Re: Klezmer Music (influences chart)

[Hope Ehn Dennis Ehn <ehn...>]

I have the Brave Old World tapes, and I like them. But they point up the
issue of electronic influence and the merging of everything into a single
stream. Yes, their songs are about Europe, but that's typical of Klezmer
music (and should probably continue to be). The "European influence" on
any Klezmer group is basically *electronic* -- that is, vinyl rather than
living musicians who came from Europe. There are very few of the old
Klezmer musicians around, and I believe that most of those who are spent
most of their working lives on this side of the ocean.

Those people who have gone to repositories such as YIVO, searched out
European recordings, and listened to them, are to be commended. But it
doesn't change the fact that, unfortunately, there are no *living*
European traditions of Klezmer music left (unless they're under deep cover
in Russia). Many of the people making Klezmer music in Europe aren't even
Jewish. They could not have grown up with the tradition, the way people
did in the old days.

In fact, the Klezmer movement here began as a *revival* in the past 20
years or so. It hadn't died out *completely*, because there were people
who played at occasions such as Orthodox weddings (i.e., Giora Feidman,
who came from a family of such musicians, if I remember correctly). Only
relatively recently has Klezmer really left the museum category here, as
people like Michael Alpert began writing new songs *in Yiddish* about
contemprary issues. The Yiddish is important -- translated lyrics do not
make a living tradition!

At this point, I think that Brave Old World is not alone in leaving the
museum to join what is now a real, evolving tradition. (In the arts,
complete stasis is death.)

In any case, the chart was not about contemporary Klezmer music, but about
the music in my book of recorder arrangements -- i.e., it was a chart of
historical influences. None of the music in the book was brand new. To
make the chart perfectly accurate, I should probably add another element
on the bottom row: "newly composed Klezmer music." But if the new music
didn't relate stylistically to the other elements on the chart, it
wouldn't be Klezmer music at all! And it is certainly that.

Hope Ehn                      <ehn (at) world(dot)std(dot)com>

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Dennis and Hope Ehn are 2 different people sharing one account.
Hope is the author of "On-Line Resources for Classical & Academic Musicians."
Dennis does programming (mostly C++).
PLEASE don't get us confused!                                 :-)
<ehn (at) world(dot)std(dot)com>
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