Synagogue Songs

Chief cantor Bernard Grüne (1888 – 1955) obtained in Szatmar (north-western Romania) a diploma entitling him to be called an Orthodox Rabbi. He was a renowned singer among the Budapest Jews already at the age of nine. The Budapest Opera awarded a scholarship to young Bernard to complete the study of singing interrupted by the First World War. In 1913 he served as a cantor in Nitra (Slovak Republic), and in 1918 he became a cantor of the central Jewish religious community in Budapest (the Dohany synagogue). In the period from 1923 to 1929 he served as chief cantor in Székesfehèrvár (Hungary), following which he arrived in Zagreb where he served as the chief cantor of the Zagreb synagogue until his death in 1955. Following the example of the Viennese cantor Salamon Sulzer Shir Zion, Grüner's collection contains synagogue songs by different nineteenth-century authors who have composed music for the reformed synagogue service. In addition to the songs of the renowned European synagogue cantors, such as Sulzer, Lewandowski and Naoumburg, Bernard Grüner’s collection also contains songs signed Bernard Grüner or with a pseudonym “Sienavaj” after the province of origin of the Grüner family. Those melodies are composed either to an original tune, or, in individual cases, to partly changed tunes of the above mentioned cantors, with new harmony introduced...