet, there are very few people who know that it was composed by one of the most influential of all composers of Synagogue music - Salomon Sulzer.

Although we don't sing very many of Sulzer's pieces any more, there's no doubt that his highly innovative approach to the music of the Synagogue was significantly instrumental in creating the stylised and formal structure that still exists in most congregations.

Salomon was born in Hohenems, Austria, and, although his family name was Loewy, they changed it and called themselves after the small town called Sulz, where they had settled after having been exiled from their hometown.

He studied, first in Switzerland and travelled as an itinerant cantor in Germany, Switzerland and France. He had some eminent teachers of music including Ignaz von Seyfried, who had himself been a pupil of Haydn and was a friend of Mozart and Beethoven.

In 1826 Sulzer received a call to be cantor at the Viennese Seitenstettengasse Temple, where he remained for forty-five years.

He was the first cantor to apply the rules of classical harmony to traditional synagogue melodies and through the publication of his major work, Shir Zion, his fame spread. The first volume was published in 1840 and the second came out about 1866. Included in this work were also compositions by his teacher von Seyfried, and Franz Schubert.

His efforts did not go unrewarded and in 1874 he became a knight of the Order of Franz Josef and was also made an 'honourable citizen' of Vienna.

Since most of Sulzer's compositions are for Cantor and choir, you are more likely to hear them in a Shul where there is a Chazan and choir. These include Mi Adir at a wedding and one of his arrangements for Adon Olam or Eitz Chayim He. However there are numerous responses and incidentals in our services that owe their origins to Sulzer. The way we begin Ashrei after Kriat Hatorah, Yimloch of the Kedusha and so on, and many similar asides on the Yamim Noraim, can be traced back to his writings.
 
There are indeed good reasons why Sulzer is often spoken of as the father of modern chazanut.

top

"On Thursday, May 12, 1904 at 7 p.m. sharp in the large hall of the 'Musikverein'," says the opening sentence of the programme for a concert arranged in Vienna by the Society for the Collection and Preservation of Artistic and Historic Jewish Mementoes. The conductor was Professor Joseph Sulzer (the son of Salomon Sulzer), the Imperial and Royal Court musician who was also the choir director of the "Wiener Israelitische Kultusgemeinde." The artists taking part were: the court actor, Konrad Loewe; the cantors, Bela Gutmann and Don Fuchs, and the combined choirs of Vienna's two main synagogues.

The entire programme was made up of Hebrew music, psalms and synagogue prayers. Franz Schubert's setting of the Hebrew words of Psalm 92, one of the Sabbath psalms, received its first public performance at the concert, although it had been composed nearly eighty years earlier-in 1827. All the other music performed came from "Schir Zion," by Salomon Sulzer, the great cantor and liturgical composer.

The elite of Viennese Jewry gathered in the "Musikverein" for the concert, which marked the centenary of Salomon Sulzer's birth on March 30, 1804. He had officiated at the Seitenstettengasse Synagogue from its consecration on April 9, 1826 until his retirement on April 2, 1881-a period of 55 years. Sulzer died on January 17, 1890. The concert had originally been scheduled for May 5 in the small hall of the "Musikverein," but since thousands of people were expected to attend-according to a contemporary report-it had to be postponed until May 12 and transferred to the large hall. On March 20 a festive commemorative evening had been held at the city synagogue, the first time in the history of synagogue music that a liturgical composer's centenary had been celebrated. Another commemoration of Sulzer's centenary took place in Konigsberg, East Prussia. It was arranged by Eduard Birnbaum, who was a cantor there and was later to achieve notability as a collector of Jewish music. According to a report  in the "Israelitische Wochenschrift" (Berlin) of April 15, 1904, he arranged a concert in Konigsberg to pay homage to the memory of Sulzer on the occasion of his centenary, together with an exhibition of Sulzer's manuscripts and first editions from his personal collection.

