Introduction to Idelsohn’s Autobiographical Sketches

In 1934, Idelsohn's rapidly deteriorating health forced him to retire from his teaching position at the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati. The retirement, at the early age of fifty-two, came only two years after the triumphant completion of the German version of the Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz and marked the end of Idelsohn's scholarly career. Forced illness Provided ample time for reflection and stock taking, and Idelsohn wrote, perhaps dictated, two autobiographical sketches which were published in the following year. The first sketch, in Hebrew, appeared in January 1935 in Die Chasanim Welt, the journal of the organization of Jewish cantors in Poland; the second, in English, was printed half a year later in Jacob Beiml's Jewish Music Journal (New York).