Re: [jewishshulmusic] Re: Maoz Tzur & Shavuot (part II) (fwd)

[I. Oppenheim <i.oppenheim...>]

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Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 11:34:38 +0000
From: Victor Tunkel <V(dot)Tunkel (at) qmul(dot)ac(dot)uk>
Reply-To: jewishshulmusic (at) yahoogroups(dot)com
To: jewishshulmusic (at) yahoogroups(dot)com
Subject: Re: [jewishshulmusic] Re: Maoz Tzur & Shavuot (part II)

On Maoz Tsur and Sh'ney Zeytim, may I offer some comments?  I am a bit
mystified by the references to a Maoz Tsur tune which differs from a Sh'ney
Zeytim tune.  The Maoz Tsur tune (the German one, not Marcello's notation)
itself went through a process of evolution as shown by the early extant
notations.  It is till sung differently in, e.g, USA, from England.  I
believe that it wasn't even specifically associated with Maoz Tsur until
Isaac Nathan's Hebrew Melodies.

There is a recording of Sh'ney Zeytim in the National Sound Archives of the
JNUL, as sung by a man from Mulhouse (Alsace).    It sounds like a
primitive version of the Maoz Tsur tune.  I am wondering whether this is
the alleged different Sh'ney Zeytim tune?

In any event, it doesn't invalidate Werner's suggestion to say  that
because there is another or other tunes to Sh'ney Zeytim, the proto-Maoz
Tsur tune could not have been transferred from the one piut to the other.
The tune was well established in Germany long before the Jews adopted it.
It is a strong, adaptable tune.  It can be applied to various piutim.  And
of these,  Sh'ney Zeytim has long dropped out of use in many Ashkenazi
communities. It doesn't appear in any of the 19th century German Jewish
music books that I have seen.  I don't like Werner's idea of a "spare" tune
being available for transfer.   The German tune was probably in use for
both piutim for a long while, before Sh'ney Zeytim fell out of use.  That
it doesn't fit the words of Maoz Tsur  would not have worried the German
Jews.  (Look at the "kein feuer, keine kohle" drinking song that they
happily applied to the bentsching.)  But the "tedeschi" in Venice may well
have preserved the original tune.   It is much more apt for the Hebrew
stress as well as earlier in character.

Victor Tunkel

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