Easter and Passover

Spring arrives with music this week on Three Tune Tuesday, as we mark the convergence of Easter and Passover with three recordings that span the full range of what this season sounded like on early shellac. We open with a detour into pure coincidence — Vessella’s Italian Band recorded the “Blushing Maiden March” on this very date in 1911, a bright and breezy piece of light entertainment from one of Victor’s most beloved concert bands, the resident ensemble of Atlantic City’s famous Steel Pier. From there we turn to the sacred, with tenor Frederic Freemantel’s “Resurrection,” a 12-inch Red Seal recording of Oliver Holden’s great hymn tune “Coronation” — a melody so enduring it is considered the oldest American hymn tune still in continuous use, here given the full solemnity of Victor’s prestige format. We close on the other side of spring’s spiritual calendar, with Cantor Mordechai Hershman’s deeply moving “K’shimcho,” a Passover prayer recorded with Nathaniel Shilkret conducting, in which one of the golden age of chazzanut’s finest voices brings an ancient liturgical text into the modern world of recorded sound.