Back to Earth..

[Alex Jacobowitz <alexbjacobowitz...>]

B"H Munich

For those Jews who wandered away from the thread
and spent forty years off-topic:

For all the Baal-Shem-Tov´s insights into
the human and/or Jewish soul, he kept the
laws. Laws! Yes, Jewish LAWS! Not rules,
as in counterpoint, or taste, as in Maidele Spears.
Judaism was and remains distinctly not a matter of 
personal discretion, but of communal obligation.
A MITZVA means a commandment - MUST! Not a good
deed, or keen innovation, no matter who decides
to cast themselves in the hero role of their
own liberation story.

There were rules in the classical music world,
and Beethoven broke them - spirit over matter.
But Beethoven expanded and transcended the material,
he didn´t ignore it! He didn´t "think" the Beethoven
Minuet in G!

In the klezmer world exists an all-too-human struggle
of sorts - those who want to expand and transcend the
form, and those who want to authenticate it. 

Pianists had Glenn Gould and Wanda Landowska to look
to for the Goldberg Variations, and contemporary
klezmers have a spectrum, from John Zorn and Frank
London to Zev Feldman and Brave Old World. What will
klezmer look like fifty years from now? Dunno,
doncare. It´s about audiences, and what they
think the music reflects.

The Commandments fifty years from now will
remain the Commandments, no matter what anyone does.
But it would be nice if Jewish music stayed connected
to its Jewish roots - that is, spiritually - and
not merely historically or musicologically. They
can enrich each other, and the audience most of all.

Alex Jacobowitz



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