This department—usually described as a place for reports on cultural and social trends—this month extends its boundaries to include WilLiam Schack’s description of what was perhaps the first Palestinian baseball game; and an article by Eric Werner on Jewish liturgical music. Mr. Schack (who wrote this article with seven “assists” from Sarah C. Schack) is less known as first baseman than as an art critic, author of And He Sat Among the Ashes, a biography of the painter Eilshemius. Mr. Schack is at present compiling an encyclopedia of plastics. Dr. Werner is a well-known musicologist on the faculty of the Hebrew Union School of Education and Sacred Music in New York City.
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“What is Beethoven’s Ninth in comparison to a hit-song played upon a barrel-organ and a memory?”—Karl Kraus
The controversy between traditionalism and modernism in Jewish liturgical music has in the last three or four years stirred many pens. Thus far the musicians and composers have had the floor, without achieving any marked success in establishing order among the reigning confusion. It should not then be considered presumption on the part of a Jewish musicologist if he tosses his hat in the ring.
In all articles and rejoinders, the fundamental question that has been posed is whether our liturgical music shall be “modem,” or “traditional,” in form, though some would avoid the issue by suggesting that it need only be “religious in spirit.” The matter is, however, not nearly so simple, and what is overlooked are the two principles essential to an intelligent discussion of the subject:
- Synagogue music is not a unique art-form; it is a functional art on the borderline between folklore and art-music. Like the Gregorian chant of the Catholic Church, the liturgical music of Judaism in the past was a consciously stylized type of elevated folksong. This fact is borne out by countless tunes, especially by the so-called missinai melodies which originated in the Rhineland during the 12th to 14th centuries, and which absorbed elements of Burgundian art-music into the folksong framework of an earlier Jewish musical tradition.
- Traditionalism was not always an essential demand, historically. There is no evidence whatsoever that the psalmists based their melodies upon “tradition"; and the same holds true for the Temple and the early synagogue. It was not until the Gaonic Age (9th century) that the attitude of the authorities changed, a change marked by the ascendancy of the appointed hazan. Since the hazan had to invent melodies for the new metrical compositions of the prayerbook (piyutim), the danger of losing the ancient tradition impressed itself upon the rabbis. Still, they did nothing to enforce a musical tradition; their activities in this respect were confined to limiting the introduction of new poems and melodies, efforts which were doomed to failure.
When we talk of a musical tradition today, we are really referring to a long established principle of association. Practically every Jew associates the first bars of Kol Nidre with Yom Kippur, the characteristic motif of the Tal Kaddish with Passover and Succoth, the cadences of the Lamentations with Tisha b’av. This fact is not new; the Jewish composers of the Middle Ages already leaned upon this associative function of their music in establishing a number of “leading” motifs which pervade the whole Jewish year, and the rabbis classified the most important tunes according to their liturgical function: praise, penitence, supplication, meditation, etc. These leading motifs carry even today (and they must have been much more effective in an age that knew practically no other music than that of the synagogue) a power comparable to the emotional persuasiveness of a Midrash or of a homily.
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Do we possess any modem music which, by force of its purely religious ardor, could replace or supersede the associative power of traditional music?
The Roman Church faced this same question during the Renaissance. At that time Palestrina represented the “progressive” element, although he was still strongly bound to the Gregorian tradition. At the Council of Trent, the Church, after lengthy disputes, yielded to the contemporary school and permitted music that was not entirely Gregorian to be used in its services. This was the signal for “spiritual, contemporary, autonomous” music. Within two centuries, the liturgical music of the Church was fast approaching chaos and disintegration, in spite of its centralized ritual authority and its rigidly organized Scholae Cantorum. It took the concerted efforts of priests, musicologists, and the Vatican to regulate the flood of secularism and liturgical anarchy that threatened to disrupt the uniformity of the Catholic ritual. The great Benedictine musicologists of Solesmes took it upon themselves to reinstitute the authentic tradition of the Church, the Gregorian chant, and their efforts were crowned by a series of papal decrees in which the traditional music was sternly stressed and placed in the foreground of the ritual. In doing so, “contemporary” or modem music was not prohibited in the Church, but it had to be based upon the modes of the Gregorian chant. Said Pope Pius X in his Motu Proprio: “An ecclesiastical piece of music is the more ecclesiastical and liturgical, the more its structure, its spirit, and its mood approximates that of the Gregorian chant.”
