Re: What is Jewish Music - the Metaquestion

[Alex J. Lubet <lubet001...>]

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> A couple of thoughts, stirred by the excellent postings of late.
> Sam's point about the importance of our penchant for wrestling with
> conscience is a very good one, and I. also, take pride in it. I wonder
> exactly you mean, Sam, by the burden of self-examination of National
> identity being lifted for Israelis at the creation of the state. From my
> friends in Israel and my own observation I have learned that  the current
> moral crisis has raised rather than minimized the significance and the
> difficulty of that process. Who and what is Israel is an issue yet to be
> decided.
> 
> Speaking to music per se, the contradistinction agaisnst Hungarian music
> seems to dim, rather than enlighten the landscape for me.  I am sure that
> many dedicated Nationalistic musicologists, composers and musicians are
> trying to perpetuate the heritage of their own countries as we do.  I think
> of the work of various composers, the Russian 5, Bartok, et al. I would
> guess that the dialectic between to the need for authentic materials in the
> music itself and the desire to foster the vitality of the culture as a whole
> obtains in both our world and theirs.  Hungarians may have it no easier than
> we do.
> Jonathan Gordon
> 
> 
I can confirm that, indeed, Hungarian (folk) musical identity was a major 
concern of Bartok's, although it was manifested in attempting to peel away 
layers of non-Maygar influence within that nation's boundaries (not a 
nation-state, insofar as substantial Hungarian minorities exist beyond the 
political entity).  It wasn't a question of Diaspora, such as has framed the 
Jewish music question.

By the way, a few listings ago, someone mentioned Porgy and Bess.  I recall a 
discussion of that opera in historian Arthur Herzberg's The Jews in America, in 
which he analyzes the plot as having the outlines of a story of Jewish 
immigration from Eastern Europe.  My recollection is that Herzberg is quoting 
someone else, but that he endorses that view.  

There was also a draft of West Side Story in which the Jets were Jewish.  (No 
kidding!) Wow!  Consider the possibilities!  Maybe we can still get Mel Brooks 
to work on that one.



Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music
Adjunct Professor of American and Jewish Studies
University of Minnesota
2106 4th St. S
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612 624-7840 612 624-8001 (fax)

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