Re: Jewish fiddlers (belated post)

[Yoel Epstein <yoel...>]

Just reread "The Unknown Jewish Minstrel" from "Forgotten Musicians" by the 
late and great musicologist Paul Nettl.  The article will be of interest to 
followers of this thread.

According to Nettl, Jews have been fiddlers pretty much since the invention of 
the fiddle.  In the late Renaissance  and Baroque period, "Kahle Bierfiedlers" 
were in demand at weddings and christenings.  Jews were not allowed in the 
musicians' guilds, so were regarded as scabs, and employed in the musical 
equivalent of sweatshop conditions - made to play through the night at low 
wages.  The typical ensemble for a Renaissance wedding was two violins and 
bass, typical orchestration of the trio sonatas of the Jewish composer Salomone 
Rossi, and later of Baroque composers like Bach.

The early classical composer Franz Benda writes in his autobiography how he 
learned violin from Lebel, a blind Jew who led the village band at Benatek near 
Prague.  The Jewish family names Fiedler, Bass and Zimbalist (cembalo player) 
most certainly trace back to the musical professions of these people.

The leading violinist of the second half of the nineteenth century, Josef 
Joachim, was Jewish.  So, too, I believe, was Ferdinand David, the 
concertmaster of the famous Gewandhaus orchestra conducted by Felix 
Mendelssohn.  Moritz Moskowsky, of the same period, was a pianist, but composed 
several wonderful works for violin.  Miska Hauser was another Jewish violinist.

However, most of the famous Jewish musicians of the nineteenth century were 
pianists, rather than violinists - Ignaz Moscheles, Anton Rubenstein, Ignaz 
Tedesco, Siegmund Goldschmidt, and others.  Moreover, Jewish composers were - 
and still are - much less numerous than performers.  There is a story about a 
woman who came up to Moskowsky and asked him to sign her autograph book.  
Moskowsky opened the book and found the signature of the famous conductor and 
critic Hans Von Bulow.  Von Bulow had written "Bach, Beethoven, Brahms - all 
the others are cretins."

Moskowsky wrote below, "Moskowsky, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer - all the others are 
Christians."