From the history of Jewish music we may choose three instances, from among many, of attempts to introduce “modem” music into the liturgy:
Solomone Rossi il Ebreo was the first composer of stature who wrote art-music for the synagogue, encouraged by so outstanding a person as Rabbi Yehuda Leon Modena (about 618). Rossi’s music is noble, religious, often of enchanting beauty, but it is in no way based upon tradition. And what remained of it? Twenty years after his death his music was forgotten and to this day it rests (with the exception of a few performances and a faulty new edition by Samuel Naumbourg) in dusty archives, food for worms and scholars.
Sholom Fried, a fine synagogue composer at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, attempted to combine traditional elements with the structure and melodic style of Haydn and Mozart. In only a few cases did he attain appreciable results; the great majority of his compositions are an almost ridiculous hodge-podge of Jewish (traditional) and contemporary Western art-music. His music was soon forgotten and of his more than five hundred extant manuscripts, not one has been published.
Almost in the language of Kurt List (COMMENTARY, November 1948) spoke Mr. Israel Lowy, alias Israel Metz, Israel Glogau, etc., in the preface of his Chants Religieux (posthumously edited in Paris, 862). He was perfectly familiar with our musical tradition, but he chose to break away from it in favor of music that expressed the “religious spirit” in a “general way,” that is, in the fashion of his time, in the style of Mozart, Cherubini, and of contemporary French opera composers. All his endeavors to make synagogal music “contemporary” and “universal” melted away within fifteen to twenty years after his death. Not one of his compositions is performed today.
On the other hand, there are the names of Sulzer, Naumbourg, Lewandowsky, or Dunajewski: how can we account for the fact that a great deal of their music has remained alive, notwithstanding their romantic or operatic, Schubert-like or Men-delssohn-like style and diction? It is not too difficult to answer: each of these four men was aware of the liturgical, not merely “religious,” function of synagogue music, and each of them subordinated his music to the demands of the liturgy; moreover, they were fully cognizant of the associative power of our musical tradition. Hence their music, whether written originally under the banner of moderate liberalism (Sulzer, Lewandowsky) or Orthodoxy (Naumbourg, Dunajewsky), eventually was accepted by all wings of Occidental Judaism; Orthodox congregations sing Sulzer’s Kedusha or Lewandowsky’s Zocharti Loch, and Reform congregations are familiar with many of Naumbourg’s or Dunajewsky’s traditional pieces.
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These instances should indicate quite clearly that we are not confronted with the alternatives of concrete (program) and abstract (absolute) music. Nor do we face the choice that Dr. Kurt List consistently and erroneously poses between “ghetto tradition” on one side, and “valid contemporary art” on the other side. Dr. List’s amazing arguments are that (1) “the Hebrew text is not widely understood by the audience” and that (2) “even when Hebrew words are understood, they lose their program value through repetition and familiarity,” so that if you set music to Hebrew words, that music need not reflect the spirit of the text, since the words are not understood anyway, or have lost their significance by constant repetition. If these arguments were valid, the proponents of liturgical music would be in a difficult position indeed.
Fortunately, our sages, about sixteen centuries before Dr. List’s time, anticipated that kind of argument by declaring: “When you pray, do not make your prayer a mere routine, but a plea before God for mercy and grace” (Aboth 2: 13), and “mechanical reading of the text of the Sh’ma, without mental concentration upon its contents . . . is of no avail” (Ber. 2: 1). The rabbinic injunctions against the Bracha le-vatala (empty, invalid prayer) likewise fall into this category. Consequently, Dr. List’s distinction between concrete and abstract music is in no way compatible with Jewish liturgical tradition: by his criterion only the Hasidic aspect of our musical tradition would be admissible—an artificial retreat to a by now alien civilization.
(It is interesting to note, too, that the Catholic Church also has a repetitious massritual in Latin, which is not generally understood; can it be said that the great Catholic composers of masses ignored the text because of this?)