Sulzer's centenary was marked in America, too. The  Reverend S. Rappaport, a cantor at New York's West End Synagogue, published a biographical sketch of him in 1904. In 1940, the fiftieth anniversary of Sulzer's death was marked in New York by the Jewish Ministers' Cantors' Association of America, who organized a commemorative concert in which prominent rabbis, cantors and composers took part. "Salomon Sulzer and the Viennese Jewish Community," published in Vienna in 1904 by Dr. M. Steiner, contains an interesting survey of the position of the Jews in general and synagogal developments from the end of the eighteenth century up to Sulzer's death in 1890.

The outstanding Rabbi Isaac Noah Mannheimer (1793-1865) had been charged with the task of devising the ritual for the Seitenstetten Synagogue and of introducing an order of divine service in keeping with the era of enlightenment. It was on his recommendation that Sulzer was called to Vienna at the age of  22 to officiate as cantor.

Sulzer's artistic personality, his superb voice and gifts as a composer did not impress only his contemporaries. To this day he is still considered a unique phenomenon in the history of synagogue music. He has become an almost legendary figure, and a number of biographical sketches purport to describe events in his life which border on the fantastic, particularly in regard to his childhood. For instance, a divine miracle is supposed to have saved him from certain death at the age of 7, when his native city of Hohenems, in Voralberg, was inundated by flood waters. This is supposed to have impelled his mother to consecrate young Salomon (who was a Levite) to the service of God.

The truth is more prosaic. Sulzer himself wrote in 1876 that he was launched into the realm of synagogue music in his earliest youth by the cantor of Hohenems, Salomon Eichberg, and shortly after his Bar Mitzvah was already leading prayers in the synagogue. According to the regulations in force at the time, the appointment of a cantor had to be endorsed by the Government. This endorsement had, however, been denied to Eichberg because he was an alien, and the position of cantor was thus vacant. The young Sulzer applied for it in 1817.

The idea of appointing a boy just past Bar Mitzvah, even though, according to Jewish law he could be considered a fully fledged member of the community, aroused opposition among the congregation. Since they could reach no satisfactory settlement among themselves the matter was eventually referred to Vienna via the usual channels, as Eduard Kulke relates in a biographical sketch of Sulzer published in Vienna in 1866.

The Emperor Franz Josef personally endorsed the 13-year-old Sulzer's appointment as cantor of the Hohenems community on the express condition that he first devoted himself to further cantorial studies.

Salomon first went to Switzerland for training by a cantor, Lippmann, who traveled from community to community, conducting Sabbath services. These services were very popular and served as a substitute for public concerts, especially in smaller communities. These traveling cantors were frequently accompanied by supporting singers who were known as "Meshorerim" - a tenor ("Singerl") and a bass. The "Meshorerim" stood on either side of the cantor and took the place of instrumental accompaniment.

For three years, Sulzer traveled through Switzerland, Swabia (Germany) and France. In Alsace-Lorraine, wrote Sulzer, he "encountered organized Jewish communities which afforded me a deeper insight into the requirements of synagogue life. I searched everywhere for the ideal of my future profession,  seeking that for which my soul was yearning. Everywhere I gathered impressions which had a determining and shaping influence on my conception of the cantonal office and, even before the three years were up, I returned to my native town of Hohenems to deposit the first fruits on the altar of God at the age of 16."

This small community only became known in the Jewish world because it was the birth-place of an outstanding figure in the history of synagogue music, whose name is still renowned to this day. To quote again from Sulzer himself: "Thus, yielding to my creative urge, I worked intuitively in an out-of-the-way place, remote from art and fellow-artists, without any guidance other than that of my own taste, shaping and reshaping myself, striving to improve the order of divine service. I had no inkling of the widespread echo of my achievements until I received a call from Vienna inviting me to a tryout performance in the Imperial City." The "call" came in a letter from the executive of the Vienna community dated December 23, 1825. He made his first appearance in Vienna on February 12, 1826, singing traditional synagogue melodies together with two auxiliary singers, whom he had brought with him from Hohenems. In his own words: "Here, too, I came, I sang, I conquered. The result was my engagement on a permanent basis."

