Re: ATTENTION - The German thing...

[Solidarity Foundation <svzandt...>]

On  Thu, 26 Jun 1997 11:15:29 -0400
Isabelle Ganz wrote:

Last May I performed a concert of
Yiddish and Sephardic songs at an art museum in Bonn with pianist John
Ferguson, under the umbrella of the group "American Voices".  I had not
performed in Germany for many years, so the experience took me by surprise:
 there was about two minutes of applause for each song.  After about five
songs I began to feel that I really didn't have to sing - I could just
stand there and say "oy" and they would applaud just as enthusiastically.
They seemed to be applauding me just for existing - or maybe just for being
there, my presence implying that "it's O.K. - all is forgiven".  It was a
strange experience, but I'll be going back next season - to enjoy, of
course, all that audience warmth (the kind of warmth one doesn't usually
experience in personal relationships there), and also to learn more about
what gives.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As someone who has never been to Germany, but who has worked with 
the American Indian community in the United States and Canada for many years,
I can't help seeing a parallel between the above response, and the response
that a Native person -- virtually any Native person, or sometimes somebody
just pretending to be one -- doing just about anything "Indian" -- will
draw from certain kinds of people. 

I don't want to be misunderstood: I believe Native people are making
great contributions, cultural, political, and intellectual, all of which
should receive more attention from others. My point is only that there
are certain kinds of non-Indian people, largely among the so-called
"New Age", who react with a kind of indiscriminate awe to anything that
purports to be "Indian." 

Something like this may explain part of the new mystique of things
Jewish in Germany. But as for music, I doubt it explains everything. I
have been told by friends who perform in Germany that, as a rule, the
German concertgoing and record-buying public has a high level of
aesthetic interest and interest in the musics of diverse cultures. This
is not hard to believe of the country that gave us "the three B's"
(Bach, Beethoven and Brahms) and where, if I'm not mistaken, the
field of ethnomusicology originated.

I have a particular interest in klezmer, and what concerns me most
about all this is something I don't think anybody's mentioned yet in
this discussion. It's what I call "the bagel problem." It used to be
that here in New York City -- o.k., Montreal, too, but that's a
different kind of bagel -- was the only place you could get a bagel.
And they were good, farshteyt zikh. Then, bit by bit, bagels started
appearing in other parts of the country. Frozen bagels. Instant bagels.
Bagels with pink polka dots. Cinammon raisin bagels, l'havdil.

But if you wanted a real bagel, you still had to come to New York.

Now the bagel has absolutely conquered the nation. You read articles
about it. You can get bagels in Aspen, Colorado -- anywhere. My
observation is, a lot of Jewish people are really proud of this. But
what I'd like to ask is, are they really bagels any more? And guess
what -- it's getting harder and harder to find real bagels even here
in New York! 

Klezmer has been revived, but is now experienced in contexts so
different from what it came out of, that it seems to be mutating into
all kinds of things, not only altering the forms, but even the spirit.
Since Germany seems to be the Mecca for klezmer (pardon the mixed
metaphor!), and since the context of playing it there would seem to
be, to a large extent, radically different it came from, and since
working musicians tend to play what they think the audience and the
managers want to hear, where is all this going? Without implying
anything about the German, or Swiss, or Dutch audiences, other than
that they are German, Swiss, Dutch, respectively, it would seem an
odd state of affairs if their idea of wjat Jewish music is supposed to
be, were to set the standards for what is essentially a Jewish folk
art. 

Is this something like Indians performing their "authentic Indian
war dance" for the tourists? Or am I exaggerating?

Itzik-Leyb Volokh (Jeffrey Wollock)