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This is the alternative Dr. List poses before us: either high art-music la Schoenberg, perhaps even Bloch, or else Hasidic-Eastern Jewish chants. For him, a middle road does not exist.
Because of either a lack of knowledge or a complete misunderstanding of the real facts, Dr. List states in his latest article (Commentary, February 1949): “The great tradition of authentic cantorial music is gradually dying out, partly because of the reforming tendencies of the 19th century, partly because of the decreasing interest among modern worshippers in the qualities proper to it. . . . It is true that some of the modern composers . . . have drawn much inspiration from cantorial sources, but it is equally true that the community has remained unaffected. For the synagogue is visited today by worshippers out of touch with the ancient sacred sources and acquainted almost exclusively with the modern textures of late 18th-, 19th-and 20thcentury music.”
Dr. List conveys here the impression that the “modern textures” of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries are entirely alien to ancient tradition. This is an error. Actually, most of the good synagogue composers of these times made use of old traditions and it was the much-smeared Ig9th century that produced works like Abraham Baer’s Baal Tefilla, the first scholarly thesaurus of the genuine musical tradition of the Ashkenazim. We may feel today that these men did not do full justice to the intrinsic spirit of the tradition, but we must never forget that they did their very best to save and to preserve as much as possible from the utter deterioration that had fouled synagogue music since the beginning of the 18th century.
Hence, people who are familiar with the “modern textures” of the 19th and 20th centuries do know a considerable part of Jewish musical tradition. They are, consequently, not “out of touch with the ancient sacred sources”; and Dr. List’s entire argument collapses.
Schoenberg, the great artist, is no food for the synagogue. For liturgical music, a functional art, must never deter the congregants from attending worship. Yet I am sure that if Schoenberg’s music were played in our temples, our uneducated Bceothians would flee in haste. To a certain extent, however, his technique might be employed with advantage by our contemporary synagogue composers. Yet, their efforts in this direction would have to be confined to an area that is compatible with the spirit of our musical tradition.
The true remedy lies in the middle course—in the evolution of, and education in, the true tradition of our sacred music.
Mrs. Hilda Pinson (Menorah Journal, Winter 948) approaches the question with fewer preconceptions. After summarizing Cantor Jassinowsky’s and Mr. Sholem Secunda’s attacks on the “modernists” for their lack of nusach (tradition), she goes on to analyze objectively the present situation in our synagogues and temples. It is only when she quotes Mr. Helfman’s statement, “God will understand, God understands all artists, conservative or polytonal,-all artists who seek sincerely and competently to express Him in sound,” that she takes sides with “contemporary synagogue music.” Her summary is fair, but not conclusive: “Certainly the mechanical utilization of liturgical modes alone cannot insure an inner spirituality to music. And tradition which carries no conviction will remain hollow.”
This is precisely the point where the musicologist stops, asking himself whether, in fact, our tradition has been stagnant and hollow, or evolutionary and belief-full.
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The great philosopher Hermann Cohen attempted to establish a criterion for our attitude towards the contemporary Gentile civilization. According to him, either an “active” or a “passive” assimilation takes place in the process of cultural adjustment. The “active” assimilation is the act of assimilating something to oneself, digesting and integrating it as a plant assimilates light and elements out of the air. This is a necessary and constructive process. “Passive” assimilation, on the other hand, is the act of giving oneself away to a strong external attraction; thus, when an organic body decomposes, its constituent elements form new compounds with the surrounding earth, thereby disintegrating the original body. That body is dead, because it can no longer assimilate actively.
Applying this criterion to our liturgical music, it can be said that up to the 16th and early 7th centuries we were able to assimilate actively and integrate certain musical elements and styles of the environment in our basic tradition. Thereafter began the decline, which ended in a chaos of passive assimilation and disintegration in the first third of the 19th century. It took the concerted efforts of men like Sulzer, Naumbourg, Lewandowsky, Weintraub, and E. Birnbaum to rejuvenate our musical tradition. We may no longer feel fully satisfied with their results because “each generation seeks the Lord in its own way.”
