Re: Dutch Cantorial Music/Prewar Media

[SamWeiss <SamWeiss...>]

At 03:30 PM 3/6/02, I. Oppenheim wrote:
>The authentic Dutch Ashkenazic pronunciation of Hebrew
>is exactly the same as in the German tradition, with
>two big exceptions: the 'Ayin is *pronounced* as
>Ngayin...

Thanks for this information.  I was going by my London recording of Hans 
Bloemendal and the chorus of the Main Synagogue in Amsterdam, which has the 
normal Ashkenazic Ayins.

>... and the Tseireh is
>pronounced as the Dutch "ei" which has no counterpart
>in any other language I know of.

The English of the Pirates of the sea (as rendered in the movies, at least) 
seems to have that vowel (aye aye maties) and the vowel has an Irish ring 
to it as well.

>I produced the midi files by entering the scores
>*exactly*, note by note, as they were written down by
>the original composers or transcribers.

In that case the files are of limited use, since cantorial notation like 
that of Katz's R'tzey assumes a knowledge of performance practice of the 
give-and-take of non-metrical passages irrespective of how they appear on 
the page.

>Although not two chazzanim would interpret the piece
>exactly in the same manner, I believe that this
>composition is currently being sung more or less
>according to the way it's written down by Katz.

Taking what you say at face value (while noting that this begs the question 
of defining what is meant by "the way it's written down by Katz") i.e. that 
the composition is sung as it sounds in the MIDI file, then I feel that 
this is indeed interesting musicologically inasmuch as an oral tradition 
has been mediated and altered through a visual medium which intended to 
preserve an oral tradition.

> > (Even if actual current renditions are more
> > free-flowing, the very fact there are six of Katz's
> > cantorial recitatives "still in regular use in
> > Amsterdam today", according to Mr. Oppenheimer's
> > introduction, is noteworthy.  Or perhaps this refers
> > to the more melodic excerpts from these
> > compositions.)
>
>These six pieces are still sung regularly in their
>entirety. Why do you think this is noteworthy?

Because notated solo collections such as Katz's usually represent one 
cantor's improvisation of a nusach tradition (the equivalent of a home tape 
recording of a later era) which rarely has a direct influence on the 
regular repertoire of other cantors, let alone shape an oral 
tradition.  Compare the =printed and published= work of a "superstar" like 
Yossele Rosenblatt which is reproduced on your website.  You would be hard 
pressed to find =any= of the pieces that are "regularly sung in their 
entirety today as notated" let alone a large number of them in one 
community.  Rosenblatt recorded some of the pieces in this book.  Some of 
these do have some currency today, but not as they are notated, only as 
they are recorded.

> > That the written transcription is an attempt to fit a
> > non-metrical work into a metrical strait-jacket is
> > indicated by all the fermatas that it contains.  Yet
> > the scoring for two voices indicates that the
> > composer heard this music with more "Western" ears
> > than his East-European counterpart would have.
>
> > Perhaps this also speaks to a cross-influence between
> > the Sephardic and Ashkenazic Dutch communities.
>
>How would this method of arranging be a Sephardic
>influence on Berlijn?

Simply due to the favoring of metrical melodies in the Western Sephardic 
tradition as opposed to =traditional= Ashkenazic liturgical practice B.C.E. 
(before the Carlebach era).

_____________________________________________________________
Cantor Sam Weiss === Jewish Community Center of Paramus, NJ

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