Re: Eyn Keyloheynu and other drinking songs

[Lori Cahan-Simon <l_cahan...>]

Sam, what a font of knowledge you are!  Thanks!  I've always wondered where the
tunes we use come from.  Would you be willing to write more about this?

a dank,
Lorele


Sam Weiss wrote:

> "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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