Re: the WELL (fwd)

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

apikoyros wrote:

>Ari,
>Re your categorization of "the Well" as sounding "to non-Yiddish
>speakers more like generic world folk music than like Yiddish":
>
>You missed the point of my comment. I'm not talking about her
>authentic pronunciation, although that becomes important when
>it's absent. Her "tone" and that of the CD itself is quite authentic.
>"Those listeners who missed her diction" either have a complaint
>about the quality of the sound reproduction on the CD or about the
>quality of  their Yiddish or Jewish education. The language of the
>poetry is a most important part of what is "uniquely Jewish in the
>music to 'The Well.'"
>
>The inability to identify what is "uniquely Jewish" in such works as
>"The Well" is remediable.

Well, yes, but I would argue, that unlike other works, this particular one is 
far more generic folk than clearly from Jewish music traditions, and I would 
point out, as I did earlier, that Chava Alberstein claims that she did not 
explicitly choose Yiddish folk forms for the music she wrote. So, to several 
people's ears (my own included), and to the music writer, the music sounds more 
generically world folk. That doesn't mean that there are no components of the 
music that fit Yiddish folk traditions, only that the music is not so clearly 
Jewish to some people as it sounded to your ears.

I would argue that this is not solely a matter of education, and that this is 
one case where failing to hear the Jewish musical component is hearing what the 
music writer claims to have intended, although, obviously, there =is= Yiddish 
folk content, and to ears that understand (even partly, as is true in my 
personal case) the words, the music is quite moving and quite emotional in ways 
that won't and can't speak to someone who doesn't know =any= Yiddish.

ari

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