akdamut (fwd)

[I. Oppenheim <i.oppenheim...>]

Below some more remarks by Daniel Katz about Akdamut
that might be interesting to others as well.

Irwin

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 05:21:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Daniel Katz <danskatz (at) yahoo(dot)com>
Subject: akdamut

I’m sending a list of my articles as an attachment.

I’m appending below the description that I gave to my
congregation of the version of Akdamut that I used last
week. I discuss the piece in part in my Akdamut
article.

I am going back to the States for two weeks on Sunday
and then will be teaching for a week at the
Evangelische Akademie Loccum, so I will be on-line only
sporadically until mid-July.

Paul, you’re correct (“My understanding of our musical
tradition is that it's a combination or blending of
mode, motif and melody“.) The problem with a book is
that it doesn’t explain these three elements and
doesn’t help you to understand how the piece is put
together. Many lay daveners wind up treating everything
like a melody. The growth of Jewish communities in
Germany is the result of massive emigration from the
former USSR. Most of these people have no serious
interest in Judasim.

All the best,
Daniel Katz


The version of Akdamut that will be sung today was
written by Isaac Offenbach. Isaac, the father of the
famous composer Jacques Offenbach, was Cantor in
Cologne and died in 1850. His eleven-minute setting
combines traditional Akdamut motives with original
compositional material. The piece is in eight
movements: Andante, Allegro, Andante, Allegro, Presto,
Tempo di Menuetto, Allegro und Marcia.

The chazan sings together with two assistants, a
soprano and a bass. Following the typical style of
18th-century synagogue music, the three voices sing
more frequently one after the other than together.
Offenbach follows the tradition that the cantor sings
the first two verses, the congregation the next two,
the cantor the next two, etc. This is the only extant
notated setting of Akdamut with music for the entire
portion of the piyut sung by the cantor.

I edited the music from Offenbach’s autograph
manuscript, which is part of the Offenbach Collection
at HUC-JIR in New York. It is possible that that piece
is being heard today for the first time in
Germany--perhaps for the first time anywhere in its
entirety in a liturgical setting--since the death of
the composer (I performed the complete version in a
concert and an abridged version in a service in New
York in 1994).


Daniel S. Katz
Publications

When Kol nidrei is not Kol nidrei:
Synagogue Reform in Aarhus, Denmark (1825),  Liber
Amicorum Isabelle Cazeaux,
forthcoming.

The Eighth Way in the Maase Efod of Profiat Duran
(1403): A Catalonian Grammarians Remarks on Biblical
Cantillation, The Past in the Present. Papers Read at
the Intercongressional Symposium of the International
Musicological Society, Budapest, 23-28 August, 2000
(working title) (Budapest: Liszt Ferenc Music Academy),
forthcoming.

Seeking the Parameters of Ashkenazi Liturgical
Improvisation, Rivista Internazionale di Musica Sacra
21/1 (2000), pp.17-47.

Biblische Kantillation und Musik der Synagoge:
ein Rckblick auf die ltesten Quellen, Musiktheorie 15
(2000), pp.57-78

Il cantore ashkenazita nel suo ambiente
rituale, Rivista Internazionale di Musica Sacra, 20/1
(1999), pp.27-46

From Mount Sinai to the Year 6000: A Study of
the Interaction of Oral Tradition and Written Sources
in the Transmission of an Ashkenazi Liturgical Chant
(Akdamut), Rivista Internazionale di Musica Sacra, 20/1
(1999), pp.175-206 (corrected version: supplement to
20/2 (2000)

Review of Israeli Folk Music: Songs of the
Early Pioneers, ed. Hans Nathan (Madison: A-R Editions,
1994), Recent Researches in the Oral Traditions of
Music, vol. 4, Notes, June 1998, pp. 991-993

A Prolegomenon to the Study of the Performance
Practice of Synagogue Music Involving Mshorrim, The
Journal of Synagogue Music, vol. 24, no. 2 (Dec. 1995),
pp. 35-79

Review of Israel Adler, Hebrew Notated Manuscript
Sources up to circa 1840, 2 vols. (Mnchen: G. Henle,
1989), Rpertoire International des Sources Musicales, B
IX1, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 18 (1993),
pp. 66-69

Ph.D. Dissertation      The Earliest Sources for the
Libellus cantus mensurabilis secundum Johannem de Muris
(Duke University, 1989)

=====

Rabbiner Dr. Daniel Katz
Jüdische Gemeinde Duisburg-Mülheim-Oberhausen
Springwall 16
D-47051 Duisburg, Germany


Fax +49 203 298 1264
Tel. +49 203 298 3078                                             katz (at) 
jugedu(dot)de

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