The consecration of the new Seitenstettengasse  synagogue took place on April 26, 1826, and was a milestone in the reshaping of the musical side of the Vienna community's liturgy. Sulzer's reforms and his creative activity became a model for the whole of Europe, including Russia, and his compositions soon made their way across the ocean becoming a standard part of the cantoral repertoire in many American synagogues.

In connection with the establishment of the Seitenstettengasse synagogue, reference must again be made-even if only briefly-to the surpassing importance of Rabbi Isaac Noah Mannheimer. He arrived in Vienna in 1825, and was responsible for reforming the divine services held in the Austrian capital. The so-called "Mannheimer Rite" was accepted as binding by a meeting of wardens, representatives  and members of the Viennese community, and this acceptance was embodied in the statutes of the "Bethaus der Israeliten in Wien."

It was a most happy occurrence in the history of the Seitenstettengasse synagogue that this great man had working with him a cantor who, by his artistry and deeply serious conception of his office, brought order and dignity into the musical aspects of synagogue liturgy.

Nevertheless, the close proximity of two such strong personalities as Mannheimer and Sulzer was bound  to give rise to occasional strains and stresses, and Sulzer was suspended from office in 1865 for, according to Eduard  Birnhaum, "drastically rejecting Mannheimer's collaboration in introducing the new liturgy into the synagogue."  annheimer, himself the son of a cantor, was in reality "a well-qualified and knowledgeable adviser who participated in the arrangement and musical planning of divine services."

Mannheimer died in 1865. Eleven years later, Sulzer wrote warmly of the rabbi. "May this great man, who many years ago preceded me along the dark path all mortals have to follow, who was my guide and mentor, my friend and colleague in office . . . partake of everlasting blessedness," wrote Sulzer.

Mention should be made here of Mannheimer's and Sulzer's joint participation in the funeral ceremonies of those killed in the Vienna March revolution (March  17,  1848). There were two Jews among the first fifteen fatally wounded. Dr. Rosenmann relates that arrangement had been made for a Roman Catholic priest to perform all the burial rites, when Rabbi Mannheimer, in full canonicals and accompanied by Sulzer, strode into the chapel, there to discharge his priestly obligations to the Jewish dead.

At the beginning of his career Sulzer was confronted by an almost insuperable musical task. The synagogue music was in a chaotic state, and Sulzer had to battle against corrupt musical tradition. But although there was no Jewish example on which to model his reorganization, he was fully aware of the significance of the genuine traditions handed down from the past. Only one man before him had attempted to reform synagogue music-Salomone de Rossi of Mantua, in the early seventeenth century. But Rossi neglected to ensure that his choral works would be performed by those who came after him, and they remained forgotten until the end of the last century.

It was Sulzer's task to select the genuine traditional melodies of the synagogue, to trace them back-as far as possible-to their original form and to cleanse them of all additions and superimpositions that were musically alien to the synagogue.

In addition, he had to harmonize these melodies. In his youth he had devoted himself to serious musical study at Karlsruhe in Germany, and as a young Viennese cantor he had been given the opportunity of studying under acknowledged masters. One of the best-known of them was Ignaz Xavier Ritter von Seyfried (1776- 1841), a pupil of Haydn and a friend of Mozart and Beethoven. Among Sulzer's other instructors in composition was Josef Fischhof (1804-1857).

From the very beginning of his work in Vienna, Sulzer was conscious of the fact that he still had much to learn about composition. In order to complete his repertoire for the Seitenstettengasse Tempel he commissioned liturgical pieces from a number of well-known Viennese composers. It is indicative of Sulzer's reverence for tradition and his appreciation of the significance of Hebrew, that these composers -some of them non-Jewish-were asked to set the original Hebrew text to music, not the German translation. This was no easy task. Mention has already been made of Schubert's setting of Psalm 92 in Hebrew. The German version did not appear until 1870, when the Viennese publisher Ludwig Doblinger brought out Moses Mendelsohn's translation.

