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Salomon SulzerSalomon Sulzer almost drowned in a childhood swimming accident. As the boy’s life was hanging in the balance, his mother vowed that if he would be saved, she would devote his life to a sacred career. Salomon was resuscitated, and subsequently received extensive training in the cantorial art. The lad soon proved himself more than equal to the task. By the time he reached age of bar mitzvah, this young prodigy was already known as the finest cantor in his native Hohenems. He studied music in Vienna where he received an education in composition and singing, Sulzer, and was appointed as chazzan in Vienna in 1827, where he became the first musician in modern times to create a synagogue liturgy of the highest aesthetic standard by combining the cantorial heritage with forms and performance techniques of modern European music. His baritone voice attracted non-Jewish as well as Jewish admirers, among them Schubert, Schumann, and Liszt, who later wrote in his diary: “In Vienna we visited the famous tenor Sulzer, who served in the capacity of precentor in the synagogue, and whose reputation is so outstanding. For moments we could penetrate into his real soul and recognize the secret doctrines of the fathers.... Seldom were we so stirred by emotion as on that evening, so shaken that our soul was entirely given to meditation and to participation in the service” But Sulzer’s fame today rests not so much on his singing as on his compositions. Some of Sulzer’s choral melodies became so popular that the congregation began to sing along---a practice that the great cantor discouraged at every turn. But the melodies that Sulzer composed for VaY’hi BiNesoa Ho-Oron, Yehalelu Es Shem, and Shema Yisroel are heard in nearly every Ashkenazic synagogue today.With thanks to The Zamir Chorale of Boston |
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