Music for BBC re Blood Libel

[Fred Blumenthal <xd2fabl...>]

Hopefully the BBC documentary about the Blood Libel will conclude that Jews
DON'T murder Christian babies in order to make matzoh, so it was probably
Noa Lachman's intention to cooperate with her correspondent in finding
relevant music.  Thus far the response about "Improperia" seems to be the
one best matching the BBC person's desire for medieval music, and Catholic
prayers with these anti-Semitic thoughts have been set, according to the
discussion up to this point, by Sammartini.  My memory is that Francis
Poulenc, too, set to music a prayer containing a phrase, in Latin, of
course, saying that the Jews crucified Jesus.  Not the same as the Blood
Libel, in my understanding of the phrase, but still relevant to the topic
of music and anti-Semitism.  And an examination of "passion music" would
probably unearth similar examples.

But music in Latin is problematic as a background for a television
documentary, since even a British audience wouldn't be so fluent as to be
able to follow the association between the text and the topic of the
documentary.  Our experience with the way music is used in television is
tiny snippets of music called "sound bites," supposedly setting the mood
for the content of the program.  For that reason, I would recommend the BBC
turn to music easiest to equate with anti-Semitism - Wagner, and especially
Parsifal.

Fred Blumenthal
xd2fabl (at) us(dot)ibm(dot)com

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