Re: Pre WWII Jewish Music

[JeffSchan <JeffSchan...>]

Sylvie Braitman writes:

"Did they see it coming? I do not think so."

This may be true for the majority, but not all.  Certainly the more political 
composers (here we go with politics again) knew what was happening.  Weil's 
"Eternal Road," which has been mentioned several times lately, is all about 
the rise of Nazism.  Many German workers sang Eisler's "Solidarity Song" 
before they fought street battles with the Nazis when their trade unions were 
outlawed.  One can certainly say that Eisler's music does not show the signs 
of a great Jewish influence, but he was a political Jewish composer.  And 
both he and Weil had the good sense to get out of Germany while they still 
had time.  

Schoenberg and his students show much less recognition of the impending 
disaster.  None of the Czech composers who ended up in Thereisienstadt 
included the influence of Jewish musical material in the works before  the 
War.  They were too busy exploring the purely musical territory opened up by 
Schoenberg's 12-tone methods.

I would be interested to hear from someone who is knowledgable in the field 
of Yiddish theater music on this topic.  In Poland, a good part of the 
Yiddish cultural movement was influenced by the Jewish Bund and other leftist 
political trends, who certainly had an idea of what was coming.

Jeffrey Schanzer