Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on February 27, 2017

Klezmer, the Eastern European musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews, is constantly evolving. Played by musicians called klezmorim at weddings and other celebrations, it has enjoyed a world revival in recent years. The musician and researcher Walter Zev Feldman, an expert on Jewish and Ottoman Turkish music, is Visiting Professor of Music at NYU Abu Dhabi. As a performer, he has released the CDs Jewish Klezmer Music and Khevrisa: European Klezmer Music. His latest book, Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory is out from Oxford University Press. Recently Professor Feldman shared with The Forwards Benjamin Ivry some notions about what is, and what is not, klezmer:

**Benjamin Ivry: How much fun is authentic klezmer music? At an Ashkenazi wedding celebration, you describe music played before the chuppah as an invitation for the souls of the dead parents to come[an] almost necrophiliac fantasygiven even more scope when the community was facing an existential threat.

Walter Zev Feldman: In Eastern Europe among Jews, there had to be a balance of the serious penitential with the joyous, so a wedding among Jews in East Europe has very little to do with the concept of a wedding of Jews in America or Israel. It had to begin in a very sad and tragic way, otherwise it would have been considered ill-omened for the future. You had to earn your happiness; it wasnt just a given.

One klezmer tradition included a penitential song about how the brides happy life in her family home was over and responsibilities of marriage and childbearing were upon her. Was this gloomy prediction for women made because only males wrote and performed klezmer music at the time?

No, I dont think thats relevant. This is a confluence of rabbinic thinking about weddings with a penitential aspect in the old Ashkenaz tradition. There are also several gentile folk cultures from Turkey to Russia that emphasize sorrow for the bride. This question has never, ever been researched before, so it needs more study.

You explore what have been called moralishe niggunim or melodies of a high moral character, which although not as weepy as other klezmer tunes, nevertheless had plenty of high seriousness. Is the subject of klezmer inevitably somber due to the Holocaust and other factors and has klezmer become a funereal art for those interested in its past?

I did not mean to give that impression, actually. Its interesting that you read it that way. Klezmer: Music, History, and Memory is part one, the history of the music of the klezmorim into the Shoah, not about the immigration. My next book, Untold Stories, will show the aspect of the klezmer tradition which is actually kept alive. Its not entirely a dead thing.

You note that traditionally, klezmorim did not accompany singers and considered themselves superior to vocalists. Doesnt this contradict much of world instrumental tradition, in which musicians aspire to the expressivity of the human voice? What was wrong with singers?

There was nothing wrong with the chazzan. In Europe, the klezmer never accompanied the chazzan, a professional singer who performed with no accompanists. It was taboo because the rabbis forbade singing at weddings. The Ashkenazim were the only Jewish culture documented where women were not allowed to sing at weddings. That was obviously because of moral reasons, where rabbis for centuries were telling men they should not listen to the voice of women. But in other Jewish cultures, this was not taken as seriously.

The Argentine-born Israeli clarinetist Giora Feidman has claimed, Klezmer is not Jewish music. Would you agree?

I have no idea what he is talking about. Giora is a good musician from a klezmer family, but he has done zero research so you have to discount what he says, it has nothing to do with reality.

The Shirim Klezmer Orchestra released a klezmer-style version of Tchaikovskys Nutcracker Suite. If Tchaikovsky is added, can any room be left for klezmer?

I think that [crossover] fashion has ended. I dont think thats going anywhere. Klezmer music was one of the most stable features of Jewish music, with a class of professional musicians who developed it for 400 years. 400 years is no small thing.

Read this article:
Why a 400-Year-Old Jewish Music Tradition Continues To Thrive - Forward

Category: Ashkenazi
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