RE: Debbie Friedman article

[Joel Bresler <jbresler...>]

I'd like to weigh in here briefly. 

>From the article, "(Rabbi Dan) Freelander of the UAHC thinks it?s
inevitable, though. ?The transition to an American nusach is fully under
way,? he says. ?In 100 years, American Jewish music will sound nothing like
the traditional Jewish music of Eastern Europe.?

If Jewish music 100 years from now is indistinguishable from "American"
music, I think we will have lost a great deal. Having said that, this has
happened time and time again in our history. I am most familiar with the
Sephardim in Turkey, where synagogal performance practices were
tremendously influenced by Turkish art music practices. (The same held true
in secular music, which were also sung in the modal Turkish "makam"
system.) For example, earlier this century, Cantor Isaac Algazi recorded
Turkish repertory, Hebrew and Ladino songs in essentially the same style
and was widely admired in Jewish and Turkish circles alike. 

I thought the group might enjoy this quote from Fred Gaisberg's "Music on
Record." Gaisberg was an unbelievably important recording engineer cum A&R
man in Gramophone's early days. He wrote in 1943 about his visit to Warsaw
in 1900, "The celebrated Cantor Kwartin made the first records of the
age-old Temple chants, unaccompanied, which were to find their way to
Hebrews in all parts of the world. Strange to say, to-day the appreciation
of these devotional numbers no longer obtains among the younger
generations. When their elders complain of this neglect, they regard them
as hopeless fanatics."

B'shalom,

Joel




Joel Bresler
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