Joseph Cherniavsky () (c. 1890-1959) was a Jewish American cellist, theatre and film composer, orchestra director, and recording artist. He wrote for the Yiddish theatre, made some of the earliest novelty recordings mixing American popular music, Jazz and klezmer in the mid-1920s, was also musical director at Universal Studios in 1928-1929, and had a long career in radio and musical theatre.
Biography
Early life
Josef Leo Cherniavsky was born in Lubny, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire around 1890. The exact date of his birth is unclear; a citizenship application by his wife in 1928 said March 29, 1889; he himself said on US military documents that it was March 29, 1890, while the Lexicon of Yiddish Theatre says it was March 31, 1894. His father was a klezmer musician, as was his grandfather. Although the Lexicon of Yiddish Theatre claims that his grandfather was the prototype for Sholem Aleichem's fictional klezmer Stempenyu (in real life, a violinist named Yosele Druker), it seems that his grandfather was actually Peysekh Fidelman, father of the violinists Alexander Fiedemann. In his youth, Joseph studied in a Cheder and also played drums in his father's ensemble at weddings. He soon began to learn the cello from his father, and then moved to Odessa where he continued to learn the instrument from his uncle Alexander Fiedemann. He then obtained a government scholarship and traveled to study at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory under such figures as Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov. He graduated in 1911 with a gold medal as a Cellist and Conductor and then went to Leipzig where he finished his studies under Julius Klengel.
Musical career in Russia
While still a music student, Cherniavsky had been a member of a Jewish chamber music ensemble founded by clarinetist Simeon Bellison called the Moscow Quintet, which was heavily influenced by the Society for Jewish Folk Music. Cherniavsky had collected Jewish melodies in villages during that era and contributed them to the development of the ensemble's repertoire. Upon finishing his studies in 1914 he returned to Saint Petersburg and rejoined the ensemble, played in some Russian orchestras, and began to compose. In 1918, with the support of the aforementioned Society, Bellison founded a new chamber ensemble called the Zimro Ensemble, also known as the Palestine Chamber Music Ensemble: ZIMRO. The ensemble added a piano and its lead violinist was Jacob Mestechkin, a student of Leopold Auer. The ensemble's goal was to embark on tours of Eastern Russia, Asia, and the United States, with their final goal being Palestine. Their repertoire consisted not only of standard Western chamber repertoire, but also compositions by Russian Jewish composers such as Alexander Krein, Solomon Rosowsky, Joseph Achron, and Mikhail Gnessin.
The Zimro Ensemble left Petrograd in March 1918, passing through the Ural Mountains into the East. They toured Eastern Russia, China, and the Dutch East Indies, finally ending up in the United States in August 1919. The ensemble stayed at least two years in the United States, performing at the congress of the American Zionist Federation in September 1919 and later at Carnegie Hall and various other venues. Sergei Prokofiev composed his Overture on Hebrew Themes for the Zimro Ensemble, who debuted it in February 1920 in New York, with Prokofiev as guest pianist. However, rather than continue with their stated goal of fundraising for a artistic centre in Mandate Palestine, gradually the group broke apart, and at least three of its members (Cherniavsky, Mestechkin and Bellison) settled in the US and started music careers there.
Klezmer, theater and vaudeville in the United States
In 1919, while the Zimro ensemble was still playing concerts, Cherniavsky wrote the music for a play called Moishe der Klezmer which was performed by Maurice Schwartz. His encounter with Schwartz led him to enter the world of the Yiddish Theatre more prominently as a composer and arranger. They collaborated on the first American adaption of The Dybbuk which played to great success in 1921–22.
