Josef Singer

Published reference works differ on the details of Singer's birth. The Jewish Encyclopedia gives his birthdate as October 15, 1842, and locates his birthplace in Galicia, while the Encyclopaedia Judaica gives his lifespan as 1841–1911 and identifies his birthplace as Hlinik, Hungary.[1][2]

Singer's father, Israel Singer (1806–1897), had been a meshorer with the Strelisker ḥazzan Dovid'l Brod and later served as a ḥazzan himself.[2] Although his father envisioned a theatrical career for him, Josef showed an inclination toward scholarly and musical study.[1] He completed a four-year course at the Conservatorium in Prague before accepting a cantorial position in Beuthen, Prussian Silesia.[1]

Singer served as cantor in Beuthen, Upper Silesia, from 1866 to 1874.[2] He also taught at a local Jewish school, where he encountered the young Emanuel Kirschner. Singer repeatedly sought permission from Kirschner's father for the boy to sing in the synagogue choir.[3] The father initially refused because he did not want the family separated on the Sabbath, but Kirschner joined the choir after the family relocated to Beuthen during the Austro-Prussian War.[3] Singer introduced him to the music of Salomon Sulzer and Naumbourg, Hungarian traditional nusach, and piano. His instruction was important to Kirschner's musical development and may have been a primary reason Kirschner aspired to become a cantor.[3]

Singer next became chief cantor in Nuremberg and, according to the Wittner thesis, had been the first cantor there. The Jewish Encyclopedia dates his call to 1873, while the Encyclopaedia Judaica gives his tenure as 1874–1880.[1][2] In 1881 he was called to Vienna to succeed Salomon Sulzer as chief cantor of the Seitenstettengasse Synagogue and the Wiener Cultusgemeinde.[4][2] He still held the position when the Jewish Encyclopedia published its entry in 1905.[1]

Alongside his cantorial duties, Singer taught choral singing at the Jewish School for the Blind and attempted to establish what a Hebrew Union College thesis calls the first school for cantorial music.[5] He published studies on ḥazzanut chiefly in Der juedische Kantor and Oesterreich-Ungarische Kantorenzeitung, and in 1906 he produced the cantor's manual Amidat Sheli'aḥ Ẓibbur.[2] His contributions to Oesterreichisch-Ungarische Kantoren-Zeitung included the biographical series "Biographien Berühmter Fachgenossen Aelterer Periode" (1881–82) and the extended essay "Ueber Entwickelung des Synagogengesanges" (1883–90).[1]

Singer's most consequential scholarly contribution was his 1886 booklet, Die Tonarten des Traditionellen Synagogengesanges im Verhältniss zu den Kirchentonarten und den Tonarten der Vorchristlichen Musikperiode, published in Vienna by E. Wetzler.[1] The work compared the scale structures of Ashkenazi ḥazzanut with ancient European and Greek scales and advanced hypotheses about their antiquity and Jewish character.[2] It was among the earliest attempts to apply historical musicology to the analysis of Jewish liturgical modes.[2]

Singer is credited with naming three principal Jewish prayer modes, or shtaygers, after the liturgical texts with which they were associated: Adonai Malach, connected with Psalm 93 in the Kabbalat Shabbat service; Magen Avot, associated with the Friday-night repetition of the Amidah; and Yishtabach, now more commonly called Ahavah Rabbah. The last is associated with the second prayer between the Bar'chu and the Sh'ma on Shabbat morning.[4]

Singer's theses influenced many writers on Jewish music for an extended period, although the basic weaknesses of his work were recognized later.[2] The Jewish Encyclopedia described him as "an ardent student and investigator in the domain of synagogal music," while the Wittner thesis calls him one of the most prolific Jewish musicologists of the preceding generation of cantors.[1][3]

Singer's family continued his musical legacy in distinct directions. His daughter Clara married the composer Oscar Straus.[2] His son Simon Singer (1870–1931) began as a baritone at the Pressburg and Hamburg operas before entering the cantorate in 1900. Simon served at Katowice and, after World War I, at Halle, and was also a composer and writer on music.[2]

Through his long Vienna tenure and his mentorship of figures such as Emanuel Kirschner, Josef Singer contributed to the professional and intellectual development of Ashkenazi ḥazzanut around the turn of the twentieth century.[3][2] His attempt to systematize cantorial training and his early musicological analysis of Jewish prayer modes continued to influence the field even after weaknesses in his 1886 study became apparent.[5][2]

The published sources conflict on several biographical details. The Jewish Encyclopedia gives Singer's birth as October 15, 1842, in Galicia, while the Encyclopaedia Judaica gives 1841 and names his birthplace as Hlinik, Hungary.[1][2] The start of his Nuremberg appointment also differs: one reference dates his call to 1873, while the other gives a tenure beginning in 1874.[1][2] The cited sources do not resolve these conflicts.