Re: Query about mid-20th c. Italian Jewish music

[Francesco Spagnolo <yuval.italia...>]

Dear Seth (and Judith Monachina),
this question opens quite a large issue.

I have been working on Italian Jewish music for a while now, 
especially in the 19-20 centuries (a completely unexplored period) 
and keep asking myself some basic questions, which I will try to 
share here with the list.
At the same time, I will try to give some ideas about Judith's query.

Let me try to divide this issue in two parts, leaving liturgical music aside:

1. Italian Jewish "Popular" Music
As far as I can tell, there were very few instances of such a thing 
-- or an equivalent of "klezmer".
Again, the central issue of what "popular music" is for the Jews 
comes into the picture (including the question about klezmer being a 
"popular music")... but I will not go into that now.
In Italy, it is a fair assumption to say -- most definitely about 
modern/contemporary times -- that the popular music of the Jews and 
of the non Jews was the same.
This included both folk songs -- which eventually became a 
"co-territorial repertoire" (that is, shared among Jews and Gentiles 
within the same area, as Zev Feldman defines one of the klezmer 
repertoires; I presented an extraordinary version of Had gadya in 
Judeo-Piedmontese in the CD "Italian Jewish Musical Traditions") -- 
AND, in some instances, even Opera.

Opera can come into the picture as popular music (especially 18 -- 
and early 19 century opera), since in Italy it was always perceived 
also as a music for the common people, and not just for the elites. 
Rossini and Verdi are good examples: and both of them were worshipped 
by the Jews (the reasons for this in some other posting).
Popular music made by Jews in a Jewish setting has left very few 
traces, and they are mostly connected with paraliturgical events (see 
the Purim, Births and Weddings sections in the above mentioned CD).
Operetta, or light opera, should also be put in this category.

2. Jews and art music in Italy
The Jewish involvement in art music by no means stopped after the 
late Renaissance/Baroque era. But ghetto life became more and more 
grim as the centuries went by, and only after the Emancipation (mid 
19th century) did Jews really join in with the rest of the country's 
cultural endeavors. At that point, Jews became involved as performers 
and soon enough as composers. They were mostly involved in opera at 
first, but some were composers of operettas.
By the turn of the 20th century, many Jews became prominent in the 
Italian Jewish world. Again, as performers, but also as musicologists 
(the first study about Verdi was published by a Jewish researcher), 
ethnomusicologists, historians (the Vivaldi renaissance was launched 
by a Jewish professor, who held the first university chair of music 
history in Italy's history), and, of course, composers.
Italian Jewish composers were involved in all fields, from the more 
conservative (late Romantics, Wagnerians, etc.) to the most modernist 
ones (but modernism in Italy was also, in a way, a part of the 
establishment's culture, thus often connected with Fascism...). They 
were numerous - relatively to the small Jewish population - and quite 
prominent.
Did these composers turn to "Jewish themes"? A few of them did. 
Probably more would have, if they'd had the time to do so. All in 
all, Jewish Emancipation in Italy lasted less than a century. In 
1938, the anti-Semitic laws conceived by Mussolini's regime and 
signed by the same royal family that in 1848 has signed the 
emancipatory edicts, made in impossible for Jews to remain an active 
part of Italy's mainstream culture. Most of these composers fled 
their homeland, and only a few came back after the end of the war.

With few exceptions, these composers were almost entirely erased from 
Italy's musical memory, and are very little known even within the 
Jewish music world. A year ago, Yuval Italia started a research group 
that is currently working on establishing biographical information 
and list of compositions, as well as locating the scores. "New" names 
come up all the time. A concert took place at the Music Conservatory 
of Milan last January, presenting a first selection of works.

Yesterday, I was talking about this with the music librarians of the 
National Library in Jerusalem, where I'm spending the academic year. 
They were telling me that THEY know very little. I mentioned a few 
names, which were unknown to them, and said that in most cases these 
composers had been given appropriate entries in the Grove Dictionary 
of Music. Their reply -- which was accurate -- was that only on very 
few instances does Grove mention that they were Jewish... so how can 
they know?

By studying 19th century sources, I now have access to what happened 
to Jewish musicians of the previous generation (mostly active in 
composing synagogue music... again, this should go into a different 
posting!). The advantage in this is that I am no longer looking at 
the immediate past retrospectively.

Nu, to make this long posting come to an end. I will be happy to 
provide suggestions, contacts with performers, recordings, to Judith 
Monachina or to answer more queries on this interesting subject.

I really appreciate the interest about this topic. It is crucial that 
images are matched by the appropriate musical selections. In most 
cases, anything that is "Italian/Jewish" is paired with Salomone 
Rossi's music (which was probably almost never, or only occasionally 
sung by actual Italian Jews...). Or, as in an otherwise beautiful 
documentary by Daniele Segre on the synagogues of Piedmont, the only 
soundtrack that anybody seems to be able to come up with for anything 
"Jewish" is, inevitably, klezmer...

Hag sameah from Jerusalem,
Francesco


>[Perhaps someone on the list could help with this query? Send answers to
>me at seth (at) rogovoy(dot)com or to the list and I'll pass them along to
>Judith.]
>
>
>Dear Seth,
>I am working on a video project with Lenox students and I'm just
>beginning to look for some music to help tell the story. I thought you
>might know of someone who might know of someone - or maybe you would
>have an idea about music I could investigate.
>
>The story is set in the 30s and 40s, Italy. It's a young girl who had to
>hide with her Jewish father and Catholic mother in the hills of Umbria
>and then Rome during the German occupation. The video is being made with
>an interview with the woman - now in her seventies - and uses words from
>the diary of her father during that time.
>
>I'm am just beginning to think about music - but there is much yet to be
>done with other aspects of the project. I think the music should be
>composed by an Italian, preferably an Italian Jew, probably contemporary
>music of that time, though I don't know about whether it will be popular
>music or something else. I don't imagine there is anything like an
>Italian Klezmer or similar music? I know it's such an Eastern European
>form but there must have been someone in Italy??
>
>I'm also investigating the more contemporary chamber music or classical
>composers of the time. It's wide open at this time, but I hope to start
>listening to stuff soon so we can make decisions when the time comes to
>use it. Of course, it would be great to find some one to write the music
>(ha ha) but no budget.. Naturally I thought of you as a person who might
>have an idea or two. Thanks for the taking the time to read this. I
>would appreciate any thoughts you might have. Sincerely, Judith
>Monachina


-- 


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YUVAL ITALIA      Centro Studi Musica Ebraica
the  Italian Center for the Study of Jewish Music

via della Guastalla,19            20122 Milano Italy
tel/fax +39 02 55014977    yuval (at) powerlink(dot)it                 
            http://www.powerlink.it/yuval
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     Francesco Spagnolo is the editor of the CD
       Italian Jewish Musical Traditions
  Tradizioni musicali degli ebrei italiani
                          available at
             http:www.jewish-music.org
            http:www.hatikvahmusic.com
                  http:www.giuntina.it