THE
BUNDLE UP IN FUR
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FRANKFURT page 97
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SALE
Jewish — but who have com-
mitted themselves 10 learn-
ing and performing the mu-
sic they've come to love.
`There's a certain shyness we
felt at first to approach Jewish
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culture," admitted Christian
Reck, 24. I met and spoke to this
personable pianist and singer
after the concert, when the two
performers had a brief break be-
fore getting ready for their sec-
ond concert of the afternoon.
Speaking in fluent English,
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Mr. Reck related how the two
musicians came to perform Yid-
dish music. It began five years
ago when Mr. Reck's friend
Jascha Zmarzlik came across
some Yiddish music he liked
and asked Mr. Reck to accom-
pany him when he performed
several songs for a group of
friends.
"Then we started learning
more and more," said Mr. Reck.
"And then we asked ourselves,
`Instead of just performing this
for friends, why not sing these
songs in public?"
Both of them were eager —
but also hesitant. "We had a
fear of intruding into something
that was not ours," explained
Christian Reck. "We worried
that from the Jewish people the
response might be negative.
Maybe they would think that
the sons of murderers were
singing their songs."
But that was not the re-
sponse they received. They first
performed publicly in 1989, in
a synagogue in Fribourg, Ger-
many, where both of them live.
"The response was very posi-
tive," said Mr. Reck. "People
were very glad that someone
was doing this music."
With this encouragement,
they decided to continue and
pursue their interest in Yiddish
music. At first, they learned by
listening to recordings and us-
ing the transliterated versions
of the words. But then Jascha
Zmarzlik, who's now 23, became
so interested that he took a
course in Yiddish at a college in
Fribourg, and in turn helped
Mr. Reck improve his Yiddish,
too.
Meanwhile, their repertoire
grew until it included 25 songs
which run the gamut: every-
thing from the well known "Dos
Kelbl" to the love song "Oy
Dortn."
By now, the two musicians,
who are also university stu-
dents, have given 20 concerts of
Yiddish music, including one in
a Jewish community center in
Paris and another in a Jewish
hospital in Budapest. But most
often, they perform for German
audiences and usually very few
in the audience are Jewish.
Often their programs include
showing slides which they pro-
ject onto a screen: striking pho-
tographs from the book A
Vanished World. As they show
the slides, they talk about this
world of Yiddish culture and
language.
Their immersion in Yiddish
music — and in the culture and
the language of Eastern Euro-
pean Jews — has given them
new insights into the connec-
tions between their own culture
and that of the Jews whose mu-
sic they sing.
"This language is so close to
our own language," said Jascha
Zmarzlik, who, after putting
away his clarinet, came to join
the conversation.
"Hearing Yiddish, we can dis-
cover our own language in an-
other way. It's like looking into
a concave mirror."
Exposure to Yiddish is also a
consciousness-raising experi-
ence for non-Jewish Germans.
"We see our own history — the
worst of our history — when we
hear this music," said Mr.
Zmarzlik., "Many of the songs
were created out of persecution.
So anyone who sings them has
to be conscious that this was a
culture destroyed by the Ger-
mans."
Both musicians hope that
their concerts are educational
as well as entertaining. That's
why they try to include the slide
presentations whenever possi-
ble.
"This isn't just entertain-
ment," emphasized Christian
Reck. "We want to play and sing
the music as well as we can. But
not only that. We also want peo-
ple to get to know Yiddish cul-
ture. We want to give them a
picture of the culture along with
the music." ❑
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