Alois Kaiser

Background

Alois Kaiser was born on November 10, 1840 in Szobotist, Hungary, the son of David Loeb Kaiser.

Education

Kaiser received his education in the Realschule, the Jewish Teachers' Seminary, and the Conservatory of Music in Vienna. At ten years of age he entered the synagogue choir of the renowned cantor, Solomon Sulzer, in which for some time he was leading soprano. After eight years in that choir, he had gained a thorough familiarity with Sulzer's cantillation and choral music and had developed a rich baritone voice.

Career

In 1859 Kaiser was chosen in 1859 as assistant cantor to the Fünfhaus synagogue, in the outskirts of Vienna. He served as cantor in the Neusynagogue in Prague from 1863 until 1866, when he came to America to be cantor of the Oheb Shalom synagogue in Baltimore, a position which he filled until his death. In America, he was the leading cantor of the school of Sulzer, a school in which Jewish musical tradition was modified by the standards of Teutonic oratorio, operatic, and choral music.

Among his published works, besides a cantata, many hymns, and music for special services, is A Collection of the Principal Melodies of the Synagogue, from the Earliest Times to the Present (1893), which he compiled with William Sparger as a souvenir of the Jewish Women's Congress held under the auspices of the World's Parliament of Religions at Chicago. This useful collection contains fifty traditional synagogue melodies with accompaniments and English texts, sixteen modern compositions, and a prefatory historical survey of synagogue music.

Between 1871 and 1886 Kaiser, together with others, issued Zimrath Yah, a more ambitious, but less valuable collection of synagogue music. These four volumes contain little that is traditionally Jewish, the bulk of the material being either compositions by the editors or by Christian composers, marked by an intricate or a German melodic style. Kaiser edited The Union Hymnal (1897) for the Central Conference of American Rabbis, contributing about forty hymns, the majority of the rest being adaptations from Christian composers. This hymnal is characteristic of the dual character of Kaiser's work. On the one hand, he freely introduced into the Synagogue sacred and secular music of non-Jewish character; on the other, he pleaded for the retention of traditional Jewish music in American Reform Jewish temples. In their reaction from the historical traditions of the synagogue service the Reform congregations tended strongly to dispense with the cantor and thereby with most of the traditional synagogue music; thus Kaiser could truthfully say of American Reform temples that they had borrowed so much from the church, the opera, and the concert stage that in some Jewish houses of worship Jewish melodies had almost entirely disappeared. When he pleaded for the retention of the old music, however, he was of opinion that themes reduced to the fixed rhythm of hymns and anthems were all that could be preserved. For the rest, he believed that the traditional modal chanting of the Synagogue with its uniquely Jewish character and amazing melismatic richness of coloratura and free improvisation, which is so vigorously alive and developing today, was already in his time a thing of the past.

Achievements

• Alois Kaiser became prominent composer of synagogue music. Most famous of his compositions included "Confirmation Hymns" (1873), "Memorial Service for the Day of Atonement" (1879), "Cantata for Simchat Torah" (1890). An unusual compliment was paid to his character and scholarly musicianship when in 1895 he was elected an honorary member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Songs of Zion: A Collection of the Principal Melodies of the Synagogue, From the Earliest Times to the Present (Classic Reprint) by Alois Kaiser (2015-09-27)

Membership

For several years Kaiser was a president of the Society of American Cantors and a president of the Hebrew Education Society of Baltimore.

Connections

In 1862 Kaiser married Caroline Fould.

Father:

David Loeb Kaiser

Spouse:

Caroline Fould

References

• Jewish music in its historical development,
• The Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 7: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People From the Earliest Times; Italy-Leon (Classic Reprint)