Eyn Keyloheynu and other drinking songs

[Sam Weiss <samweiss...>]

"Jonathan Gordon" jbgordon (at) cloud9(dot)net wrote:

 >i still wonder about the ein keloheynu, sam. surely
 >freudenthal is credited wtih writing it but i have always
 >heard that it is a reworking of a Germanic Drinking song.
 >Of course, the source was always disparagers who
 >wanted to weaken the importance of traditional music,
 >and i was also annoyed to hear it. I wonder what is the
 >source of that repeated rumor. Come on, you must have
 >heard it. And who was Freudenthal, anyway? The tune,
 >which i still use to close shabbat morning services, is
 >peculiar with its use of secondary dominant harmony,
 >very much not traditional jewish practice, but out of the
 >european tradition. so, drinking song or other, i wonder
 >about it. jonathan

The innocent ur-text on which the rumor is based (and the only useful 
information
I've seen on the tune or the composer) is this passage from p. 238 of 
Idelsohn's
"Jewish Music in its Historical Development," in which I've capitalized 
the most
relevant sentence:
<<The Chazzan Hirsch Goldberg (1807-1893) served [in Seesen from
1833] until 1842 and was then appointed Chazzan in Brunswick. Together
with Julius Freudenthal (Brunswick 1805-1874), Dukal musician, he
modernized the Synagogue song and published in 1843 a collection of
songs for solo and small choir in two parts [footnote: 'The title of the
collection is Gesaenge fuer Synagogen. It became very popular and
experienced several enlarged editions.']. To this songster Freudenthal
contributed several tunes, and especially his famous tune for En Kelohenu,
which he had composed in 1841. THIS TUNE HAS THE TYPICAL
GERMAN MELODIC LINE, AND IN ITS FIRST PART RESEMBLES A
GERMAN MELODY OF 1774 (No.1) (see table XXIX), which was reworked
in 1819 and in 1844 (No.3) and published in 1844.>>

Note that Idelsohn says "its first part" (i.e. the first 4 measures, out 
of a total 16),
and he says "resembles." He does not say "derives from," "comes from," 
or "is
based on." The German melody which he reproduces in his table XXIX is not a
drinking song, but the Lutheran hymn "Grosser Gott wir loben Dich." The 
table
contains the three similar versions of the hymn referred to in the above 
passage,
plus Eyn Keyloheynu. A careless reading of the highlighted sentence, 
combined
with a quick glance at the table, creates the illusion that the table 
illustrates some
sort of progression from an early hymn to the Freudenthal Eyn 
Keyloheynu, but
this is plainly not what Idelsohn wrote. (It also makes it seem as if 
other measures
beside the first four merit comparison. You can decide for yourself by 
listening to
the hymn at <http://www.lutheranhymnal.com/online/tlh-250.mid>) It is
indeed puzzling why Idelsohn would bother reproducing the hymn variants,
other than to document its =publishing= history; i.e. that it appeared 
in print one
year AFTER the Goldberg-Freudenthal collection, and thus was probably 
NOT the
basis for Freudenthal's composition.

Nevertheless, in his "Studies in Jewish Music" A.W. Binder writes 
(p.258) that
Freudenthal's tune <<is derived from German Christian hymnody of the
eighteenth century,>> and he gives the above page in Idelsohn as his 
source (!).
Macy Nulman, in his "Encyclopedia of Jewish Music" (p.76) has an even more
preposterous reading of Idelsohn: <<This [Eyn Keyloheynu] tune, derived 
from a
German melody, "Grosser Gott wir loben Dich," has been revised several 
times
until its present form.>> Again, page 238 of "Jewish Music in its 
Historical
Development" is the citation, as if Idelsohn's table illustrates 
variants of Eyn
Keyloheynu, rather than variants of Grosser Gott!

If a serious author like Binder is attracted to "demonizing" Eyn 
Keyloheynu, it should be no wonder that lesser lights take the ball and 
run with it. What is the impulse that drives such "rumors"? I don't 
think that it's so much a case of "disparagers who want to weaken the 
importance of traditional music." I think an important factor is the 
urge to sensationalize and titillate, but there's an additional point to 
consider. It is a commonly known fact that nineteenth century German 
Jewish reform recast
synagogue choral and congregational music in the Lutheran mold, as well as
appropriated Lutheran melodies and texts for synagogue use. Fortunately, 
the
results of that activity have for the most part withered away. It is 
thus very
tempting to grasp at whatever German sounding synagogue music that has
endured and stereotype it as an illustration of that sordid activity, 
regardless of its actual history.

Where did the drinking song enter the picture? This is an obvious 
confusion with
the stereotyping of Ma'oz Tzur, which contains a snatch that resembles a 
Lutheran
hymn as well as one that resembles a German battle song. (Cf. Idelsohn 
pp. 171-
173.) As with all ethnic stereotyping, the juicier and the more colorful 
the better,
so "German battle song" becomes "German drinking song," and the "Eyn
Keyloheynu - German hymn" connection is transformed by folk savants into 
the
"Eyn Keyloheynu - German drinking song" connection. As a matter of fact, 
since
the most recent iteration of this discussion on this list started with 
the question of
Sh'ma Yisrael being a drinking song, I think it won't take long before 
the same
question is asked about the High Holiday Aleynu ("Yikes, a major 
triad!") and the
High Holiday Barkhu (you know... the one derived from a Gregorian drinking
song).

The use of secondary dominant harmony in Eyn Keyloheynu merely shows the
origin of this congregational melody in a German choral composition, 
intended to
be sung with organ support. The commonly sung "Hodo Al Eretz V'shamayim,"
based on a Sulzer choral piece, has an even trickier lick (though somewhat
homogenized from the original composition) also showing its arty heritage.
These examples illustrate how the "nusakh-less" areas of the liturgy, 
like hymns
and the Torah service, attracted "traditional" congregational responses 
based on
congregants' singing along with the professional choral pieces.

______________________________________________________
Cantor Sam Weiss === Jewish Community Center of Paramus, NJ

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