Re: Rossi

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

Once more, with feeling:


> >In any case, as to the (intimated) analogy itself, it referred to the 
>(Jewish or non-Jewish) *sound* of the music in its time.  Rossi, to quote 
>Alfred Sendrey (THE MUSIC OF THE JEWS IN THE DIASPORA), "[composed] 
>entirely new music in the style of his time and [introduced] it into the 
>synagogue"--or that, Sendrey says, was his intention.  And Gradenwitz 
>observes that this was "the first step in the process of assimilation which 
>Hebrew religious music underwent in the European countries; Sulzer [that 
>brings us next door, as it were, to Schubert], Lewandowski, Naumbourg, and 
>others completed this musical assimilation in the nineteenth century."... 
>Schubert also set a Hebrew text, as Rossi set Hebrew texts, in the Western 
>European art music style of *his* time and place--*that* is the analogy.


I've previously opined, and Elliot agrees, that Rossi's settings (whether 
they sounded like pure Renaissance music, like very Jewish music, or 
somewhere in between) count as Jewish music--I would say as much or more on 
account of their functioning as such as on account of their (obvious) 
intention.


> >
> >No, Robert, I do not believe the Schubert analogy is a proper one. 
>Schubert wrote masses for his religious musical expression. Whether 
>practicing or not, he was a Catholic. Rossi was a Jew. He was known as 
>"l'Ebreo," or, "The Hebrew," and was exempted from the sumptuary 
>laws--hence he was recognized by his employer, the Duke of Mantua, as a 
>Jew. While we do not know whether his music contains traditional Jewish 
>motifs, we can identify that it is composed in a late-sixteenth century, 
>polyphonic, a cappella style. This was certainly a Christian style and not 
>to dissimilar from Palestrina's church music.
>
>However, I would maintain that if he intended these motets to be an 
>expression of his Jewish spirituality, then it is indeed "Jewish music" 
>composed by a Jew for Jewish purposes (Curt Sachs' definition). As someone 
>who is very familiar with Renaissance polyphony, to hear this style of 
>music sung to Hebrew sacred texts, to me it sounds very "Jewish."
>
>Eliott Kahn

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