Re: Women and Liturgical Music

[elkahn <elkahn...>]

Bob:

There's more of a tradition of women in choirs (SATB) in the 19th-20th
century Liberal congregations of Germany. Of course, it varied from city
to city and kahal to kahal.

Just like the intro of the organ, the intro of women singing in choirs
(and occasional SA solos) was controversial according to each synagogue. I
believe it was introduced in Munich before 1850 and there was some
controversy. It was probably more acceptable in the German "Reform"
congregations like the ones in Hamburg and Berlin. There was a distinction
in Germany between "Reform" Judaism and "Liberal" Judaism; the latter was
really more like American Conservative Judaism.

Remember, there were always men's choruses -- up until the bitter end.
They usually sang in congregations where there was no organ and probably
no mixing of the sexes. Lewandowski wrote a lot of choral music for men's
(TTBB) chorus, including his famous "Haben Yakir Li" for the High Holiday
Musaf service.

Women in E. Europe and Russia? I really don't know. Perhaps at the more
liberal "chorshuls," such as the Broder shul in Odessa or the Great
Synagogue in Bucharest, but I'm not sure and I wouldn't bet on it.

Eliott Kahn


 On Mon, 10 May 1999, robert wiener wrote:

> I just saw a video called Legendary Voices: Cantors of Yesteryear, a
> collection of film recordings.  It includes an excerpt of Samuel
> Malavsky performing a setting of the High Holiday liturgy with Singers
> of Israel, the Malavsky family choir.  The choir, standing before an
> ark with the men wearing tallasim, includes 4 females wearing
> yarmulkes and robes, and one of them sings a solo.
> 
> Which leads me to ask the following questions:
> 
> What was the involvement of women with liturgical music before
> American cantorial institutes accepted female students?
> 
> As solo singers  (e.g., the lady cantor of Odessa)?
> 
> As members of family choirs (e.g., Malavsky, Haas)?  Were these
> popular in the Orthodox community?  Did they often sing liturgy?
> (Are there similar phenomena now?)
> 
> As composers (before Debbie Friedman)?
> 
> I know that women's voices are not traditionally heard in the
> synagogue in performance (choirs that had soprano voices used boy
> sopranos), so I wonder how traditional women expressed themselves
> musically in prayer (i.e., aside from singing along as members of the
> congregation, lighting candles, or birkat hamazon).
> 
> Bob
> 
> 
> 

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