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Lev Pulver
Lev Pulver
Lev Pulver
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Lev Mikhailovich Pulver (Yiddish pronunciation: Leib Pulver, Yiddish: לייב פּולווער, European spelling: Leo Pulver, Russian: Лев Михайлович Пульвер; 18 December 1883, Verkhnodniprovsk – 18 March 1970, Moscow), was a Soviet and Russian-Jewish composer and musician.

Early life

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He was an offspring of a renowned klezmorim's family.

Pulver studied violin since early childhood, at first with his father; later on, he studied with his brother-in-law, a disciple of Czech violinist Otakar Ševčík. Pulver graduated from Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied violin and composition under Anatoly Lyadov.

Initially, he was a violinist and composer in a wandering Ukrainian theatre group. Later on, he was a symphonic concert-master and conductor, a founding member of the Stradivari Quartet. He was the musical director of the State Jewish Theatre in Moscow (the GOSET).

Compositions

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Pulver composed incidental music for works including Shakespeare's King Lear; Sholem Aleichem's 200.000 and The Man of the Air; Adventures of Benjamin the Third after Mendele Mocher Sforim; Abraham Goldfaden's The Sorceress (in collaboration with Joseph Achron); and Zalman Shneyer's Freylekhs (in collaboration with Maximilian Steinberg). He also composed operettas (Gulliver, Inside the Big Top, What is her name?), movie scores, songs, and Yiddish folk-song arrangements. Some of his tunes have been considered as Jewish folklore. He was one of the important musicians bridging the traditional Eastern European Jewish music with the Western classical music forms.

Artists about Lev Pulver

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L.M. Pulver has a sophisticated sense of incidental music's essence./ ... /.Pulver is especially aware of those moments in scenic plots when a direct calling for the music to sound is there. Moreover, this is not surprising: he started playing since nine years of age as a wandering weddings-musician. Thereafter, while being an already accomplished musician, he went on with playing in theaters, first at the orchestra of the Ukrainian Opera, then at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. His theatrical experience left a lasting impression on all of his works. His music is effectively theatrical. /Solomon Mikhoels/

... (My) father started a job at Mikhoels' Jewish Theatre .That theatre might have been considered as a musical one. In charge of the orchestra and of all the musical life (there) was an energetic gifted man – Lev Pulver. All of the music was written by him, and he conducted as well. Their productions reminded of the today's musicals. /Kirill Kondrashin/

Recordings

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A few recordings of his music are available featuring the performances of the GOSET orchestra with Solomon Mikhoels and Benjamin Zuskin, as well as by singers Solomon Khromchenko, Mikhail Alexandrovich, Nechama Lifshitz, Marina Gordon and actors Emil Gorovets and Boris Landau.

References

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Lev Pulver

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Lev Pulver is a Soviet composer, conductor, violinist, and violist known for his pivotal role as the chief composer and musical director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater (GOSET), where he created scores for dozens of productions that defined the theater's distinctive musical identity in Yiddish performing arts. Born on December 18, 1883, in Verkhnodniprovsk, in the Russian Empire (present-day Dnipro, Ukraine), into a family of klezmers, he began performing violin at weddings and community events from the age of twelve, building early popularity within Jewish communities. He graduated with honors from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1908, earning recognition as both a violinist and composer, and subsequently performed as a soloist in the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra while also playing in the Moscow Stradivarius Quartet. In 1922 Pulver assumed leadership of the musical department at GOSET, a position he held for decades, composing music for 42 of the theater's productions and contributing to its reputation for integrating sophisticated orchestral elements into Yiddish drama and comedy. His scores accompanied acclaimed stagings of works adapted from Sholem Aleichem, including The Big Winner (also known as 200,000) and Wandering Stars, as well as other notable plays such as Uriel Acosta, Bar Kokhba, and Uprising, helping to make music an inseparable component of GOSET's innovative theatrical style. He also composed for several Soviet films, among them Jewish Luck (1925). Pulver remained active in Soviet musical life until his death on March 18, 1970, in Moscow. Although many of his manuscripts were long considered lost or unpublished, recent archival discoveries have preserved over 60 full scores from his GOSET period, sparking renewed scholarly and performance interest in his legacy within Jewish and Soviet theater music.

Early life and education

Birth and family background

Lev Pulver was born on December 18, 1883, in Verkhnodniprovsk, a town in the Ekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire (now part of the Dnipro region in Ukraine). He was born into a Jewish family of klezmer musicians, a traditional musical heritage common in Jewish communities of the Russian Empire. Pulver learned to play the violin from his father starting in early childhood, laying the foundation for his musical development within this cultural context. As a Russian-Jewish musician, his origins reflected the broader experience of Jewish artists in the late imperial period, immersed in klezmer traditions that blended Eastern European folk elements with professional musicianship.

Musical training and conservatory studies

Lev Pulver pursued his formal musical education at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, entering the institution in 1906 after earlier private studies in the city. At the conservatory, he specialized in both violin and composition, studying violin under Nikolai Vasilyevich Galkin and composition under Anatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov and Nikolai Alexandrovich Sokolov. Pulver completed his studies in 1908, graduating as a violinist and composer. This dual qualification marked the culmination of his institutional training, building on his early musical experiences within a klezmer family tradition.

