Re: Viktor Ullman

[JeffSchan <JeffSchan...>]

Ruth:

I'm glad you appreciate knowing where I am coming from.  Yesterday, while I
was trying to figure out why I immediately had a negative reaction to your
assessment of Ullmann, I came up with a few more insights.  First personal -
my parents joined a conservative temple when they came to the States.  When
criticized by American orthodox people that they were not really being Jewish
or raising their children Jewish, my mother would fly off the handle and say
"Who is he to tell me I'm not Jewish.  The Nazis persecuted me because I was
a Jew.  I lost half my family because I was a Jew.  How dare he who hasn't
suffered like I have tell me I am not a Jew."  I used the same method when I
perceived (incorrectly) that you were attacking Ullmann's "Jewishness."
 Secondly, and more theoretically, is the question of what the Nazis called
"Entarte Kunst" or degenerate art.  The Nazis considered the entire 12-tone
school of Schoenberg and his disciplines (including Ullmann and most of the
Terezin composers) to be degenerate and Jewish.  If the Nazis considered
Ullmann's music Jewish that makes it Jewish in my eyes.  Perhaps this is a
pretty flimsy definition of what makes a music Jewish, but given my
background, that's how I feel.

As for my own music, I do a lot of different things.  I write fully scored
concert music, and have studied composition with Morton Feldman and Anthony
Davis.  Interestingly, Feldman's music may not on the surface sound Jewish
and he was certainly not observant, yet he consciously saw himself as being a
Jewish composer.  My piece A Mother's Story, 1939-40 will be premiered by
mezzo-soprano Isabelle Ganz with cello accompaniment.  The text is the oral
account of my mother's escape from the blitzkrieg of Poland.  I promise I
will post info on this concert next week.  I am also a guitarist and
improvisor.  I have worked with a number of people who helped lead the "free"
jazz movement in the 60's and 70's as well as "downtown" types.  For example,
I just finished a free improv recording led by Leroy Jenkins and Joseph
Jarman (formerly of the Art Ensemble of Chicago).  I have a LP of my ensemble
from the late 80's which features Leroy Jenkins, Ned Rothenberg, Lindsey
Horner and Bobby Previte, and a CD of the Schanzer/Speach Duo with my wife,
composer/pianist Bernadette Speach.  My CD No More In Thrall, commemorating
the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald camp, performed by
the Sirius String Quartet with percussionist Kevin Norton arrived here a
couple of weeks ago, but will not be in the stores until later in April.

Thanks for your interest

Jeff