Jewish Music? Jewish Music!

Ten years ago, a symposium was held in Berne, Switzerland on Jewish music under the title "Jüdische Musik? Fremdbilder – Eigenbilder" (Jewish Music? External perceptions – Own Perceptions). The question mark was the characterizing marker of the organizers' attitude on the subject-matter: Jewish music was seen as something that was in doubt, a phenomenon whose existence would first have to be proved. The event continued a curious tradition that originated as early as in the 19th century. Jewish music moves the spirits; even people with only tangential exposure to it feel called upon to share their opinions. In Berne, for example, the statement by the important musicologist Curt Sachs (1881–1959) was passed around claiming that Jewish music is music "by Jews for Jews." While Curt Sachs was indeed Jewish, and he was a Jewish-German refugee for being Jewish, a serious scholar on Jewish music he was not and had never been. His definition is therefore absurd; if we followed this logic, a work of Jewish music would no longer be Jewish if it were played by a non-Jewish performer in front of a general audience. Any attempt to press an extremely heterogeneous cultural phenomenon  into a simplified formula is  problematic a priori. There are no simple formulas, not for being Jewish, nor for Jewish music. It is questionable if there can be any culture that can be captured by such formulas.
    Ukraine-born composer and cellist Joachim Stutschewsky (1891–1982) wrote in 1935 "the question of a 'specific Jewishness' in music is hotly debated." Living first in Switzerland and later in Vienna, Stutschewsky was an important protagonist of Jewish music, even defending it in publications against the skepticism of ignoramuses. In harmony with contemporary neo-folkloristic theories, Stutschewsky claimed art "is national in the most profound meaning of the word. The national aspect is the original element of the art." Indeed, during the 1920s and 1930s, despite increasing anti-Semitic discrimination, Jewish music experienced a golden age in Eastern and Central Europe. None of it was left after the Shoah. The "national aspect" has also dropped in the popularity ratings since then. The Israeli composer Ruben Seroussi comments: "It is a very ideological way of thinking, and it is superficial wanting to limit oneself to a national identity. (…) It is the category of weak people who seek to gain a bit of strength by identifying with the collective. (…) This is why I don't believe that the issue of a national identity in music is even worthy of a debate." Seroussi presents himself as a strong personality; meaning that Mussorgsky, Grieg or Bartók, who perceived themselves expressly as "national composers," would altogether be classified as "weak people."



Mixing Terms

    The massive reservations that are firmly ingrained against Jewish music – in contrast to, say, the Russian, Norwegian or Hungarian music cultures – emerged primarily from a state of desolate ignorance. In discussions regarding the manifestations of Jewish music and the great personalities shaping it, we encounter the term "forget" with more than average frequency. Lack of knowledge gives rise to misunderstandings and stereotypes. For example, there is the assumption that Jewish music is something very special where every note is supposed to be identifiable in one way or another as "Jewish." But Jewish music is not some exotic culture; it is an essential component of the world of European music. Any similarities and interactions with Russian, Ukrainian, German or Polish musical traditions have historical roots and are nothing out of the ordinary. No musical culture in the world exists in a vacuum; outside influences are completely normal for any tradition. A further misunderstanding has to do with the mixing of terms like "Jewish music" and "Jewish composers." Not all Jewish composers, by far, were and are writing Jewish music, which is their right, of course. Similarly, it is true that not all Hungarian composers were interested in creating Hungarian national music, like Bartók or Kodály. Luckily, there is no automatism in the musical arena; musicians decide themselves what type of expression comes natural to them. Incidentally, after a predominantly cosmopolitan phase in the second half of the 20th century, many composers have rediscovered their interest in the musical traditions of national cultures (one example are composers from Asian countries such as India, China, Japan or Korea). But this is not an endeavor that flows from a lack of "strength;" instead, it an expression of a need for personal roots in a world without borders.
    Since Wagner's pamphlet on "Judaism in Music" ("Das Judentum in der Musik") that was published in 1850, there has been no lack of attempts to find a common biological, sociological or esthetic denominator of Jewish music. It does not matter in this context if the intent behind these efforts was well-meaning or nefarious; simplification is never helpful. More useful is a structural comparison of Jewish music with the also multi-facetted, musical cultures of other peoples. Russian music, for example, comprises not only works by Tchaikovsky and Rimski-Korsakov but also ancient Russian choral music from early medieval church traditions, the "City Romances" ("Stadtromanzen") from the Glinka period, crude peasant songs (chastushka) or dancing tunes for folkloric instruments like the balalaika and domra – altogether a kaleidoscope of completely different musical traditions.

