Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt – Od Yosef Chai
This year marks the 75th year since the passing of Reb Yossele Rosenblatt, the quintessential chazzan and the benchmark for excellence against whom all future chazzanim would be measured.
Amazingly, despite the 75 years since his passing and the more than 100 years since he first sang most of his classic compositions, Reb Yossele Rosenblatts music has been gaining increasing popularity with each passing year. Every year thousands of new admirers join the ranks of Reb Yosseles fans. The 100 years that have passed have done nothing to diminish his popularity. Like old wine, the music of Reb Yossele becomes increasingly popular with age.
For years there have been fans of Reb Yossele Rosenblatt. Listening to Yossele has always been more than just a pleasure in the musical sense. It has also always been a spiritually uplifting experience. His amazing talent, his ability to seamlessly straddle three octaves and most of all, the tremendous amount of feeling, the hartz , the krechtz that he invests in every composition has always amazed generations of Yossele fans the world over.
Several years ago, the producers at Aderet Music were approached by a close friend. Knowing how much we appreciate Yosseles unique niggunim, he wanted to know what can be done to clean up the old recordings.
Virtually all of Reb Yosseles recordings were done in the early 1900s, when the recording industry was in its infancy. In fact, some of the early recordings of Yossele were done by Thomas Edison himself, the inventor of the phonograph. Edison is reported to have said that he had never encountered a person with the voice and range of R Yossele.
Because of the unsophisticated nature of recording during that era, the recordings of R Yossele suffer from poor sound and much background noise and static that severely compromises the quality of the music.
For years, chazzanus connoisseurs, Jewish music lovers, and the ever increasing mass of R Yossele fans have waited for the time when someone would come along and restore and enhance the sound quality of R Yossele, so that the true legendary voice of Reb Yossele Rosenblatt would be heard in all its beauty, richness and glory.
Over the years, many attempts have been made to improve the quality of sound and clean up the background noise, but until now none of them have justly succeeded in producing a truly professional, clear and crisp sound that does justice to the renowned Reb Yossele.
That is when Aderet Music undertook the monumental effort to finally bring the real voice of Reb Yossele, as he sounded in person, to his fans. We decided that we would spare no effort and no expense in ensuring that this time, a real professional restoration of Reb Yosseles work would be done, so that the beauty of Reb Yossele could be enjoyed as if he was singing once more in person.
We contacted some of the worlds foremost experts on restoration of historical recordings, both here in the USA & in Europe, from whom we gained a tremendous amount of insight onto the world of audio restoration. After sifting through hundreds of recordings of R Yossele, and after a tremendous amount of work, research and expense, we have, with Hashems help, produced a recording of some of Reb Yosseles most famed compositions. Using cutting edge technology, we have produced a truly historic and monumental CD where one can literally feel as if he is sitting in the same room with the legendary Reb Yossele and hearing his wondrous voice.
In addition, we have added musical accompaniment that truly enhances the quality of the recording and brings it to a new professional level heretofore unknown in the world of music.
Having grown up appreciating Reb Yossele not only for the superb, legendary Chazzan that he was, but also for his prominence as a legendary, G-d fearing Jew, releasing this album has served not only as a matter of professional pride for us, but as a profound spiritual experience too.
It is well known that Reb Yossele was offered enormous sums of money to sing in the Opera, where he would have to compromise his Yiddishkeit. Reb Yossele, a true man of principle and a G-d fearing Jew, refused to perform, and thus forfeited huge sums of money, that would have made him among the wealthiest Jews of his time.
We feel that one of the reasons for Reb Yosseles increasing popularity today, is a Divine reward for his principled position and his true Yiras Shomayim.
We feel humbled and fortunate to have been endowed by Heaven with the opportunity to bring the true voice of Reb Yossele to new generations of Chazzanus lovers.
Attached forthwith is a clip from the new CD. The crisp and crystal clear sound will simply amaze you!
