Re: Question on use of klezmer music

[AGREENBA <AGREENBA...>]

Perhaps this brief answer regarding the Holocaust and klezmer:
Klezmer music, specifically music for the wedding, encompassed(s) the 
spectrum of emotions. Even in its ?happy? sound, the freylekh tempos, there 
was/is the element of ?sadness? because Jewish life has always embodied both 
emotions, at once joyous and sad. The ever-changing of the modes within a 
tune exemplifies this. The wedding itself was of course a joyous occasion but 
one that also reminded Jews throughout the week-long celebration of the 
destruction of the Temple, a constant reminder to bring levity down for fear 
of forgetting. 

Also, although a conflicted feeling probably exists whether musicians in 
Theresienstadt were truly able to perform or play music with any kind of true 
joyous feeling - if the piece being performed called for it - we do need to 
remember or realize that music in many ways saved the souls of those who were 
allowed to perform, if that?s the term we can give to what they were indeed 
allowed or told to do. 

So much for ?brief? but my somewhat spotty knowledge together with the 
realization of what music means to the Jewish people and how it expressed(s) 
their very essence to me means that the entire spectrum of emotions in any 
composition dedicated to the Jewish experience, to the Jewish people and 
their survival, means that klezmer along with all other expressions of Jewish 
music - be it gypsy, art song, lullabies, and classical - has a place in a 
composition for the Holocaust.

Adrianne Greenbaum, flutist/pianist, The Klezical Tradition 
(klezmer and classical musician)

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