In "Schir Zion" (published in two volumes) Sulzer published his own compositions and the works he had commissioned. The preface to volume I was written as early as 1838 or 1839, but the volume itself was not printed until 1840 or 41. The preface to Volume II is dated 1865, but the whole work presumably appeared in 1866.

The first volume of "Schir Zion" contains the musical liturgy for Shabbath, the three Festivals, for New Year, the Day of Atonement, Purim and Tisha B'Av, and miscellaneous songs. The table of contents printed at the end lists 159 compositions, and Sulzer himself reports in a footnote that 37 items were contributed by other composers, including Franz Schubert, von Seyfried, Fischhof and others. Of the remaining 122 pieces composed by the author himself, 36 were based on traditional synagogue tunes. As already stated Sulzer's attitude was marked by hi  reluctance to break with tradition.

However, he did break with the past when he began to harmonize the old music of the synagogue. Here he was faced with an almost intractable problem. The rhythm had to be fixed first. Then it had to be forced, as it were, into rigid bars, which involved the danger of distorting the old melodies.

It was only in the second volume of "Schir Zion" that the mature Sulzer dared to tackle traditional hazzanut for cantor and choir on a larger scale. The compositions in Volume I were written in the choral style of the period and strongly influenced by contemporary secular and ecclesiastical music. Sulzer was unable to resist the effects of the classical epoch on his music although he had himself written, in the preface to the first edition of "Schir Zion": "As has already been indicated, I considered it my duty to pay as much regard as possible to tunes handed down to us from antiquity and to free their ancient, venerable essence from subsequent arbitrary and distasteful embellishments. I want to restore them to their original purity-both musically and textually-in a manner that accords with the laws of harmony."

The appearance of the first volume of "Schir  Zion" aroused the interest of many leading communities in Europe and America. It was reported from Berlin, for instance, that Cantor Ascher Lion was unable to decipher the choruses because of their antiquated notation. It was only with the assistance of young Louis Lewandowski, who was subsequently to gain a reputation second only to Sulzer as a composer of synagogue music, that he was enabled to study the Viennese music.

Just as in Vienna, Sulzer's music was sung almost exclusively, so in Berlin Lewandowski's compositions predominated in the official scores used by the congregation. These scores remained in use until the Nazi regime forbade synagogue services and began deporting Jews. Yet there are a few compositions by Sulzer which kept their place in the Berlin order of service for nearly a century.

One example is his "En  Kamocha", the prayer introducing the reading of the Law. We find it - in a German transalation - even in the printed scores of the Berlin Reform congregation (published in 1928).

In America, his music was being sung soon after the appearance of the first volume of "Schir  Zion". According to A. W. Binder, in 1849, Leo Sternberger, the cantor of the Ansche Chesed Congregation of New York, asked that Sulzer's score be sent to him as quickly as possible.

Before the volume appeared, Sulzer was often asked for manuscripts of his compositions. It was only when-in his own words the demand by congregations and hazzanim for his scores increased with each passing year that he reluctantly agreed to the publication of the volume.

However, individual compositions of his had already been printed earlier. Eduard Birnbaum relates that some synagogue music by Sulzer was published without his knowledge in Copenhagen in 1836. Also, works by Sulzer are to be found in a collection of choral songs issued in about 1838 by the Konigliche Isrealitische Oberkirchenbehorde at Stuttagart in Wurttemberg. The second volume of this collection also contains Sulzer's famous setting of "Adon Olam" in A Major.

His work as a composer had its beginnings during his youthful activity at Hohenems and continued without interruption from 1826 to 1839.  Schir Zion" soon brought Sulzer fame in the world of Jewish  music.

