Re: Jews, Gypsies and Cliches

[Paul M. Gifford <PGIFFORD...>]

There is so much in Josh's message and Francesca's inquiry that it 
might be easier to start from a clean slate.

I think you have to look before the 19th century. Sarosi, in 
*Hungarian Gypsy Music* (Budapest: Corvina, 1978), discusses the 
origins of the music during the 18th century----he mentions one Gypsy 
musician who died in the 1730s, and says that Panna Czinka (d. 1771), 
a woman, led the first orchestra with the modern instrumentation of 2 
violins, cimbalom, and bass. Although there are scattered earlier 
references to Gypsy musicians in Hungary, such as trumpeters, it 
seems clear that the modern form developed in this period.

There was a migration of Jews into Hungary during the early 18th 
century from Moravia and Bohemia (see Encyclopedia Judaica, for 
example). A Hungarian painting from about 1760 (see Andras Bordo's 
article from the early 1990s in *Muszika*, a Hungarian journal) which 
depicts a 3-piece Jewish ensemble (2 violins and cimbalom) and and a 
3-piece Gypsy ensemble (2 violins and bass) on another area in this 
painting. The instrumentation of 2 violins, cymbal, and bass was 
already developed in Prague by 1650 by Jews (see Paul Nettl's 
article, reprinted in Walter Salmen's *Juedische Musikanten*). I 
suspect this instrumentation developed in Lvov earlier in the 
century, then was spread to Prague, due to migration from Galicia 
during the Thirty Years' War.

Some of the descriptions of the Jewish musicians in Prague about 1650 
mention that they went from tavern to tavern playing their music. 
This was typical of Hungarian Gypsy music----in the 1950s, in Del 
Ray, a Hungarian enclave in Detroit, Gypsy musicians did exactly the 
same thing, going into one bar, playing for tips, then moving on to 
another one. They lived mostly on one street (Burdeno), just like in 
Hungarian villages, and played in restaurants, fraternal lodge 
banquets, etc.  For a good article on them, see Erdmon Beynon, "The 
Gypsy in a Non-Gypsy Economy," *American Journal of Sociology*, 1937. 
By the way, a couple of immigrant Hungarian Jews used to play with 
Gypsy musicians in bars in this area in the 1950s (Gabor 
Zingenlauber, clarinet, Sandor Feher, violin), as well as Hungarian 
Christians. Also, there's an Italian connection----a lot of these 
Gypsies played for Mafia-owned restaurants and Mafia private parties, 
with an Italian singer, and one cimbalom player I know worked for 
them in the '60s as a bookie.

So, for Hungary, look at the period 1700-1750 and estimates of Jewish 
and Gypsy population. It would seem that elements of Hungarian Gypsy 
music (rubato, improvisation, not using notes) already existed with 
the Prague ghetto music of c.1650, and that this music, which is often 
maligned today as kitschy, pop, etc., preserves a lot of this style.

As to Romania (Moldavia and Wallachia), the instruments that the 
lautari played in the early 19th century were violin, nai (panpipes), 
and cobza (lute). By 1900, the Gypsies also played clarinet, dulcimer 
(t,ambal), and cello (bass). Where did they get those instruments? 
Jews are documented playing those instruments in Moldavia by 1850, so 
the period to focus on is 1840-1890. 

There were villages in Austria and Bohemia where there were families 
of hereditary musicians that traveled to play engagements, some quite 
far. A book by K. M. Komma, *Boehmische Musikantentum*, discusses the 
Bohemian ones. This appears to have been a local occupational 
specialty, much like other local specialties. A book by John Zucchi 
(1992) discusses the Italian boys who were apprenticed and sent to 
cities like London, Paris, and New York (and all over the hinterland 
of the U.S.), playing the harp and violin in the 19th century---this 
is another example. 

Both Jews and Gypsies were on the fringes of Central European society 
in the 18th century, along with groups of Christians---vagabonds, 
peddlers, thieves, etc. Musician beggars were among this group, and 
it is easy to see how connections could have developed in the first 
half of the 18th century. See Theodor Hampe, *Fahrende Leute* (1903). 
Dulcimer players, fiddlers, and hurdy-gurdy players were all part of 
this itinerant, begging population. As outsiders, they drew a lot of 
suspicion and were regarded as thieves or criminals in many cases. A 
lot of research in archival sources could be done here.

Then it is more difficult to make sense out of the situation in 
Old Lithuania (Belarus, eastern Poland, etc.) and Ukraine. The Gypsy 
population here was much smaller and generally not known as 
musicians, though by c.1850 there were nomadic groups that played 
music in Belarus. The Gypsy musicians in Slovakia, Hungary, and 
Romania, are all sedentary, by the way. I don't know how much of the 
repertoire of Polish Gypsy street bands (usually violin, accordion, 
guitar, and bass) might have Jewish influence----I've heard very 
little and only heard Hungarian and Russian influence.

Prince Karol Radziwill had a Jewish court orchestra in Lithuania in 
the 1770s, who dressed up in Turkish costume (how's this one for you, 
Josh, as far as cliches go?). This to some extent parallels the 
experience of Hungarian Gypsies in the early 19th century (I think 
Janos Bihari), and later, who liked to talk about playing for kings 
and people like Zsa Zsa Gabor and other celebrities.

There were guilds of musicians in Ukraine and Galicia by the early 
17th century, and some Hutsul family names (which developed in the 
1700-1750 period) include names like "Tsymbalistyj," so evidently 
there were hereditary, professional musicians among the Christian 
population there. But the situation there is hard to make sense of. 
There were serf musicians, but were there free gentile musicians in 
18th-early 19th-century Ukrainian and Lithuanian towns who played for 
dances and banquets? This needs a lot of research.  For example, 
would Jewish musicians have faced less restrictions than serf 
musicians, for example, in being able to travel?

In some areas, there are long-standing traditions of peasant 
fiddling, like western Ukraine, Maramures (in Romania), Bihor, etc., 
but in other areas, it is non-existent and only practiced by Gypsies. 
That's even more true with the cimbalom. What accounts for this?  
Another thing I've wondered about is whether, after the ending of 
serfdom in 1861, Belarusian peasants adopted Jewish instrumentation, 
or whether this instrumentation had been with them for a long time. 

Another area which someone in California needs to look at is the use 
of Gypsy music in Hollywood movies from the '30s and '40s. Julius 
Klein, a Jew, was the person who played the cimbalom in most of them. 
I don't know if the musicians were mainly Jews, but it seems that the 
American Gypsies I've known never knew anybody who played in them. 
There was a violinist, Bela Schaeffer, who recorded in New York in 
the 1920s and was in Los Angeles in the 1930s, and he might have been 
one. Some of the early producers, like Adolph Zukor, were Hungarian-
born Jews. Perhaps he or others introduced it and made it popular to 
the mass audience. This in turn meant that Hungarian restaurants drew 
a lot of non-ethnics in the '40s and '50s.  Also, I know that at 
least some Jewish-American violinists in that period played "Gypsy" 
at engagements, with a vest (my father's friend Max Pecherer did 
this, for example, in Detroit). I mention all this as a possible area 
of interaction which is almost forgotten now but deserves study. 

I don't have Francesca's e-mail address, but I hope she gets this.

Paul Gifford








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