Regional differences

 Jewish music is indeed even richer in the variety of its manifestations. The reason for this is the enormous heterogeneity of Jewish culture overall. Its plurality has a temporal – historical – as well as a geographical dimension: one special aspect of Jewish culture is its enormous expanse over time and space. Any typology of Jewish music is therefore characterized by its great many facets.
    Like with any other civilized people, Jews can look to traditional folklore and composed music. Jewish traditional music is extremely varied. There are two major areas – liturgy and secular. Jewish secular, folkloric music is probably best known among a wider audience: Yiddish and Sephardic songs, especially klezmer – unique instrumental folklore specific to the Eastern European Jews is part of any standard repertoire today. But the oldest and most authentic aspect of the Jewish music tradition is synagogue music, especially biblical cantillations (setting liturgy to music). They were based originally on motifs going back two thousand years and were probably sung as far back as in the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Even today, these motifs are used for renderings of texts from the Torah and some other parts of the Hebraic Bible. During the Middle Ages, the synagogue music of Ashkenazi Jews became enriched by melodic elements from German folk songs, and later on Hasidic melodies from Eastern Europe were incorporated. The composers of the reformed communities of the 19th century developed a completely new style: following the fashionable tastes of the time, they integrated ancient, handed-down melodies with the musical language of the Romantic era.
    But Jewish traditional music is also characterized by substantial regional variations. The synagogue music of the Ethiopian Jews has hardly anything in common with Polish-Lithuanian traditions. South-German ritual differs acutely from the synagogue music of the Jews from Bukhara. In any part of the world, where Jews ever lived in their history, there evolved a unique folkloric song culture, at times in different languages. The interaction of these different directions in which Jewish music was taken took place parallel to an intensive exchange with the musical cultures of the neighboring people among which the Jewish communities lived. This exchange assumed different manifestations depending on the time period and the geographical region. The resulting tapestry is highly heterogeneous.
   
Heterogeneity of Jewish Music

    Any definition of Jewish art music faces added difficulties. Still in the 19th century, the works by composers of Jewish descent, such as Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer or Offenbach, were considered "Jewish music." The general presumption was that solely the ethnic heritage of a composer was instrumental in the nature of his work. The only topic remaining open for discussion was the question as to whether this influence should be evaluated as positive or negative. In fact, Jewish composers did not become interested in the sources of Jewish music until the beginning of the 20th century. Russia became the center of the Jewish national movement in music. This newly found interest was indeed part of a comprehensive Jewish cultural revival. Adhering to examples of other neo-folkloric currents, which had been shaping the European musical landscape since the mid-19th century, Jewish composers now also attempted to develop a dedicated Jewish style in art music. While Bartók made ancient Hungarian peasant folklore the foundation of this style and renaissance of this musical voice, Jewish composers like Joseph Achron (1886–1943), Alexander Weprik (1899–1958), Jakob Schönberg (1900–1956) or Joachim Stutschewsky directed their efforts in a similar way to Yiddish folk songs and ancient synagogue motifs of times gone by. This described variety and heterogeneity of Jewish music is one of the reasons for the dearth of standardized textbook literature in this discipline. The scientific arm of Judaism in the 19th century neglected this branch of Jewish culture altogether. Collecting and exploring Jewish musical traditions did not emerge until the turn from the 19th to the 20th century. Political circumstances, however, placed multiple obstacles in the path of this work and were instrumental in stopping it in its tracks almost completely in Europe. Signs of a revival have only been recent. The hope remains that Joachim Stutschewsky's wish may still come true and that Jewish music may in the future indeed "resonate among the other peoples of the world and find its place in the international music literature."
Jascha Nemtsov is a pianist and musicologist. He is the academic director of the Cantorial School of the Abraham Geiger College (Berlin/Potsdam) as well as a member of the Editorial Board of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music (New York/Santa Monica).