Re: "elevating" ("improving") folk music

[eliott kahn <elkahn...>]

Robert:

RE: The Society for Jewish Folk Music. There were quite a few branches but 
the two most important ones were at Moscow, founded by Joel (Julius) Engel, 
and the one at St. Petersburg, founded a little later, in 1908, by a few 
composition students at the Conservatory there (L. Saminsky, S. Rosowsky, 
E. Skliar).

An interesting anecdote: When author Sholom Aleichem was first informed of 
the St. Petersburg Society's goals of collecting tunes in the Pale of 
Settlement and using them as the basis for art songs and chamber works, he 
warned the members to make sure (I paraphrase) "that the tunes don't freeze 
on the way to St. Petersburg." According to accounts by S. Rosowsky and L. 
Saminsky, however, he soon became an ardent supporter of the Society's 
goals. During its brief ten-year existence (1908-1918), The Society gave 
over 1200 concerts to adoring masses of Zionists throughout the Pale of 
Settlement. They were proud, indeed, that what were once considered 
"kitchen songs" were now works of art in very sophisticated, yet 
accessible, chamber music and art song settings.

The folks here who frequently refer to the Beregovski Collection should 
realize that the core of the collection that Beregovski cataloged, 
transcribed, and annotated in the 1920s-1930s were the cylinder recordings 
made during the Baron Horace von Ginsbourg Expedition of ca. 1913-1914. The 
two ethnomusicologists who made these field recordings were Joel Engel 
(somewhere in the Pale, I forget), and Lazare Saminsky in the Caucausus 
region. As you can see, both these men were instrumental in founding the 
Societies for Jewish Folk Music. I believe that Engel is referred to in 
Israel as "the father of Jewish music."
The lost cylinders were recently recovered and are now at the Vrenadsky 
Library in Kiev. The recently published CD was just a sampler compiled by 
the Library from the many cylinders in their possession.

I hope folks won't sell this art music short before they've heard it. At 
the present time I am not aware of any performances that do this music 
justice. Joseph Achron (another member of the St. Petersburg Society) was a 
virtuoso violinist who studied with Leopold Auer -teacher of Heifetz, 
Gingold, Elmann, Milstein, etc. You've no doubt heard Heifetz' (and 
Perlmann's) performance of Achron's "Hebrew Melody." But I would love to 
hear a passionate, accurate performance of his "Stempenyu Suite," among 
other works. I would wager that you'd hear the same type of fire and 
authenticity that you hear in Bartok, if the right players were to perform 
this music.

Arnold Schoenberg actually had very high praise for Achron's music; they 
knew each other in Los Angeles. Other St. Petersburg Folk Music Society 
composers of note were Moses Milner and Alexander Krein. The Society for 
Jewish Music at St. Petersburg published over eighty pieces during their 
brief ten-year existence. Most of the music I've looked at strikes me as 
extremely tasteful and well-wrought--and very authentically Jewish.

We have Solomon Rosowsky's Archive here at the Seminary Library, and in 
1996, we published an Inventory of the collection by myself and archivist 
Julie Miller.

Eliott Kahn, D.M.A.
Music Archivist
Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
3080 Broadway
New York, N.Y. 10027


At 01:15 PM 1/5/00 -0800, you wrote:
>That's exactly what the Society for Jewish Folk Music in 
>turn-of-the-century Russia (I think I have name and time right--not near 
>my books) sought to do:  "elevate" (by its lights) folk music into "art 
>music."  FWIW, I share Joshua's distaste for that ethos and 
>aesthetic--passionately.  But I think some such transformations or 
>incorporations of folk music "work," probably because the composer 
>respected and did not demean the original:  Vaughan Williams' ENGLISH FOLK 
>SONG SUITE, for example, and some of Bartok.  Maybe APPALCHIAN SPRING, 
>too, and I'm sure there are other successful examples. -- Robert Cohen
>
>
>>From: Joshua Horowitz <horowitz (at) styria(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: Meaning of "Klezmer"
>>Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 17:35:34 +0100
>>
>> > Josh,
>> >
>> > Which attempts to integrate klezmer music into modern compositions are
>> > you thinking of? Bob
>>
>>I wasn't trying to be specific, but was more taking a definite, very
>>opinionated standpoint about the effort as such for myself. I won't
>>single out any compositions I've heard, in spite of having been asked
>>ocassionally to write reviews. I feel too jaded to trust my own opinion
>>on a public platform outside of the realm of a discussion like this. But
>>I think my main qualm about using folk music for the basis of *serious
>>music* is an implicit meaning that the serious music world is
>>*improving* upon the music of the *natives*. I've never been able to
>>hear a derivative composition without getting past that reaction. Maybe
>>my ears are clogged though, I don't know. Josh
>>
>
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