Re: "Songs to the Invisible God" review...

[eliott kahn <elkahn...>]

Judah:

I am not a specialist in ancient music, but I believe excellent Israeli 
musicologists such as Hannoch Avernary and Robert Lachman have done much 
substantiative research proving Werner's point.

I will also tell you, as someone who has analyzed Gregorian chant, that the 
method of motivic organization to create melodies is IDENTICAL to "trop" or 
Biblical cantillation.

Please offer proof otherwise, if you believe Christian monophonic chant is 
not derived from Jewish cantillation.

Sincerely,

Eliott Kahn

At 03:44 PM 3/20/00 -0500, you wrote:

> > Please remind him of the book "The Sacred Bridge" by E Werner which showed
> > that Christian chant came from/was based upon/ Jewish chant.... (and while
> > some details of Werner's arguments may be in dispute these days),
> > nevertheless the basic premise remains: the idea of chanting came from the
> > ancient Jewish Temple and predates Christianity.
> >
>I would be lax to bring up Werner's book as authoritative in ANY context,
>save that of a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to substantiate what remains
>an unsubstantiated and speculative assumption.  The connections scholars can
>find between Jewish and Christian Chant before the 17th century are
>serendipitous at best, and often require several leaps of logic to come to
>any overarching conclusion.  Werner's work was special primarily in that he
>made these leaps of logic with great passion, self-assurance and abandon.
>
>This may initially sound surprising considering how deeply the "Sacred
>Bridge" theory sits within Jewish music studies.  But check the evidence--or
>lack thereof.  Upon some scrutiny, most arguments melt away into
>speculation--and until we can find some way to move beyond documentary
>evidence (or, until some notated "Dead Sea Scrolls" are found), it will
>probably remain that way.
>
>Be well.
>Judah Cohen.
>


Eliott Kahn, D.M.A.
Music Archivist
Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
3080 Broadway
New York, N.Y. 10027
         (212) 678-8091
FAX: (212) 678-8998

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