Re: Jewish Folk Music?...Adon Olam, et al

[Robert E Scheinberg <roscheinberg...>]

>However, I believe that Debbie's "traditional" Veshamru was pre-dated 
>by a
>MORE traditional Veshamru!  
>

Very often, when we search for the source of the "traditional" synagogue
melodies we do, we find that they are not quite as "traditional" in
origin as we thought .....

The "traditional" melody to "Ve-shamru" done in many Conservative and
Reform congregations, as well as some Orthodox congregations (which uses
the line "veshamru benei yisrael....... berit olam" as a chorus and
constructs three stanzas out of the remaining verses) was originally
composed in the very holy community of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, written
not as a liturgical setting but as a song for  a camp play at some point
in the 1950's.  (I heard this from someone who was a staff member there
at the time - maybe someone else on this list has more information.)

Additionally - a large number of the most common "traditional" melodies
to portions of the Shabbat liturgy (including Shalom Aleichem, Magen
Avot, Shehu noteh Shamayim in Aleinu, etc.) were composed less than 80
years ago in New York by Rabbi Israel Goldfarb.

And Eric Werner's writings point out how the "traditional" melodies to
Birkat HaMazon incorporate all sorts of German drinking songs, country
waltzes,  nursery rhymes, and a motif borrowed from Humperdinck's opera
"Hansel und Gretel"..... 

When it comes down to it, even in many traditional congregations in the
US, there is not all that much musical material which is more than 100
years old.  (exceptions include "straight nusach" and some high holiday
melodies; most metrical pieces are fairly recent.)  

At first I found this troubling - but now I find it very liberating -- it
means that the burden I had felt to preserve a musical tradition intact
and hand it down to my students and congregants was largely an illusory
burden.  Musical renewal and borrowing took place in every generation.

It makes me wonder which contemporary melodies are going to pass into the
corpus of "traditional Jewish music".  Already, I see that singing "Dror
Yikra" to the melody of "Sloop John B" is so common in so many
communities, and by many people who do not realize that it was
"originally" a Caribbean folk song and then a Beach Boys song, that I
would not be surprised if it is still sung 50 years from now.  

It seems to me that only time can sanctify music - and it even takes less
time than we might think.

===================================================
Rabbi Robert Scheinberg
United Synagogue of Hoboken
roscheinberg (at) juno(dot)com

_____________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]