Re:Identity in Klezmer-Reply to Orig Question.

[Matt Jaffey <mjaffey2...>]

At 03:19 PM and 8:59 PM 6/3/98 -0700, you wrote:

I am a student at the University of California, Davis and I am writing a
paper about klezmer music. Does the music mimic language? It sounds like
it to me, especially in some the melodies Andy Statman plays...I am trying
to find out what shapes klezmer music.

Mark

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I am not an authority on this topic, but you didn't get very good responses
from others on the list other than to go do your homework and then come back
with a more specific question. Knowing that this topic has been brought up 
before and discussed, I did a little searching and compiled a selection of 
messages to the list from the past that address it.

Hope this is helpful,

Matt Jaffey
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From: Seth Rogovoy <rogovoy (at) berkshire(dot)net>
Subject: David Krakauer

Here's an article I've written for publication in the Berkshire Eagle on 
Aug. 22, 1996. 

David Krakauer Makes Old-world Klezmer New

by Seth Rogovoy

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Aug. 22, 1996 --Klezmer is typically 
regarded as an Eastern European-derived, Jewish party music from 
the 19th and early 20th-century, played by traveling musicians at 
weddings and other joyful occasions and featuring fiddle, 
clarinet, accordion and horns. For the most part, klezmer has 
remained an ethnic music, only occasionally surfacing in more 
popular arenas, most notably in the klezmer-like opening bars of 
George Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue," in the klezmer-like tones 
of jazz clarinetists Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Ziggy Elman, 
and through the gauzy, musical filter of Broadway's "Fiddler On 
the Roof." 

But over the last two decades or so, there has been a revival of 
interest in klezmer music, with repertory bands, most notably the 
Klezmer Conservatory Band and the Klezmorim, sprouting up around 
the country. Interest in klezmer has perhaps peaked this summer 
with "In the Fiddler's House," the album and tour of summer sheds 
by violinist Itzhak Perlman and several well-known klezmer 
groups, including Brave Old World, the Klezmer Conservatory Band 
and the Klezmatics...  

Although Krakauer is Jewish and was raised in a very musical 
home, he never heard klezmer music while growing up. "The only 
Jewish tune I heard was `Hava Nagilah,'" said Krakauer in a 
phone interview from his apartment in New York City. "I didn't 
grow up with any Chanukah songs or any Israeli songs. I basically 
grew up listening to Schnabel playing the late Beethoven piano 
sonatas, and when I was eleven Sidney Bechet." 

****
Yet when he finally began learning and playing klezmer music 
about 10 years ago, it was as if he had been hearing it all his 
life. "As soon as I started to play klezmer music, I had the 
feeling that I knew it very well," he said. "Somehow there was 
this incredible recognition, and I had to conclude that what I 
was hearing in the music was the sound and the inflection of my 
grandmother's very heavily, Yiddish-tinged English.  

"I realized that klezmer music was the Yiddish language in music, 
and I felt in a certain way that I had found a kind of musical 
home." ...

"To find a music that can stretch back to my heritage, my 
lineage, my grandmother's generation, to the language of my 
ancestors, this for me was somehow very important," said 
Krakauer...

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Aug. 
22, 1996. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1996. All rights reserved.]
*****************************************
Seth Rogovoy                        
rogovoy (at) berkshire(dot)net
http://www.berkshireweb.com/rogovoy
music news, interviews, reviews, et al.
*****************************************
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Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 13:02:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Solidarity Foundation <svzandt (at) igc(dot)apc(dot)org>
Subject: Der yidisher tam

If there's one Yiddish phrase everyone on this list should unederstand,
it's this: der yidisher tam (the Jewish taste). It means a really old-
fashioned Jewish aesthetic, and it applies first of all to food -- but
also to music or literature. So people say, "Es hot a yidishn tam"
(it has a Jewish "taste"), or "Es hot nish' ka' yidishn tam" (it doesn't
have a Jewish taste). In connection with this, and with what I wrote in
the previous message on "how does tradition live?" -- I wanted to
quote a passage from Sol Liptzin's _Eliakum Zunser_ (New York, 1950), 
p.191:

"Abraham Goldfaden [the father of Yiddish theater - I-L], who experimented
with many musical forms in his operettas, complained that all his efforts
to graft classical melodies of European composers upon the Yiddish words of
his musical dramas ended in failure. Somehow his audiences remained
indifferent to these alien compositions. No matter how beautiful these melodies
might seem to musical connoisseurs and no matter how singable, they did
lack certain familiar Jewish qualities. These qualities were not easy to
define, but his audiences sensed the strangeness, the incongruity, and
reacted coolly. Thereupon Goldfaden decided to try the kind of folk tunes
with which Zunser, Zbarzher, and their followers [i.e. badkhonim -I-L]
had aroused audiences to a high pitch of enthusiasm. Immediately he met
with a warmer response. This taught him a lesson that Zunser had learned
before him -- that, whether a melody be simple or sublime, it had, above
all, to be perfectly in harmony with its words and the ideas they expressed,
if it were to exercise a magnetic influence upon the emotions of a people.
Yiddish words and characteristic Jewish moods could not normally be
happily wedded to German or French operatic airs. They rather craved
embodiment in chants and tunes stemming from the synagogue and from Jewish
historic experiences. A Jewish Nigun (melody) had a charm and a sadness 
of its own. {or a happiness - I-L]

A gitn shabbes,
Itzik-Leyb
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Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 21:54:58 +1300
From: Ernie Gruner / Cathy Dowden <erniegru (at) mira(dot)net>

Please could someone explain to me the relationship between klezmer and
yiddish?

Are they / Were they always linked ?

Were there klezmer musicians in Europe who did not speak yiddish? where?

My understanding is that klezmer was jewish eastern european instrumental
music, and that yiddish is a language which happens to be spoken in most if
not all of the areas where klezmer was played. Is my confusion based on
time and geographical changes and definitions?

I suspect this may be a can of worms. However I keep hearing or reading
different bits of evidence and hope that this forum may provide more
information and perhaps a resolution.

thankyou
Ernie

Ernie Gruner
KALEIDOSCOPE MUSIC
Phone: 03 9386 7108   Fax: 03 9386 0947     Mobile: 0418 549 631
2 Cole Crescent, East Coburg 3058, Victoria,  AUSTRALIA   (Melbourne)
E-mail: erniegru (at) mira(dot)net
INTERNATIONAL: Phone 61 3 9386 7108   Fax 61 3 9386 0947
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Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 10:33:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Solidarity Foundation <svzandt (at) igc(dot)apc(dot)org>
Subject: Yiddish and klezmer

Some time during (I think) the last two weeks, somebody posted a question 
regarding the connection between Yiddish and klezmer. I apologize to the
person who posted it, because I want to reply but, going back through my
mailbox, I cannot find it. 

At the time, I had deliberately refrained from replying, because I wanted
to see what others would say first. But it seems no one picked up on it.

So, would that person please be good enough to re-send the question? I
think it's a really good one.

Itzik-Leyb
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Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 08:44:28 -1000
From: Sherry Mayrent <oyfpro (at) concentric(dot)net>
Subject: Re:  [Fwd: klezmer = yiddish?]

Hello, everybody.  In the recent discussion of this topic, I kept waiting
for what is to me the most obvious answer.  Since no one else brought it
up, I guess I will.

The rhythms and syntax of Yiddish *are* the rhythms and syntax of klezmer.
Period.  Plain and simple.  All the points about cultural identity are good
ones, but at its very most basic level, though you can certainly have
Yiddish without klezmer, klezmer *is* Yiddish.  I believe in this so
strongly that in my own training and in the coaching I do of other
musicians, I highly recommend serious immersion in listening to spoken
Yiddish as an essential step of internalizing the style.  Spoken and sung
Yiddish can provide essential information to the instrumental musician
about phrasing, about rhythm and accent patterns, and countless more subtle
aspects of the sound of the culture. 

Sherry Mayrent
Wholesale Klezmer Band
www.crocker.com/~ganeydn 
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From: Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky <reyzl (at) flash(dot)net>
Subject: RE: Re[2]: Der yidisher tam
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 19:48:52 -0500

Itskik-Leyb,

Just came upon this after writing my response and find that you 
essentially said the same thing I did.   

