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Jozef Kaminski
Born in Odessa in the "Zheleznodorzhnaia gostinitsa" (“Railroad Hotel”) during one of the many concert tours of his mother, Ester Rachel Kamińska.
He was raised in Warsaw, where he attended elementary school. He studied violin from the age of six and he had an early start in his career as soloist and composer. During the years 1919-1921, he was already one of the most important and active musicians in Warsaw.
In 1922, Józef traveled to Berlin, where he was accepted by the Academy of Music. He studied composition in the class of Professor Friedrich Koch. Because of the economic crisis, which also touched the Kamiński family, his mother Ester Rachel Kamińska asked the Union of Russian Jews to help her son; she also asked Chaim Nachman Bialik, one of her admirers, to support her in this request.
Józef then went to Vienna, where he joined a relative named Szymon Pulman-a prominent musician in that city. He studied under Professor Arnold Rosa and Dr. Hans Galia. He returned to Berlin and continued studying under Isaj Barmas, a famous teacher at that time.
In 1926, he returned to Warsaw, where he became first violinist in the Polish Radio Orchestra, and the conductor and musical director of Jewish theatrical productions. He founded the Warsaw Quartet, which in 1934 won first prize in the Józef Piłsudski Competition, which recognized it as the best string quartet in Poland.
His debut as composer of theatrical music came after the death of his mother. His sister Ida and Zygmunt Turkow decided to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Jewish theater by staging Lo tachmod (Do not Covet) by Abraham Goldfaden at the Varshaver Yidisher Kunst Teater (Warsaw Jewish Artistic Theater), VIKT. Józef Kamiński's music contributed to this production’s success. After composing music for Jakub Pat's In goldn land (In the Golden Land), staged by WIKT in Warsaw, the Wilno Troupe asked him also to write the music for Bay nacht oyfn altn mark (Night On the Old Market Square) by I. L. Perec.
David Herman and the Wilno Troupe were very successful at that time, but the staging of Bay nacht oyfn altn mark was a real event for Poland's Jews. Kamiński's music for Bay nacht oyfn altn mark (Night On the Old Market Square) demonstrated the full emancipation of rhythm's function in music, which went beyond the accepted conventions in theater at that time. Kamiński also wrote music for the Soviet comedy by Kataev, Squaring of the Circle, and for a play on life in China by Klabund, Chalk Circle.
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In 1937, Józef Kamiński went to Palestine with his wife and son, keeping his word to Huberman, who had offered him a job there one year earlier. In Tel Aviv, he became first violinist in the philharmonic orchestra, where he played for over thirty years.
His first work composed in Israel was Agada veinachol (Legend and Dance, 1939), for orchestra or string quartet, which linked oriental sounds and typical Jewish melodies from Eastern Europe. In 1940, he composed Concertino for trumpet and orchestra, (in a major key), which was something like a parody on Antonio Vivaldi's (1675-1741) Violin Concerto in A Minor. In 1942, Kamiński wrote music for symphonic orchestra, Aliya Miya (Immigration to Palestine), which was comprised of several parts, ending with an epilogue-a solo song for baritone voice with a text by Yehuda Halevi. In 1944, he wrote a humoresque, Pticha komit (Comic Overture), which was similar in style and form to the trumpet Concerto. Shortly thereafter, he composed Quartet for Violin, for which he won the Engel Award, granted by the Tel Aviv and Jaffa City Council. He also wrote a ballade for harp and orchestra, variations for English horn and string orchestra, Rishumim israeliim (Israeli Sketches), a concerto for violin and symphonic orchestra, and the Symphonic Overture (1960).
His Israeli Sketches were especially popular when they were performed in 1955 during a concert tour of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra through Europe. The Sketches were dedicated to a friend from his youth, the well-known conductor Paweł Klecki. Józef Kamiński died in Israel. (asw)
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