The Yiddish folk melody heard in this video, with lyrics published in 1909 by poet Zalman Sheneour (Shneyer), is presented in a rare 1923 arrangement by Ira B. Arnstein. I (Marc Berman) sing the vocals on this new recording. I have further arranged the accompaniment for a trio of violin, clarinet and cello.
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This Arnstein arrangement does not seem to have been widely, if ever, recorded.
Though more than a million copies of Arnstein's works were sold, he is perhaps more famous in legal history than in musical history. That's because Arnstein filed numerous court actions against various composers for supposedly stealing his music. But he lost all those court cases. The composers whom Arnstein sued included Irving Berlin and Cole Porter.
Indeed, Porter had stated that his success was due to his writing "Jewish tunes." Arnstein apparently claimed that some of those "Jewish tunes" were his. The court case and appeal produced a court decision that still helps define what constitutes a musical copyright violation in American law.
Shneour's original text, originally titled "Tra-la-la-la," has eight stanzas. Some are typically left out in performance, for reasons of length. Arnstein's score contains five of the stanzas. Those same five stanzas are performed in this video.
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