Re: Rossi

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

Responding to the message of <F37V4ZneAzdfTVSxzW20001ca90 (at) hotmail(dot)com>
from jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org:
> 
> 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.
> 
Functioning is generally a function (forgive the repetition of 'function' from 
the Department of Redundnacy Department) of intention, if not Rossi's, then 
whoever programs his music into a service.  Not that this is the case with 
Rossi, but we do often encounter sacred texts (especially from the Roman 
Catholic Mass) whose composer intended something other than use in worship.



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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