Sholom Secunda

Ukrainian-born singer and composer

• Born: September 4, 1894
• Birthplace: Oleksandriia, Ukraine, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine)
• Died: June 13, 1974
• Place of death: New York, New York

Secunda was an important composer of Jewish liturgical music, Yiddish music for the stage, and film music. Trained as a cantor, he became a performer, a conductor, and a composer whose music influenced both Jewish and non-Jewish musicians.

Early Life

Sholom Secunda (sha-LOHM seh-KEWN-dah) was born in Ukraine in 1894, the sixth of nine children of Abraham Secunda and his wife Anna Rebecca Nedabeika. The family moved to the city of Nicholayev in 1896. Sholom Secunda began learning music in cheder (school) at the age of six; his talents were soon recognized and within a year he was accepted as a soloist in a local synagogue choir, later earning pay for his singing and thus contributing to the family income. In spite of his youth, his teachers recommended that he be prepared for the profession of chazzan (synagogue cantor). His parents exposed Secunda to Yiddish theater. His education was enhanced by several journeys that his father made to Odessa, from which he brought back new repertoire and taught it to his family, and by informal performances in the family home and in the community.

However, Secunda’s early musical experiences were curtailed by his father’s decision to move the family to the United States in order to escape the terrible pogroms, during which Jews were being murdered, after the turn of the century. Because of financial and political constraints, members of the family were compelled to emigrate at different times between 1903 and 1907, Secunda being among the last to arrive in New York. In 1908, he was giving piano lessons and occasionally directing synagogue choirs in the Jewish community on the lower East Side; his vocal performances were affected temporarily during the period when his voice changed.

Life’s Work

Secunda continued his formal education in music at what became the Juilliard School and later with the Swiss Jewish composer Ernst Bloch. By 1914, he was employed full time as a performer in the Yiddish theaters of the lower East Side, and within a year he had begun to write songs. His early works were published by J. and J. Kammen Music Company, which had been established by fellow immigrants to New York and which specialized in music of the Yiddish stage.

About 1915, the proprietor of the National Theater, Boris Thomashefsky—who had employed Joseph Rumshinsky as staff composer for the performances at his theater—engineered a meeting between Secunda and the young George Gershwin, offering the possibility of collaboration between the two in upcoming productions. This plan was not implemented, but Secunda and Gershwin became friendly rivals because they were doing similar musical work and understood each other. (Secunda did not have a good relationship with his predecessor, Rumshinsky, who did not appreciate the younger man’s hard work and education.) During 1917 and 1918, Secunda gained conducting experience as a bandmaster in the U.S. Navy; when he left the military after World War I, he became a full-time composer and conductor in the Yiddish theater.

For a period beginning in 1921, Secunda was based in Philadelphia; he also went on tour to Europe in 1923. By the time he returned to New York permanently after these experiences, he had formed professional and personal collaborations with Celia Adler and Molly Picon, two of the best-known stars of the Yiddish theater. Secunda married his wife Betty—a singer and dancer from another Yiddish theater family—in October, 1927. They had two sons, Sheldon (born in 1929) and Eugene (born in 1934).

As time passed, Secunda’s work in Yiddish theater and films became less relevant, and in the later years of his life he increasingly returned to Jewish liturgical music, with which his education had begun. Jan Peerce and Richard Tucker, both operatic tenors, influenced Secunda in this change of focus, although he continued to write Yiddish stage music to the end. He died of cancer in New York in 1974.

Significance

Secunda’s life and work were parallel with those of Gershwin and Kurt Weill. Although the three composers wrote stage and film music in different languages, their musical styles came from a common background and were similar in style. Gershwin and Weill died young; Secunda outlived them into a time when his work on the Yiddish stage became irrelevant to assimilated Jewish audiences. Nevertheless, individual songs from Secunda’s operas remain known to singers and audiences today, and many of his liturgical works are staples in American synagogues.

Bibliography

Berkowitz, Joel, ed. The Yiddish Theatre: New Approaches. Portland, Oreg.: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2003. A history of the Yiddish stage in a collection of essays. Secunda is mentioned prominently by many contributors.

Gottlieb, Jack. Funny, It Doesn’t Sound Jewish: How Yiddish Songs and Synagogue Melodies Influenced Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood. Albany: State University of New York in association with the Library of Congress, 2004. Engagingly written, often presenting information not found in other histories of Jewish vocal music. Secunda’s work is widely discussed in historical context.

Kanfer, Stefan. Stardust Lost: The Triumph, Tragedy, and Mishugas of the Yiddish Theater in America. New York: Vintage Books, 2007. Whimsical history of Yiddish drama in the United States and how it reflected the lives of audiences and performers.

Landis, Joseph C., ed. Memoirs of the Yiddish Stage. Flushing, N.Y.: Queens College Press, 1984. Another collection of essays documenting the history of Yiddish stage works. The essay “From the Melody Remains” is about Secunda’s work.

Secunda, Victoria. Bei mir bist du schön: The Life of Sholom Secunda. Foreword by Walter Matthau. Weston, Conn.: Magic Circle Press, 1982. Well-documented biography with extensive information about Secunda’s work, written by his daughter-in-law.