Re: What Is Jewish Music? (revisited!)

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

Didn't even occur to me to append/update:  What happened to Sulzer's music 
between the 19th and 20th centuries may be happening to Debbie Friedman's 
music now (between the 20th and 21st ...) -- rlc


>From: "Robert Cohen" <rlcm17 (at) hotmail(dot)com>
>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>Subject: Re: What Is Jewish Music? (revisited!)
>Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 14:24:09 PST
>
>"I know it when I hear it" is a good guide to the question (alluded to by
>Seth Austen recently) "What do I like?  What moves me/speaks to my heart 
>(or
>head or whatever)?"  But it's a *terrible* guide to "What Is Jewish Music?"
>since, as I point out to classes and lecture audiences all the time, 
>ancient
>or "exotic" Jewish music--ancient Sephardic that "sounds like" Gregorian
>chant; (ancient) Yemenite music, Moroccan or Tunisian Jewish music, etc.,
>etc., don't "sound like" Jewish music to our (that is, most of my
>audiences') Western/American, 20th-century, Ashkenazic Jewish ears.  And
>there's the "newness" factor. Sulzer's 19th-century art-music settings of
>liturgy didn't "sound Jewish" to Eastern European Jews of his day--it
>sounded Christian, or "goyish."  Now it _defines_ a certain style of
>cathedral and not-so-cathedral (and even not cathedral at all) synagogue
>music. It _became_ "Jewish" by constant use over a period of time, until it
>(only eventually) "sounded Jewish" to everyone.  It really _isn't_ a Potter
>Stewart thing. -- Robert Cohen
>
>
>>From: Susan Lerner <meydele (at) ix(dot)netcom(dot)com>
>>Subject: Re: promiscuous fusionizers
>>Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 18:48:17 -0800
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>>As to the discussion of the term klezmer and the way it has been
>>"elasticized, "  I'm not too concerned.  We may not be able to agree on a
>>definition, but I think there is a critical mass of people who can
>>differentiate between "sounds real klezmer", "sorta klezmer"  to "not
>>really klezmer", if my 'teen classes struggling to answer the question 
>>What
>>Is Jewish Music? are any indication.  Yep, I'm actually (and here I blush)
>>falling back on "I don't know what it is but I know it when I hear
>>it."  ---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>>---------------------+
>>