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(b Paris, Jan 1, 1834; d Paris, May 8, 1908). French librettist . He belonged to a distinguished Jewish family; his uncle was the composer Fromental Halévy, and his father, Léon, was respected in literary circles. On leaving the renowned Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris he had little difficulty, despite an unimpressive academic record, in obtaining civil service appointments. Plainly he had both ability and the benefits of patronage. His interests, however, lay in the theatre. Initially he adopted the pseudonym Jules Servières, and later, in 1858, when working with Crémieux on the libretto for Orphée aux enfers (with which Offenbach was to have such a significant success), he is said to have insisted that the credit and the royalties should go to his collaborator; at a time when his prospects in colonial administration were especially promising, he was afraid his reputation might be blighted by association with opéra comique...

(b Pressburg [now Bratislava], 1882; d Vienna, 1966). Austro-Hungarian writer and librettist . She came from a prosperous Jewish family and studied medicine, qualifying as a specialist in skin diseases in 1910. She married a psychiatrist, Hermann Frischauf. A convinced socialist by 1930, she joined the outlawed Austrian communist party but emigrated to Paris before the Anschluss and escaped to Mexico in 1940. In 1947 she returned to Vienna, where she continued to practise medicine until 1952.

As early as 1906 Pappenheim had published verses in Karl Kraus’s journal Die Fackel. Her importance in music is as the librettist of Schoenberg’s monodrama Erwartung (1909). After this collaboration she remained in touch with Schoenberg’s circle. She published a novel (1946) and a volume of poetry (1962).

(b Constantinople [now Istanbul], Jan 6, 1903; d Long Island City, ny , Feb 28, 1974). American composer of Austrian descent. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory and later in Berlin with Schreker before emigrating to the USA in 1940. Settling in New York, he taught at the School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College and served as music director of the Free Synagogue in Flushing. He composed orchestral, chamber and vocal music, including three one-act operas. Isaac Levi, to a libretto by Ray Smolover, was first performed on 11 Dec 1956 in White Plains, New York. In a declamatory style with Romantic elements, it deals with problems facing contemporary Jewry, such as renunciation of faith, intermarriage and the Creator’s goodness. Satan’s Trap, to a libretto by Charles Levy after Gottfried Keller’s novel Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe, had its première in New York on 26 November 1961...

[Karl ]

(b Heidelberg, Nov 13, 1897; d Beit Zayit, nr Jerusalem, Jan 15, 1974). Israeli composer and conductor of German birth . A pupil of Richard Strauss at the Berlin Academy of Arts, he became a répétiteur at the Berlin Staatsoper, sang at the Hamburg Opera and conducted in Baden-Baden. After settling in Jerusalem in 1933, he became the first music director of the Jerusalem Broadcasting Service in 1936. In 1938 he founded the Israel Radio SO (now Jerusalem SO), and from 1957 to 1962 he was director of the Israel Broadcasting Authority’s Transcription Service. In Germany he was active in reviving Handel’s Rodelinda and in 1944 he organized the first Bach and Handel festival in Jerusalem.

On his arrival in Israel, Salmon became influenced by the folk music of the region, which resulted in such works as the Symphonic Suite on Greek Themes (1943) and the Sephardic Suite...

(b Sombor, 1794; d Belgrade, 1870). Serbian composer and conductor of Jewish origin. He taught music in Šabac and held a conducting post in Novi Sad. Invited in 1831 to the court of Prince Miloš Obrenović, he founded and directed the prince’s Serbian Orchestra, which played in his Serbian Theatre in Kragujevac and Belgrade. In 1840 he moved with the court to Belgrade, where he was active until 1864. He was the outstanding figure of early Serbian stage life and composed and arranged music for several plays, containing overtures and vocal and instrumental numbers: many of the songs were influenced by Serbian or oriental folktunes and achieved wide popularity. Owing to its musical richness Ženidba cara Dušana (‘The Marriage of Tsar Dušan’; 1840, Kragujevac) is regarded as an opera, although Šlezinger conceived the music to accompany Atanasije Nikolić’s play.