He knew well that he had departed from authentic Jewish musical tradition in publishing his choral pieces, but indicated in the preface to "Schir Zion" that he intended publishing a manual for hazzanim in the course of the year. To the best of my knowledge this manual never saw the light of day,and I have never come across any of Sulzer's manuscripts of this particular type. Many specimens of hazzanut appeared in the second volume of "Schir Zion" in 1866. They were presumably taken from the manuscripts of cantoral songs.

The preface to the first edition of "Schir Zion", Volume II, contained the following note:-"This second part should not merely supplement its predecessor-it is a separate collection of liturgical songs for all occasions, both ordinary and extraordinary  . . .  For that reason it contains everything proved by long-standing usage to be practicable for ritual purposes, as well as of musical worth, and which has already found a permanent place in the hearts of congregants."

Sulzer continues: "I have devoted special attention to the venerable tunes of the great Nestor Maharil, often using them as the basis of my own compositions." (Maharil was Jacob ben Moses Halevi, born in Mainz 1365. He fixed the usages of synagogal liturgy and advocated the conservation of traditional synagogue music.) "I even paid full attention to the Polish school of singing, insofar as it offered something truly characteristic, so as to let it appear in its authentic uniqueness and to impose musical order on it."

The second part of "Schir Zion" shows the composer at the peak of his creative ability. How much he veers towards the traditional style of hazzanut is shown especially in the prayer "V'teerav L'faneha Atiratenu", which introduces the priestly blessing and is sung in the course of Musaf on the High Holy Days. It is composed in the style of the eighteenth century. The cantor's part is a recitative, and the "M'shorerim", the auxiliary singers, repeat his words. However, this is anything but arbitrary improvisation - the whole arrangement is kept within strict musical form.

The second part also contains the composition "Vayehi Binsoah Ha'aron", which is presumably in use all over Europe today. Certainly, it is no exaggeration to state that it can be heard in hundreds of American synagogues.

This composition is an original creation by Sulzer. "The Law issues forth from Zion and the Word of the Eternal One from Jerusalem".    Sulzer set the tune in three-quarter time and this device probably accounts for its great popularity.

Much more could be said about Sulzer's other liturgical compositions, which include some that can be described as pearls of synagogue music, but space permits comment only on the masterly musical arrangements of the important Rosh Hashanah Musaf prayer, "On the Day of the New Year it is written, and on the Day of Atonement it is sealed".

Today, no less than 100 years ago, this composition impresses as a profound musical interpretation of the Jewish spirit. Its perfect rendering makes the most exacting musical and artistic demands upon cantor as well as choir.

"Schir Zion" has gone through five editions to date. Joseph Sulzer edited the second edition in 1905, and his revised edition served as the model for all subsequent issues. The fifth edition appeared in New York in 1954 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth.

The standard "Cantorial Anthology" by Gershon Ephros, published in five volumes between 1929 and  1957. contains a selection of Sulzer's best compositions. It can be found in many public music libraries all over the world, and is an indispensable handbook for every cantor and every musican interested in synagogue music. Mention must be made here of one of the many honours accorded to Sulzer. The "Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde" of Vienna appointed him "Professor des Gesanges" in 1845, a position he occupied until 1848.

Sulzer's fame spread not only to America, but also to the Holy Land, where his compositions were sung during his own lifetime. This is borne out in a letter written by Cantor Bardaki on Shevat 19, 5640 (1860). At that time Bardaki was officiating at the Bet Jacob Synagogue in Jerusalem.

Franz Liszt, in his book "Die Zigeuner and ihre Musik in Ungarn" (1861), wrote of Sulzer: "We have only once had the opportunity of gaining an inkling of what Jewish art could become if the Israelites would reveal the full intensity of their innate emotions in the form of their spirituality. We made the acquaintance of Cantor Sulzer in Vienna  . . .  and in order to hear him we visited the synagogue whose musical director he was  . . .  It seemed as though the Psalms hovered above us like spirits of fire-bowing low at the foot of the All-Highest to serve as a pedestal. Then majestic, triumphal sounds proclaimed the power of the God of Abel and Noah, of Isaac and Jacob, and it was impossible not to join with all the sympathies of one's soul in the invocation of this choir which carried-as if on gigantic shoulders-the burden of so many thousands of years of tradition, of so many divine benefactions, of so many rebellions and chastisements, and of such indestructible hope."

