KOHN, MAIER

KOHN, MAIER (1802–1875), German cantor and teacher. Born in Schwabach, Bavaria, Kohn opened a school for Jewish girls in Munich in 1825 and in 1832 was a member of a committee organizing a choir "for improving the standard of the divine service." He became assistant cantor in Munich, and in 1839 the choir committee of the Munich synagogue published his book, Vollstaendiger Jahrgang von Terzett- und Chorgesaengen der Synagoge in Muenchen, containing his own compositions and others for a choir of three or four voices. This was the first modern collection of synagogue melodies and included many traditional songs. Kohn also left a manuscript dated 1870, Der Vorbeter in der Synagoge von Muenchen, dealing with weekday, Sabbath, and festival prayers in which he expressed his intention of collecting ancient forms of ḥazzanut without modernizing them. Both his published work and his   1870 manuscript were used by idelsohn as source material for volume seven of his Melodienschatz. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Idelsohn, Melodien, vol. 7; id., Music, index; Friedmann, Lebensbilder, 2 (1921), 43–48; Sendrey, Music, index; Di Geshikhte fun Khazones (1924), 209. (Joshua Leib Ne'eman)