Louis Lewandowski

Louis Lewandowski was born in the Polish town of Wreschen. At the age of twelve, after his mother's death and because of his family's extreme poverty, he left for Berlin here he became an apprentice for Chazzan Asher Lion. Soon the boy's musical ambition reached out beyond the ghetto. With the help of Alexander Mendelssohn (cousin of the composer Felix Mendelssohn), Lewandowski became the first Jew to attend the Berlin Academy of the Arts.

For twenty-four years Lewandowski worked as choirmaster at the Heidereutergasse Temple in Berlin, conducting the music of Salomon Sulzer. But in 1864 the building of the Oranienburgerstrasse Temple, which was equipped with an organ, offered Lewandowski the opportunity of creating an entire new service with organ accompaniment — a task never before undertaken. The culmination of his career came in 1882 with the publication of his magnum opus, Todah ve-Zimrah (Thanks and Song), a setting of the entire liturgical cycle for four soloists, cantor and organ.

Lewandowski was among the most significant composers of synagogue music, reproducing the traditional melodies in a more classical form and giving freer treatment to the organ music than his distinguished predecessor Cantor Sulzer had. He exerted a strong influence on Western Ashkenazi synagogal music through his activities as a teacher at the Jewish Free School and the Jewish Teachers' Seminary in Berlin. He based his compositions on the liturgical tradition of the Old Synagogue, on the one hand, and on the East European tunes he received from immigrant cantors, on the other.

His choral settings following the style of Mendelssohn's oratorios and works for choir. Among Lewandowski's principal works are Kol Rina u-Tfillah (1871), Todah ve-Zimrah for four soloists, cantor and organ (1876-1882), and 18 liturgical Psalms for solo, choir and organ.

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