In a memoir written by Sulzer himself in 1876, on the golden jubilee of his becoming a cantor, the man who occupied the office of "Oberkantor" with glory disclosed that he was opposed to the appellation. It was, he said, a loan word from another religion, and did not really describe the content of his sacred office. (Johann Sebastian Bach, for instance, was "Kantor" of the Thomas Kirche in Leipzig.) Sulzer preferred the Hebrew appellations of "Hazan" or "Shaliah Tzibbur."

Salomon Sulzer had 14 children. He died on January 17, 1890. The announcement of his death was signed by his four sons: Julius, Emile, Carl and Joseph. In addition the names of the following daughters appear: Marie Belart, Hermine Gingold, Henriette Biacchi, Rose Wagner, Rachel Niederhofheim, Auguste Fischel and Fanny Abrest.

As far as can be ascertained, no comprehensive biography of Salomon Sulzer has yet been written, nor, to my knowledge, has any intensive research concerning his descendants been undertaken. Sulzer's son Julius was an operatic composer; one of his works was performed in Prague. He died in 1891. Joseph was a renowned 'cellist, and was also director of the combined Vienna synagogue choirs. He died in 1926.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, two of Sulzer's daughters were opera singers. Marie Belart worked at the Imperial Viennese Opera School at one time. Henriette Biacchi sang on theSpanish and Italian stages and was director of the Imperial Opera of Mexico in 1866.

Noah Mannheimer and Salomon Sulzer are two personalities who symbolize the beginning of the reorganization of synagogue liturgy from the textual and musical points of view. Together they raised the standards of divine service in Vienna to their zenith. Today regular services are once again being held at the Seitenstettengasse synagogue, which survived the Nazi years of terror.

The very same walls that echoed the voices of Mannheimer and Sulzer again reverberate with the sound of prayer and the chanting of a cantor.

The last pre-war cantor of the Seitenstettengasse synagogue was Heinrich Fischer, who left Austria (presumably towards the end of 1938) for England, where he was a cantor in Leeds. He managed to save his private musical library, the fruit of many years collecting, which is today, part of the Eric  Mandell Library of Jewish Music. It contains, among many other items, scores and choir-books in Fischer's own hand, including a manuscript score for the High Holy-days, consisting almost exclusively of Sulzer's compositions. Fischer's collection also comprises a rare original edition of Sulzer's "Ein Requiem zur Feier des Seelengedachtnisses", which contains Psalms 49 and 16.

Today, new liturgical music is being created in Zion. As stated earlier, Sulzer's "Songs of Zion" were already being sung in Jerusalem in 1860. It is indicative of Sulzer's attitude to Jewish music that he wrote about "national melodies" in the epilogue to "Schir Zion", and he was the first to advocate the correct pronunciation and stress of Hebrew texts used in synagogue music.

Sulzer's principles concerning the Hebrew language are obviously the basis for the contributions to synagogue music reaching us from Israel. Haim Alexander, Paul Ben-Haim, Itzhak Edel, Joseph Rambam and Erich Walter Sternberg are some of the composers whose names come to mind.

Sulzer's "Songs of Zion" issued forth from Vienna to proclaim the word of God to the whole world - and from the new Zion will issue forth the national melodies of which Sulzer spoke as early as 1840. It is to be hoped that this new sacred music will exercise a fruitful influence upon development of religious music in the diaspora.


The following biographical note was appended to the original article:
ERIC MANDELL, Director of Music at Har Zion in Philadelphia, lecturer. composer. conductor and musicologist established and maintains theMandell Collection, one of the largest private libraries of Jewish music in the world.

top