Re: Germans and klezmer

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

In response to your point, below, Itzik, I've excerpted that part of my
article which deals with that...Heiko, Christian and Monika are sure
welcome to correct any inconsistencies they see...

The Color Of Tradition Is Brown
One of the great post-war hurdles that German-speaking countries have
had to leap over has been the association of traditionalist values in
their own culture with nationalist ideology. In non-nazi-traumatized
countries it hardly occurs to anyone that the alternative scene could
have any connection to right-wing ideas. But in fact the pre-war
?Blut-und-Boden? grass-roots movement in Germany fed upon ideas of
racial purity and ?hygiene?, whole wheat nutrition, fresh air and the
romanticisation of the common working people and....their pure,
unadultrated non-contaminated- from-the-outside music. 

For those wanting to play folk music after the war, the very idea of
musical purity (i.e. traditional music which deliberately identifies
itself ethnically to one group) became synonymous with Nazi values,
against which groups attempting to play their own music had to strive.
The 1960?s movement in America had influenced Germany enough that by the
1970?s, groups like Zupfgeigenhansel, Fidel Michel and Liederjan were
courageously working through the associative problems which they
inherited with their own folk music. So how did deal with it and what
does this have to do with the reception if Jewish music? The first
technique was simply to play the music of other cultures, mainly Irish
and Scottish and American but also even Yiddish, so as to create a
culturally open program. The implicit message in this was an admirable,
?all cultures have something to say and we shit on your ideologies?
attitude. They also used strict selective criteriae because they had
trouble finding songs with no nationalistic content in their own music.
Or, they simply changed the texts to cleanse them of their original
meanings when they were problematic or outdated. The political use of
music has a long tradition in Germany. Whether as propoganda or as
antipropoganda, the country has  never been free of the idea of ?applied
music.? So what happens when a group comes to play good music and have a
good time, unfettered, or even unanaware that the audience receiving it
takes it for granted that there is a political statement being made? As
long as the music being presented was not entirely traditional, there
was less of a problem. But much of the hip audience had a hell of a time
distancing itself from the equation: Traditionalism = Nationalism.
Admittedly, people playing traditional music have encountered this
equation in some form or another, regardless of culture, and there is a
difference only in the intensity of the traumas they have faced because
of it. Just recently, new groups have emerged which do in fact try to
revitalize their old music. The selection they are faced with is
difficult, so often the songs will center on those themes which are
still considered relevant or hip today (drinking, sex, going against
authority, etc), with the irony being in the archaic language.  Josh
Horowitz

Itzik Gottesman wrote:
> 
> I would like to add my 2 cents to an analysis of Germans and Klezmer. I
> agree that the issue is among the most compelling today in Klezmer music. I
> skipped and skimmed over many responses on this question to the list so I
> apologize if I repeat someone's ideas. I know that Rita Ottens is writing a
> book on the subject but I have not read her work and would be interested in
> her thesis.
> 
> When one goes into Tower Records and looks at the world music section,
> he/she will find many recordings under every middle eastern country,
> african country,some european countries, but under Germany - one "German
> Drinking Songs" CD, and  one "Oktoberfest" or "Oom-pah" music CD . Things
> are beginning to change but only slowly. What happened to German folk
> music? We know it's there, has always been there. As someone mentioned I
> think, Hitler appropriated the word "volk" and "volkmusik" and used it for
> his purposes, and the terms folk and folkmusic have yet to be made "kosher"
> again in Germany. Hitler tainted German folkmusic as the music of the
> oppressors. Enter Klezmer. Finally a "German folkmusic" that is the music
> of the oppressed victims. A folkmusic that a German doesn't have to be
> ashamed of, particularly Germans of the left. (The flip side of this view
> is the lack of Klezmer in Israel outside of Hasidic circles. In that case,
> perhaps the identification with the Yiddish speaking victims was to be
> avoided). I could go on but that's my thoughts in a nutshell. - Itzik

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