I would just like to say that resorting to crediting the Jewish 
essence in Jewish music as "Yidishe neshume" is too abstract and 
vague for me.   One has always heard it from both the musicians 
and the audience, but I think that we should be doing better than 
that now, especially since there so much fusion klezmer/Jewish 
going on now.  It goes on I think from lack of deep understanding 
of what makes music Jewish and that is very unfortunate.  I have 
found that certain Jewish music experts can come close to defining 
some of the basic building blocks of the music.   In listening to 
my husband Josh Waletzky describe what makes Jewish music Jewish 
or what makes klezmer music klezmer (=Jewish), he has been coming 
close to describing in measurable structural terms some of those 
elements.   It would be great if I could get him involved in any 
kind of public dialogue on this topic that he knows so well, but 
he prefers to compose and perform the music, rather than talk about 
it....  I understand that he is planning on discussing this issue 
in a workshop at Klezkanada this summer.

Anyway, when he once worked on a documentary on the music of Leonard 
Bernstein, he had me listen to one of the Norton Lectures given at
Harvard in which Lenny defined what makes American music American 
music, German music German, Russian music Russian, etc.  Among other 
things, Lenny demonstated how the intonation pattern of a language 
influences and defines its music.  Since we all know the uniqueness 
of Yiddish intonation (at this time, the great study on that is 
still waiting to be done), I think that understanding this 
correspondence is critical to understanding how to recognize/play 
Eastern European Jewish music.   

I am taking this story out context but I can't resist telling the
essence of it.  Josh once told me of how he learned the three part 
structure of a nign.   (Does anyone know this??)  Anyway, the first
part of a nign presents a question, a shayle [=query].   The second
part of a nign tries to answer the question/shayle by giving the 
"terets" in a talmudic argument style.   The third part explains how 
there is no real answer to the question and asking it is irrelevant 
anyway.   I am sure that Josh could explain this much better than I 
and can demonstrate it well, but he is too busy working on a deadline 
for a TV piece on Israel's 50th anniversary.   We'll have to wait for 
Klezkanada.

Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Date: Sat, 04 Apr 1998 12:22:33 +1000
From: Ernie Gruner / Cathy Dowden <erniegru (at) mira(dot)net>
Subject: klezmer/yiddish

thankyou Reyzl and others for replies.
my understanding is that klezmer derives partly from synagogue music and
partly from local ethnic community music. eg some modes and ornaments are
related directly to cantor's prayers/chants but some rhythms might owe
derivation to balkan influence.
where does yiddish fit into this? I assume the ornaments?
I guess one of my reasons for this line of questioning is personal.

I play the violin and play as a klezmer musician in Melbourne Australia for
chuppahs etc. I speak some hebrew and sung my barmitzvah many years ago but
speak little yiddish. My parents and surviving relatives came from slovak
and polish jewish communities but did not speak yiddish.

There is a musicological/linguistic argument you may have heard which
states that particular world music styles relate to particular languages.
ie the lilt in irish jigs and reels relates to early irish language,
hawaiian slide guitar ornaments and rhythm relate to hawaian etc . This has
led to many "world musicians" learning a language or learning to mimic it
(eg according to an interview  yesterday with a visiting musician, many
hawaiian singers don't speak the language but learn the songs parrot fashion).

I respect yiddish and its role, authors, contribution etc and believe
strongly in its right to survive and grow (Melbourne has one of the bigest
yiddish speaking communities in the world apparently - and I am often the
odd person out) but I do not wish to learn the language due to time
constraints. I am tempted to learn aspects of the language to "improve" my
klezmer style but believe my hebrew background and ability to learn thru
listening to CDs/live musicians etc should be enough. 

With the exception of ornaments, I'm not convinced that a knowledge of
yiddish contributes to better klezmer musicianship.
                      Any ideas/evidence to the contrary or in support?
thankyou Ernie

With respect to ornamention, are there any papers/theses/books that
describe this topic? I'm sure reading needs to be supplemented with
listening but believe an academic summary is useful also.
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