RE: In defense of the recorder

[Matt Jaffey <mjaffey2...>]

At 05:42 PM 3/24/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>>Guilds held control over the composition of kapelyes.
>
>What?  Who?  Where?  Maybe music directors in the Warsaw theater made 
>formal exclusions, and this still needs to be checked if its true, but no 
>such guilds existed in towns and villages.  You can not find take one 
>little fact and rip it out of its context to make general, sweeping 
>statements this way.

This was not one little fact, and it wasn't ripped out of context. But I
will tell you the context in which I heard it. I was suggesting to someone
who communicates with Zev Feldman that Zev might be relying a bit too
heavily on the testimony of one person (Mr. Hescheles), for his ideas about
what was going on in the Polish klezmer scene early in the 20th c. The
response was, yes, but what Mr. Hescheles has to say is so very valuable,
because, amongst other reasons, he talks about subjects that no one else
has ever talked about - he is filling in gaps in knowledge etc. etc. And
one example given was this notion that brass and all but the best
clarinetists were being kept rigorously out of the kapelyes in Poland.

I know that I'm getting this 3rd hand, which is why I don't consider this
to be authoritative info. In fact, there may be good evidence to
contradict. Do you have any? Or are you just saying that there is no
evidence, one way or the other?

Matt

>Regarding suitability of an instrument for playing klezmer - of course,
>tastes change. I have been told that, at the time when brass instruments
>were being introduced in kapelyes in the Ukraine, they were being
>rigorously excluded from kapelyes in the more conservative Poland, where
>guilds held control over the composition of kapelyes. Not only that, all
>but the very best of clarinetists were also being excluded in Poland. So
>for them, brass, and most clarinet playing, were considered unsuitable.
>This is supposedly from Mr. Hescheles. If anyone has more definitive info
>on this, I'd be happy to hear about it.


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