Re: klose but no klez (Kurt Weill)

[JeffSchan <JeffSchan...>]

In a message dated 4/15/2002 12:08:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
elliott_simon (at) dca(dot)net writes:

> is Weill jewish-music?...after all he was a cantor's son...anyway, if anyone 
> saw either of those 2 klez shows would love to hear thoughts about 
> them....and if Weill is jewish-music, would love to talk about that 
> too...elliott
> 

I was hoping someone else would respond to Elliot's question first, but I 
will get started.  We've had discussions on the list on whether everything a 
Jewish composer writes is Jewish music, and the consensus is not necessarily. 
 However, I think Weill's "The Eternal Road," while musically derived more 
from European art music than traditional Jewish sources, is Jewish music 
since it deals with the themes of the Jews' plight under the rise of Nazism.  
Similarly, Arnold Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron" is very much within 
Schoenberg's 12-tone style, and yet there is something extremely Jewish about 
the piece, above and beyond the fact that it relates a story from the bible.  
Both the music of Weill and all of Schoenberg's school were declared 
"degenerate" by the Nazis and labelled as "Jewish music."  Not that we should 
define Jewish music by what the Nazis decided, but there is something to the 
notion that music which is new and challenging should be associated with 
Jewish musicians.

Speaking of the great variety of choices of music last Saturday night in New 
York, if I had the energy to get out of the house, I would have gone to a 
performance of Morton Feldman's "Rothko Chapel."  This is the only of 
Feldman's pieces I know of where he brings in Jewish-sounding material:  a 
beautiful melody on the viola (which he labelled "Hebraic").  Although he 
didn't use Jewish material in most of his work, Feldman was very conscious of 
his place in history as a Jewish composer.

Jeffrey Schanzer