Guzikov and the oppressed

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

 for crying out
> loud Josh, when Hanslick (HANSLICK!) says that, at the
> time, half of Europe was in a furor over Guzikow,
> doncha think he was doing something right?

The issue I was addressing was the extent to which Guzikov's repertoire has
influenced klezmer music, past and present, not the quality of his playing
or his impact on the 19th Century musical landscape. No doubt he swept
Europe like a storm, impressed nobility, intelligentsia and musical elite.
But did he achieve it through renditions of Klezmer melodies? Apparently
not. 
 
> The first xylophone came into being in 1866, long
> before your Seelische percussionist.

If you are talking about the first time the instrument's etymology changed
from "Wood and Straw Instrument" to the modern term, "Xylophone" that is a
fascinating bit of information. Or whether its layout changed from vertical
to horizontal. Did it enter another orchestra in Paris before the Gewandhaus
orchestra? The instrument used by Seele was still the Guzikovian
construction (vertically situated wood slabs laid out flat on a bed of 5
straw bundles, similar but not identical to a Glockenspiel laid on a table).

>> You might recall that
>> Mendelssohn conducted the Gewandhaus Orchestra and
>> heard and wrote about
>> Guzikov 
> yes, but that has nothing to with Seele?s treatise.

Of course it does. Seele was the Gewandhaus Orchestra percussionist.
Guzikov's appearance at the Leipzig Gewandhaus (home of the orchestra
Mendlessohn conducted) was the event which made possible the later inclusion
of his instrument in that orchestra. Why? Because besides Mendelssohn, both
Heinrich Schleinitz and Ferdinand David were present to greet Guzikov in his
dressing room, which Mendelssohn himself writes about in the same letter
quoted more than a hundred years later by Idelssohn, Beregovski and
Stutchevsky, but missing the details which place Guzikov squarely in the hub
of the classical world.

Ferdinand David (1810-1873) was the concertmaster in Leipzig and later head
of the violin department at the Leipzig Conservatory from 1843 ( See
Dörffel, Geschichte der Gewandhaus zu Leipzig. Leipzig, 1884/R1972).
Heinrich Conrad Schleinitz (1803-1881) was a presiding member of the Leipzig
Gewandhaus management board who later became Dean of the Leipzig
Conservatory after Mendelssohn. Schleinitz was instrumental in allowing
Mendelssohn to become conductor/director of the Conservatory.

With all three present at Guzikov's first concert there, it seems more than
mere coincidence that the instrument would eventually become part of their
orchestra. What I don't know is whether it was the first orchestra to
include the Guzikov instrument. But even more interesting to me is, why did
Idelssohn, Beregovski and Stutchevsky leave out the classical music
connection of Guzikov to the Gewandhaus Orchestra? I suppose because they
may not have known at the time of their writing that his instrument was
later integrated into the orchestra, but also because all three of these
writers use the Mendelssohn quote to validate Guzikov as a famous klezmer
musician without pausing to reconcile the paradox that Guzikov's fame rested
upon his non-klezmer renditions, and his weird instrument (which never
really took hold in klezmer ensembles), a contradiction which is sadly
perpetuated in the Ottens/Rubin version, but with an entirely new
motivation. 

All of these writers present a selectively interpreted, ideologically
colored contextualization of Guzikov arising out of their need to place him
in the Klezmer continuum, a noble impulse for the time of the earlier
writers, given the low image of klezmer music in their circles, but
historically undiscerning nonetheless and one which Ottens/Rubin should know
better.

>> It seems suspicious to me that the only surviving
>> notated source of a
>> musician who built his reputation on society salon
>> music would be a choral
>> liturgical setting.
> Choral liturgical setting? Josh! Relax!
> It?s a NIGUN!

Shir Ha Maalot is Guzikov's setting of psalm 126. Its first printing in 1927
in Musikalischer Pinkas by the Vilner Hazzan A. M. Bernstein (1866-1932) has
the melody set with Hebrew text in 2-4 voices, complete with dynamic
markings and articulations. Stutchevsky later published it in Ha Klezmorim
in 1959 with a single melody line and text. If Guzikov was such an
illiterate as all his chroniclers claimed, who notated the piece 90 years
after his death?

> It may be a bit over-the-top to speak of a klezmer
> "world" in 1836, don?t you think?

Not at all. The widespread proliferation of Jewish music guilds throughout
central Europe since the 17th century show that there was indeed a thriving
klezmer "world." 

Be well, Josh
  

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