Re: More Yoshke-Ma Yofus

[Sam Weiss <SamWeiss...>]

At 10:53 AM 1/20/04, H.Oppenheim wrote:

>Thanks for the many answers to my Yoshke-MaYofus problem.
>Some of them led me to think that there are maybe different pieces with
>the name Ma Yofus...

There is some confusion around the association of the term "Ma Yofis" with 
the melody common to Tantst Yidelekh/Reb Dovidl/Yoshke, etc. known to us 
all, and illustrated in Henri's jpg image. The relationship between these 
two items is not so much musical as cultural/sociological.  Ma Yofis (in 
Ashkenazi pronunciation) is the title of a Hebrew Shabbat table song whose 
melody once attained notoriety for its ubiquity, becoming the Havah Nagilah 
of nineteenth century Poland.  It became the object of antisemitic ridicule 
and a vehicle for tormenting Jews, and was therefore excised from the usual 
order of Zemirot -- as explained in the article mentioned in Judy's posting
http://www.jmwc.org/jmwc_kukvinkl_mahyofith.html
The melody or melodies for this Sabbath song were unrelated to the Reb 
Dovidl tune.  The Reb Dovidl melody, however, also attained ubiquity at the 
turn of the twentieth century, becoming the Havah Nagilah of its day, hence 
earning the pejorative association with Ma Yofis.
The indispensable article to read in this regard can be found here:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/polish_music/PMJ/issue/6.1.03/Werb.html

Following the lead contained in footnote #27, I came across 
this  interesting citation from =Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician= by 
Frederick Niecks:

[Czerny's] name appears in a passage of one of Chopin's
letters which deserves to be quoted for various reasons: it shows
the writer's dislike to the Jews, his love of Polish music, and
his contempt for a kind of composition much cultivated by Czerny.
Speaking of the violinist Herz, "an Israelite," who was almost
hissed when he made his debut in Warsaw, and whom Chopin was
going to hear again in Vienna, he says:--

    At the close of the concert Herz will play his own Variations
    on Polish airs. Poor Polish airs! You do not in the least
    suspect how you will be interlarded with "majufes" [see page
    49, foot-note], and that the title of "Polish music" is only
    given you to entice the public. If one is so outspoken as to
    discuss the respective merits of genuine Polish music and
    this imitation of it, and to place the former above the
    latter, people declare one to be mad, and do this so much the
    more readily because Czerny, the oracle of Vienna, has
    hitherto in the fabrication of his musical dainties never
    produced Variations on a Polish air.




_____________________________________________________________
Cantor Sam Weiss === Jewish Community Center of Paramus, NJ


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