[HANASHIR:12132] Re: What is "Great Music"?

[Gordon Lustig <gordonza...>]

Finally, someone who shares my point of view...(see quote)

gordon

From: Chuckm1961 (at) aol(dot)com
Reply-To: hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2002 15:11:14 EDT
To: hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org
Subject: [HANASHIR:12130] Re: What is "Great Music"?


The music director at my temple recently gave me a copy of the Winter 2002
CCAR Journal.  He supports the "new" music that we bring to services, and he
said that reading the journal would probably make me mad.  On page 20,
Samuel Adler states:

      "Our religious establishment has joyfully embraced the sound and the
spirit of  
      popular culture, and the musical sounds pouring forth from our pulpits
are either
      Chasidic ditties, written for people who are musically illiterate, or
pop-sounding
      songs written by musical amateurs to make our congregants feel 'warm'
rather
      than get the spiritual high that would result if they were ever
confronted with
      great music."

My music director was right:  this made me mad.  I was suprised to find such
a view out there in a "Reform Jewish Quarterly."  I imagine that some
veterans out there are not surprised.  I just wanted to put this out there,
and see what reactions people might have.  For my own two cents, I try to
stay open to all points of view, but.... I thought we were making "great
music," and I thought I was getting spiritual highs from pieces by Debbie,
Craig, Dan, Danny and many others.


Chuck Mitchell
Religious School Music Teacher/ Songleader