by
Rolf Hofmann (HarburgProject@aol.com),
based on own research
Dennenlohe
is practically unknown to most people even in Germany. This tiny village in
Bavaria, some miles east of Dinkelsbuehl, is famous for its beautiful castle,
created around 1730/50 by the italian architect Leopoldo Retti, who afterwards
designed the New Castle in Stuttgart. Less known is the fact that in these days
a small jewish community existed at Dennenlohe. Most of them were dedicated to
playing music, and so the jewish musicians of Dennenlohe became well known even
in far away places, because they played well, and they were cheaper than their
christian competitors, who eyed them with suspicion.
Some
descendants of these jewish musicians became quite famous, like Abraham Weiler.
His father Emanuel Weiler was born in Dennenlohe and became Cantor of the
jewish community in Fischach (Bavaria), where in 1852 his son Abraham was born.
In 1870 the jewish community of Noerdlingen was founded, and Abraham Weiler
became their first cantor and religious teacher, in which position he stayed
until he died in 1908. He was well respected, not only as a cantor but also as
a perfect sharp shooter, and so for some time he had also served as a master of
the local rifle organisation. His grave monument at the jewish cemetery in
Noerdlingen shows a broken lyra, thus reminding of his ancestors tradition as
musicians.
Another
even more famous descendant of the jewish musicians of Dennenlohe was Samuel
Naumburg. His father Baruch Elkan Naumburg was an oboe player and his uncle
Simson Wolf Naumburg was the cantor of the jewish community at Hainsfarth in
Bavaria. Samuel Naumburg was born at Dennenlohe in 1817 and received his
musical education in Munich. In 1845 he was appointed first chazzan (cantor) at
the Synagogue Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth in Paris. He was sponsored by the composer
Jacques Fromental Halevy to carry out plans for a thorough reform of liturgic
music. So Samuel Naumburg became an important composer of synagogue melodies
and thus still today is compared with the famous composers Solomon Sulzer and
Louis Lewandowsky. He was also a close friend of the composer Giacomo
Meyerbeer, who was born in Berlin and also lived in Paris. When Samuel Naumburg
died in 1880 he was interred at Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris. Today nobody
cares for his grave. It still exists, but nobody really knows where it actually
is. But his compositions are still part of the synagogue services and thus
remind of him.
Two
of Samuel Naumburg's cousins were prominent in the USA. Louis Naumburg served
as a cantor in Philadelphia and later as a religious teacher in Pittsburg.
Elkan Naumburg became a banker and philantropist in New York, where he donated
the well known band shell at Central Park.
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