Re: "Songs to the Invisible God" review...--P.S.

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

I should have inserted the word "Sephardic" before "London" in (2) below -- 
(Sorry) 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: "Songs to the Invisible God" review...
>Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 19:20:50 PST
>
>This is mostly for better-versed scholars than I, but, FWIW:  1) The first
>notated piece of Jewish liturgical music dates from, I believe (I'm not 
>near
>my books) the 10th century, not the 15th); and 2) To listen to London via
>Amsterdam via Spain via ... ?  settings of Psalms and other Biblical and
>liturgical material is to listen to what we today recognize as Gregorian
>chant--and is, probably, a pretty good idea, or as close as we can get, to
>what "we" (i.e., Jews--or the Levitical choirs, anyway) sounded like in
>Second Temple days. -- Robert Cohen
>
>>From: " Judah Cohen" <jcohen (at) fas(dot)harvard(dot)edu>
>>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>>Subject: Re: "Songs to the Invisible God" review...
>>Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 23:30:15 -0500
>>
>>Eliot,
>>
>>First things first:  I want to clarify that I make no overtures to say 
>>that
>>Christian monophonic chant is NOT derived from Jewish chant.  Rather, I
>>assert that there is not enough evidence to prove anything definitive in
>>either direction.
>>
>>I've been through much of Lachmann and Avenary's work.  Here's what I've
>>seen:
>>
>>Lachmann did not produce much: he died at a very young age (41), and his
>>only major monograph is his 1934(?) Jewish Cantillation and Song of the
>>Isle
>>of Djerba.  He's also responsible for helping establish the fabulous
>>archive
>>of Jewish music at the Hebrew University.  While his forte was what he
>>called "Oriental" music, he did little to feed into the "Jewish from
>>Christian Chant" issue.
>>
>>Hanoch Avenary is to me one of the most careful and thoughtful Jewish
>>musicologists of his age--I think his Encyclopedia Judaica article is
>>generally about as good a summary of the subject as was known then.  While
>>he focused primarily on source studies and observations of diverse Jewish
>>groups in Israel, he did occasionally take a stab at some issues of 
>>earlier
>>derivation (such as the use music in biblical times, etc.).  I recall from
>>reading many of his essays (especially his 1979 "Encounters of East and
>>West
>>in Music") that he is careful about making Werner's assumptions, being 
>>very
>>clear to cite the limits of the materials available to him.
>>
>>Having a good amount of Gregorian chant study under my belt as well, and
>>having explored the very issue of its relation to Jewish chant for quite a
>>bit of time, I've come to just the opposite conclusion.  My reasoning:
>>Jewish chant as we know it (which is primarily from the Masoretes c. the
>>10th century) consists of symbols representing melodic formulae, often 
>>with
>>little correlation between the symbol itself and the contour of the melody
>>it represents.  Every form of neumatic chant I've seen (and I've studied
>>and
>>transcribed several) contains neumes that *look* like they could be trop
>>symbols, but actually conform almost exactly to the melodic contours they
>>represent (this, after all, is how Western musical notation eventually
>>developed in the first place).   This to me became one disjuncture that
>>threw a big wrench into what seemed initially to be an elegant theory of
>>connection.
>>
>>Upon further searching, the comparisons between the two systems fell apart
>>for me.  Whatever "melodic" motifs there are in Gregorian chant are not
>>nearly as consistently placed as they are in Jewish biblical chant, and
>>need
>>to be ripped irregularly out of the neumes themselves in order to be
>>identified for comparison.  Even then, the comparison is messy at best,
>>with
>>a number of extraneous notes to be dealt with in between motifs.  It just
>>didn't work for me.
>>
>>Moreover, Christian and Jewish chant are used for two almost exclusive
>>purposes:  Jewish chant is used to chant from biblical texts *ONLY* 
>>(though
>>a simplified system appears to exist for reading psalms).  Conversely, I
>>have NEVER seen an entire, continuous book of the bible set to Gregorian
>>chant.  Rather, I've seen Christian monodic chant set prayer rituals.  On
>>this comparison alone, Gregorian chant is much closer to the Jewish system
>>of nusach and "modes" than to the Biblical Chant system [though I honestly
>>believe this too is impossible to ascertain]; it makes it seem to me that 
>>a
>>comparison to Jewish cantillation symbols exists more because they are
>>*THERE* rather than because they make a convincing comparison.
>>
>>The big kicker for me, though, is that *we actually don't know what Jewish
>>Biblical chant sounded like.*  At the absolute earliest, manuscripts with
>>any Western notation of Jewish chant whatsoever appear in the 15th century
>>(and I may be erring on the early side).  The vast majority of what we 
>>know
>>in terms of melodic "motifs" of the trop markings comes from observations
>>made in Israel in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (as spearheaded 
>>by
>>the research of Abraham Z. Idelsohn).  And as I mentioned before, any
>>definitive source of organization of melodic motifs dates from the 10th
>>century with the Masoretic codex.  How, then, is it even possible to 
>>create
>>a source for comparison without assuming that oral traditions remained
>>absolutely static for over two thousand and one thousand years
>>respectively?
>>Even if you take wholesale Idelsohn's theory that the melodic formulae of
>>the trop system all came from a single source (i.e., the Temple; Avenary
>>among others has placed this theory in doubt), the wide variation
>>documented
>>among the numerous musical traditions, even in a single trop marking, 
>>makes
>>any comparison to Gregorian chant motifs a nearly impossible task.
>>
>>
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