Early career

Work as violinist and conductor

Lev Pulver began his professional performing career as a violinist in the Ukrainian theater troupe led by Marko Kropyvnytskyi from 1898 to 1901. During this engagement, he composed incidental music for Marko Starytsky's play Oy, ne khody, Hrytsiu, drawing on Ukrainian folk material. Pulver then pursued formal studies in St. Petersburg. After private violin lessons, he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory, though his studies were interrupted from 1905 to 1907 due to expulsion for participation in student disturbances. He graduated in 1908 with training in both violin (class of Nikolai Galkin) and composition (classes of Anatoly Lyadov and Nikolai Sokolov). In 1909 he joined the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra in Moscow as a violinist and soon became its solo violist, a role he held until 1923. He also performed as violist in notable chamber groups, including the Stradivari Quartet from 1919 to 1920 and the quartet of the Narkompros Music Department from 1920 to 1922. As a conductor, Pulver led symphony orchestras in several cities, including Sestroretsk, Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Minsk, through guest engagements in the years following his conservatory training. Until 1918 he taught violin, viola, and quartet classes at the Music and Drama School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society.

Pre-GOSET theater and orchestral roles

Pulver's pre-GOSET activities centered on orchestral performance, chamber music, teaching, and occasional conducting in Russian and Ukrainian musical contexts. His documented theater involvement included early work with Kropyvnytskyi's troupe and incidental composition, with further specific pre-1922 theatrical productions less extensively detailed in sources beyond his orchestral and pedagogical contributions in Moscow.

Association with GOSET

Joining the State Jewish Theatre

In 1922, Lev Pulver joined the Moscow State Jewish Theatre (GOSET), assuming the roles of composer, conductor, and head of the musical section. This appointment represented a significant shift in his career toward Yiddish theater, following his earlier work as a violinist, violist, soloist with the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra, and member of the Stradivarius Quartet in Moscow. The Moscow State Jewish Theatre, also known as GOSET, was the preeminent Soviet Yiddish theater company of its era. Founded by Alexey Granowsky in 1919 and relocated to Moscow in 1920, it operated until 1949 and was widely recognized as the leading Yiddish theater in Europe for nearly three decades. Its productions were notable for blending dramatic innovation with substantial musical components, making Pulver's position as head of the musical section integral to the theater's artistic identity from the outset of his tenure. Pulver held these responsibilities at GOSET from 1922 until the theater's closure in 1949, establishing himself as a central figure in the institution's musical direction and contributing to its reputation for integrating music deeply into theatrical performances.

Role as composer and musical director

Lev Pulver served as the primary composer, conductor, and head of the musical section at the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre (GOSET) beginning in 1922, positions that established him as the theater's central musical authority. He functioned as both composer and musical director, overseeing the creation and performance of music that was integral to the theater's productions. Pulver composed incidental music for numerous GOSET productions, with some sources reporting 42 plays; recent archival discoveries have revealed more than 60 full scores from his work for the theater.

Key contributions and productions

Lev Pulver served as the principal composer for the Moscow State Jewish Theatre (GOSET), where he created incidental music for numerous productions from 1922 until 1949. His contributions were central to the theater's distinctive character, transforming many spectacles into integrated musical performances. Pulver's orchestral scores have been recognized as a vital chronicle of the theater's artistic life, with a recent archival discovery revealing more than 60 full scores composed for GOSET performances; these works remain largely in archives awaiting wider rediscovery and performance. Among his key contributions are the scores for notable productions such as The Big Winner (also known as 200,000), for which he composed special pieces that became part of the theater's standard repertoire, as well as Wandering Stars, Bar Kokhba, and Uprising. One of his most significant later works was the incidental music for Freylekhs (Joy), a highly successful GOSET production staged in 1945, featuring orchestral fragments such as "Badkhn Karnaval" that have since been published based on his autograph manuscripts.

Film compositions

Scores for Soviet films

Lev Pulver's contributions to Soviet cinema as a composer were relatively limited compared to his extensive work in theater, but he provided music for several films during the 1920s and 1930s. His documented film scores include Evreyskoe schastye (also known as Jewish Luck or Menachem-Mendel) in 1925, Poslednyaya noch (The Last Night, also referred to as Zona or Belaya smert) in 1933, and Granitsa (The Border) in 1935. Evreyskoe schastye, a silent comedy directed by Alexis Granowsky and featuring actors from the State Jewish Theatre such as Solomon Mikhoels, marked Pulver's earliest known film composition.) Poslednyaya noch, a historical-revolutionary drama about Bolshevik underground activities during the Civil War, and Granitsa, a film likely focused on border themes, followed in the early sound era. These works illustrate Pulver's application of his musical expertise from GOSET productions to the Soviet film industry during its formative years, though cinema remained a secondary avenue for his compositional talents.

Awards and honors

Lev Pulver received the following official Soviet honors:
  • Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1928)
  • Honored Worker of Arts of the RSFSR (1934)
  • People's Artist of the RSFSR (1939)
  • Order of the Red Banner of Labor (March 31, 1939, for outstanding services in the development of Soviet theatrical art)

Later years and death

Legacy

Lev Pulver is remembered as the chief composer and musical director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater (GOSET), where his orchestral scores defined the theater's unique fusion of Yiddish drama and sophisticated music across dozens of productions. After his death in 1970, much of his work remained unpublished or was considered lost, with only fragments surviving and little recognition in many accounts of GOSET. The recent discovery of more than 60 full scores from his GOSET period has been described as a sensational development, serving as a musical chronicle of the Yiddish theater's history. Some major works, including complete scores for productions of Sholem Aleichem's The Big Winner (200,000) and Wandering Stars, have been published and made available through efforts to explore his legacy systematically. Additionally, surviving fragments such as two scenes from Shulamis (1937) have been edited and released in modern editions. These materials remain largely in archives, with broader performances and recordings yet to emerge on a wide scale, though they have sparked renewed scholarly interest in Pulver's role in Jewish and Soviet musical theater.
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