Re: klezmer and Sephardic/Judith Cohen

[l_cahan <L_Cahan...>]

Speaking of Judith, I want to mention that when she gave a concert here in
Cleveland this past Fall, I was exceedingly entertained by her sense of humor as
well as the delightful performance she and her daughter gave.  My 4-1/2 year old
son, Nathan, often asks for one of her CDs as the bedtime music of the day.

Lorele

Joel Bresler wrote:

> Hi, Carol. Thanks for this important post.
>
> The Medley has been recorded, on
>
> Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Le
> Ritual
> Elektra Nonesuch Explorer Series 9 79349-2
> 1993/1994
> La Rosa En Floresa; A Señora Novia; Lamenta
>
> Kaufman is also the moving force behind:
>
> Voices of VITIZ
> Jewish Songs from Bulgaria
> GEGA NEW        GD 157
> Bulgaria
>
> Let's just say that listeners that didn't enjoy the Mystère des Voix
> Bulgares arrangements are really unlikely to enjoy this CD as well...
>
> I'm betting that Judith was referring to recent CD releases by the
> Australian group The Renaissance Players, who take a Bulgarian village
> women's approach to some of the songs. But she'll have to confirm.
>
> Best,
>
> Joel
>
> At 01:05 AM 1/21/00 -0500, you wrote:
>
> >Joshua Horowitz wrote:
> >
> > > Now that you mention it, Hankus:
> > > Koutev is not the only arranger of the Voix Bulgares stuff. Prof. Dr.
> > > Nikolai Kaufman, president of the Bulgarian Composers' Union,
> > > has supposedly collected about 30.000 folk tunes for the Bulgarian
> > > Academy of Sciences during his field work. He's Ashkenazi and has
> > > arranged of thousands of tunes including Yiddish + Ladino tunes, amung
> > > them the choir Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares etc. etc. He lives in Sofia,
> > > speaks English, Yiddish, Ladino, Russian, Hebrew.
> >
> >Kaufman, (who may have very well collected 30,000 songs, since I have
> >about eight
> >or nine or his publications sitting on my bookshelf, each one with close
> >to 2,000
> >songs in it - not indexed by title - yikes!) did arrange a medley of 
> >Sephardic
> >songs for the Bulgarian Radio and Television Choir (Le Myst`ere des Voix
> >Bulgares) several years ago, and my friends in this ensemble proudly tell
> >me that
> >they sing Evrejski Pesni (Jewish Songs.) The songs, performed in these highly
> >stylized choral arrangements, sound ridiculous, but then, in my opinion,
> >Bulgarian folk songs sound ridiculous sung this way as well.
> >
> > >
> > > Just a note
> > > about the vocal style, too: at least one early music group has started
> > > including Sephardic songs sung in Bulgarian village women's style. In my
> > > fieldwork experience, Sephardic women didn't use that style. Not only
> > > that, many of the ones I interviewed dissociated themselves from it as
> > > being "village" "peasant" style. The few Bulgarian songs I've heard them
> > > sing were more in the line of popular urban songs of the time they were
> > > growing up. Cheers, Judith
> >
> >Don't know what group Judith is referring to, so I don't know exactly which
> >Bulgarian women's style she means. (There's a really broad range of vocal
> >styles
> >in Bulgaria.) I too have found that many Eastern European Jewish singers
> >(Ashkenzic and Sephardic) look upon "peasant music" with disdain. However,
> >with
> >regard to Judith's point that the Balkan Sephardic songs were often
> >performed in
> >a style that was close to that of the urban songs of the time, I'd just
> >like to
> >point out to those unfamiliar with this music that in most urban centers
> >of the
> >Balkans one heard more influence from the East (Ottoman) than from the
> >West. So
> >the vocal placement (how the sound was actually produced) for Balkan
> >Sepahardic
> >songs was often the same as for village music (using a speaking or throat
> >-centered voice), just lighter and differently colored. When women did
> >sing in a
> >falsetto voice, it was a focussed falsetto, not the thin, airy sound that 
> >some
> >revival singers are using today. And while scales were not the same as
> >those of
> >the country songs, they were the scales of the urban regional songs (and
> >usually
> >not Western scales.) And just as in the local non-Jewish urban music, lush
> >ornamentation was generally an essential part of the song. So while singing
> >Sephardic repertoire in a style borrowed from Bulgarian village singing is
> >clearly not in keeping with tradition, the singing of these songs in a
> >operatic
> >or airy voice with Westernized scales and without the proper ornamentation is
> >equally removed from the original, beautiful sound.
> >
> >(Actually,the second half of that sentence holds true for Yiddish singing as
> >well, but let me not get started just now.....)
> >
> >Carol
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> Joel Bresler
> 250 E. Emerson Rd.
> Lexington, MA 02420 USA
>
> Home:           781-862-2432
> Home Office:    781-862-4104
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> Email:          jbresler (at) ma(dot)ultranet(dot)com
>
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