Change Agents of the Liberal Cantorate: In Celebration of the DFSSM’s 75th Anniversary: Arthur M. Wolfson

Arthur M. Wolfson

(1912-1977)

The tragic news spread like wildfire. Our beloved teacher, mentor and role model, Cantor Arthur Wolfson, had passed away suddenly and without warning while he and his wife, Anne, were on a long-awaited vacation in New Zealand. This great and humble man, with such a huge heart, succumbed to a heart attack, and the world lost an irreplaceable giant who had changed the landscape of the cantorate and Jewish music.

Arthur Wolfson was born and raised in Philadelphia. He grew up in a musical family and was a piano virtuoso, performing classical music at the age of 16. He was also proficient on clarinet, violin and trumpet. He became a Bar Mitzvah at an Orthodox shul and, after High School, went on to Temple University, earning both a bachelor’s and master’s Degree.

He studied voice with Sidney Dietch, teacher of the great Metropolitan Opera baritone, Leonard Warren. He had a beautiful lyric baritone voice and he was the most dependable singer. His technique was flawless.

He began his synagogue career as a baritone soloist in 1935 in the quartet of Congregation Beth El, a conservative synagogue in Philadelphia, while he was teaching music full-time at a local High School. In 1939, he became cantorial soloist at the prominent reform synagogue Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park. There he met and worked closely with its music director, Isadore Freed, who was deeply influential on encouraging him to pursue the cantorate as a full-time career. From 1946-1949, he served Congregation Beth Sholom, (the so-called Frank Lloyd Wright Synagogue).

When Moshe Rudinow, the cantor of New York City’s Temple Emanu-El, announced his retirement, Freed urged Wolfson to apply for the pulpit. He followed his mentor’s advice and went on to serve Emanu-El with distinction for 28 years until his untimely passing.

Wolfson was a faculty member of the School of Sacred Music from 1950 until his death in 1977, and served as Chair of the faculty from 1972-1974. He was President of the ACC from 1961-1963 and, in his inaugural address, expressed concern over “…the numerous itinerants who call themselves cantors and who commercialize on the title which is so deeply cherished in Jewish tradition.” True to his high standards, while he could have continued to serve Emanu-El without formal cantorial training and investiture, he chose to enhance his education and the status of the cantorate by enrolling in the SSM as a student in its then three-year cantorial program, even while serving on its faculty, earning another master’s degree and investiture in 1956.

He taught reform repertoire to students in every year of the program, and he could play anything from Rimsky-Korsakov to Ragtime with conviction and skill. As a coach, he was patient, encouraging and treated every student with kindness, respect and warmth. He was equally comfortable coaching chazzanut, Yiddish art songs, as well as the entire spectrum of reform liturgical settings from the great 19 th century classic repertoire to whatever was being written at the time. He had sung it all, and he knew its history and how it should be interpreted to be faithful to the composer. There were many cantors with outstanding voices at the time, but few with Wolfson’s musical skills and Judaic knowledge.

Those were the days when using xeroxed copies of music was not only an infringement of copyrights, but also rather costly, and Wolfson considered it unprofessional to be flipping through scores, folios, or octavos on the bima. Instead, he patiently hand-copied all his music and placed his music for each shabbat in a little black notebook which looked just like a siddur. We all ran out to Metro Music and followed our teacher’s example.

Arthur Wolfson was every bit a gentle man and a gentleman, and he comported himself with dignity, but without a sense of self-importance. In many ways, he resembled the avuncular news anchor, Walter Cronkite, with a well-trimmed mustache, horn-rimmed glasses, meticulously dressed - the paragon of equanimity and dependability. He knew he was very much a public figure and cantors, and the cantorate, would be judged, not only by their voice, but by their appearance. During my student years we were, unfortunately, wearing what fad and fashion dictated - tie-dyed shirts, bell-bottom trousers, platform shoes, puka shell necklaces, and a plethora of polyester. For decades, in the days before women were ordained as rabbis and cantors, Emanu-El had a strict dress code for its clergy –-three-piece pinstripe suits in somber colors, white shirts, solid neckties and homburg hats. We never saw Cantor Wolfson “out of uniform.”

We had enormous respect and admiration, and perhaps even a bit of envy, for Cantor Wolfson. He was, in many ways, the voice of the reform cantorate. You could tune into WQXR radio every Friday evening at 5:30 and hear him and the magnificent 18 voice Emanu-El choir singing the most glorious settings of the liturgy long before livestream made shabbat services widely accessible. Under his stewardship, Temple Emanu-El commissioned Isadore Freed, A.W. Binder, Herbert Fromm, Lazar Weiner, Frederick Piket, Leon Algazi, Jack Gottlieb, and many other contemporary composers.

He worked closely with all of them and he was faithful to the philosophy of Lazare Saminsky, his predecessor as Emanu-El’s music director who, according to Neil Levin, had created a unique brand of liturgical music which “eschewed the inroads of Yiddish folk, cheap theatrical and other popular song, as well as pseudo-Hasidic flavor.”

We thought Cantor Wolfson had it all: academic credentials, exemplary musical training and performing experience, vocal excellence, piano virtuosity, a strong Judaic background, polish and class, demonstrated cantorial leadership, along with humility, and grace. He was the very model of what we aspired to be as cantors. He was not an innovator or an agitator, yet he labored quietly, but tirelessly, for the sustainability and growth of the cantorate. In addition to serving as President of the American Conference of Cantors, he was president of the Jewish Music Forum and the Jewish Liturgical Music Society, Chair of the National Jewish Music Council, and was valued and respected by the membership of these influential organizations.

He would often tell his students “Don’t make waves,” but he had a natural intellectual and creative curiosity, encouraging his students to spread their wings. He was always excited to learn. In the late 60’s, he was often seen at concerts with the recently developed portable Sony cassette tape recorder with its hand-held microphone, recording everything he heard. We all saved our shekels and went out and bought one.

He served as cantor of this country’s then largest synagogue, yet he was never really compensated commensurate with other cantors serving even smaller, less prestigious pulpits. He lived simply in a modest house in Queens and commuted by subway. The WQXR announcer would introduce the sabbath broadcasts saying, “The service is conducted by the rabbis of the congregation, assisted by the cantor and the Emanu-El choir.” He always entered the bima last and he never spoke on the bima. He rarely, if ever, performed a member’s life cycle event without a rabbi (including his own daughter’s wedding). Despite this, he never lost the esteem of his colleagues or his own sense of generosity of spirit and patience with his students, even as we recognized how he was not, on many occasions, treated with the kavod he so richly deserved. Nonetheless, when you were with him, you felt the aura of the unlikely confluence of humility and greatness.

On the sad day of his funeral, the Emanu-El sanctuary overflowed with congregants, colleagues, and students. His coffin was carried out of the Temple as the Emanu-El choir sang Saminsky’s setting of Anim Zmirot in homage to this sweet singer of Israel.

These words of tribute appeared in the Emanu-El Bulletin:

His superb voice touched our souls, even as his gentle heart evoked our love. He walked among us as an exemplar of that which is best in the human spirit and most authentic in the Jewish tradition. A teacher of cantors and an acknowledged leader among his peers, his imprint upon the American cantorate will endure for long years into the future.

Truer words were never spoken.