synagogue music, old and new (continued)

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

The discussion re traditional and new liturgical music has been a 
thoughtful and rewarding one; I thought I'd add just a few footnotes 
to previous contributions rather than an additional essay.  1)A small 
point:  _tam_ is Hebrew for "simple"--as in the _tam_, the simple 
son/child, at the Seder table--or "innocent," "wholehearted," "pure": 
Jacob is described in the Bible as an "ish tam"--a simple/etc. man.  
Music (or anything else) w/ a Jewish flavor, OTOH, has a Jewish 
"ta'am"--two syllables.  These are two different words (spelled, 
indeed, w/ different initial Hebrew letters), and I bring this up 
because we're likely on this list to refer to a Jewish "ta'am" in the 
future.  2) It should be borne in mind that piyyutim (hymns) like Ein 
Keloheinu and Adon Olam--let alone seder tunes like Chad Gadya!!--are 
really not governed by the requirements of nussach (i.e., the 
characteristic musical mode governing different prayer services), so 
even nussach-upholding traditionalists will generally not mind new, 
singable melodies for such texts....The "traditional" Ein Keloheinu, 
BTW, was composed by Julius Freudenthal after a German church hymn; it 
has a very specific "provenance" in the first hymnal of the Reform 
movement (Germany, 1843).  The music historian Alfred Sendrey calls it 
"the most un-Jewish of all Jewish liturgical hymns," and I too find it 
shallow, sung (or dittied) to death, and beyond uninspiring.  I like 
Shlomo's Ein Keloheinu so much, OTOH, that I put it on OPEN THE 
GATES!, and other old and new EK's have been recorded.  (It was 
probably the best-known song of The Voices Four, Arbaah Kolot, one of 
the first contemporary Jewish folk/pop groups.)  3) There's been, I 
think, an evolving partial/near(?) consensus in the discussion to date 
w/ respect to traditional nussach vis-a-vis contemporary niggunim 
(melodies for prayer):  Our traditional nussach is important to 
preserve (and, I would add, to teach; most non-cantorial service 
leaders don't know it), but nussach is fluid, not rigidi, and can 
evolve and grow.  Just to add a conspicuous case in point:  The Ahavah 
Rabbah mode--which A. W. Binder observes, "contains the augmented 
second interval that has become so characteristic of Jewish music" 
(just sing the first few notes of Hava Nagilah)--this mode, notes 
Idelsohn, does _not_ (i.e., notwithstanding its characteristic, even 
definitive Jewish ta'am) derive from the Biblical cantillation modes, 
as some other nussach does; it was _not_ used in ancient times.  "This 
mode," concludes Idelsohn, "was originally unknown to the Jewish 
people" and was only adopted many centuries later, when our prayer 
music absorbed influences from the Tartars and from Mongolian, 
Persian, and other sources.                                           
     These melodic elements, writes Idelson, became part of our prayer 
music because they "nestled [themselves] in the fertile soul of the 
receptive Jewish soul" and "became a real channel of Jewish 
expression."  So if then, why not now?--as I think Rabbi Hillel must 
have said (or should have).  An American-style (Debbie et al.) mode--a 
"nussach Americanski," as Jeff Klepper used to put it--is clearly 
becoming part of our prayer music (notwithstanding that I personally 
often respond more to Hassidische-style niggunim--irrelevant); the 
question is whether cantors and other musical custodians will 
incorporate the new style while retaining, rejuvenating, and 
attractively presenting and teaching traditional modes or will just 
reject it out of hand (or reject the traditional modes out of hand), 
thereby assuring its pre-eminence.

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