Re: Slow hora, slowing down...

[Joe Kurland <ganeydn...>]

At 8:07 AM +0000 6/4/00, Joshua Horowitz wrote:
>
>A processional
>rhythm of short-short-long, short-short-long may have been used as a
>processional rhythm, as it echoes a funeral march rhythm. Creating a solemn
>mood was just as important as breaking that mood. In the Budowitz CD we use
>that rhythm as the basic rhythm for the kale bazetsns (track 3 onward) and
>the Bney Heykhlo (3rd to last piece) as symmetrical "pillars" of the
khasene.

To me, this mixing of solemn/sad and joyous is the essence of what it 
is to be a Jew.  Lakhn mit trern--to laugh with tears.  At the moment 
of our greatest joy--under the khupe, we break a glass to remember 
the sadness of the world and that there are things that are broken 
and cannot be put back together.  And even when we may be sad, we are 
commanded to rejoice.  I once heard Rabbi Jack Riemer give a talk in 
which he considered the question, what is the most difficult mitzve 
to fulfill.  At different times in his life he would have given 
different answers.  Now, he says, he feels that the most difficult 
mitzve is the commandment to rejoice  (V'samakhto b'khagekho--and you 
shall rejoice on your holidays) for we must rejoice even when we are 
sad.

So, anyway, I think that Jewish music is at it's best when it 
accomplishes that mixing of sad and happy--Lakhn mit trern.  Didn't 
some famous psychologist say that the deepest emotions are at the 
meeting place of opposites?


Zayt gezunt (be healthy),

Yosl (Joe) Kurland
The Wholesale Klezmer Band
Colrain, MA 01340
voice/fax: 413-624-3204
http://www.WholesaleKlezmer.com

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