But what has been our method to create a new spiritual music for the synagogue? Did we go back to the sources, as did Sulzer and his followers, or the great renovators of the Gregorian chant? Did we at least seriously study the history and essence of Jewish music? On the basis of my personal experience, I am bound to answer these questions with an emphatic negative. Certainly, there are some praiseworthy exceptions, like Cantor Gershon Ephros, the editor of the Cantorial Anthology, an indefatigable student of old Jewish musical manuscripts. And there are a few more, but their number is very, very small.
The majority have been, for the most part, content with promoting, publicizing, publicly discussing the problems of Jewish music—usually without any solid knowledge of their subject. The practice of inviting outstanding musicians to compose Jewish liturgical music is a worthwhile procedure only if these composers have sufficiently familiarized themselves with the history and the essence of our liturgy and its sacred music. Otherwise, it leads again to “passive assimilation.” For there cannot be an “independent, abstract” music of the synagogue: its music has, under all circumstances, to be subservient to the liturgy, to its text as well as its spirit, not to mention to the seasonal modes which characterize our tradition and carry so strong an associative power. The call to all friends of genuine Jewish music is, therefore, ad fonts—to the sources. When we shall have a solid and detailed knowledge of the development of our liturgical music, then it may be possible to integrate its elements into a pattern of truly contemporary music without losing our identity. Contemporary music, however, is all too often identical with ephemeral music. What we need are lasting values, not passing fads.
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True, there have been passing fads in the history of our musical tradition, and it is exactly the ephemeral creations of past centuries that constitute the large body of our “pseudo-tradition. It would be folly to accept all synagogue music which has been handed down to us as prima facie specimens of genuine tradition. In all centers of Jewish life in Europe, certain styles, molded after the then fashionable patterns, arose and claimed attention. Rabbi Joel Sirkes (1561-1640) gave vent to his annoyance with this state of affairs in these words: “When a hazan imitates the musical fashion of the Gentiles, then he takes every care to impress the ‘new music’ so urgently upon his congregation that one might believe he had succeeded in rebuilding the Temple and its music.”
Two famous instances of pseudo-tradition may be cited here. The first is the well-known Hanukkah melody of Moos Tzur or “Rock of Ages,” which is actually, as I have shown elsewhere, a mixture of three German melodies, compiled between 1600 and 6500, without any attempt to integrate them into the specific spirit or modality of Jewish tradition. The second is an entire group of songs: the so-called Freilachs and Niggunim of the Hasidim. They are all, almost without exception, more or less strongly modified versions of Greco-Slavonic Hirmi, many of which may be found in the Russian Synodal Chant book. It is true that they have been adjusted to already existing Jewish traditions by such devices as embellishments, the introduction of certain Jewish cadences, etc., but their melodies are not based upon a genuine Jewish musical heritage.
It does not follow, of course, that we should henceforth eliminate all such tunes from our services; both the Moos Tzur and the Hasidic Freilachs and Niggunim have the power of intellectual and emotional association, which is, after all, of paramount importance for our liturgical music. But we should at least know what is genuine and what is borrowed, what is ancient and what is new, so that when attempting to create a solid and authentic foundation for the enrichment of our traditional music we need not become victims of fallacious views or nostalgic illusions.
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Here are the points where I find myself in complete agreement with Dr. List’s views. He is perfectly justified in writing: “The activities of the music section of the National Jewish Welfare Board proved, also, to be of great significance, not so much for what they were . . . but because of its assumption of the role of ‘official’ spokesman of Jewish music.”
While I am a member of the Jewish Music Council, to whose activities Dr. List refers, I cannot close my eyes to the dangers that would beset the cause of Jewish music if the Music Council were actually to appoint itself as its official custodian. The ancient question Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (who will watch the watchmen themselves?) is too urgent to be ignored in this case. For the Jewish Music Council has done little to elevate the musical taste of the Jewish masses; it has more often been content to stoop to their level than ready to face a serious and noble challenge, the education of the musical taste of its constituents and adherents.
I also endorse Dr. List’s criticism of the wide divergence between theory and practice, in particular when he refers to the high standards set forth in the pronunciamentos of our “official” musical leaders, and the pathetically low implementations of these high-sounding principles. Dr. List’s bold attack upon the Jewish commercial music sheltered in the sphere of the Yiddish theater is certainly meritorious; but I doubt that it will amount to more than a soliloquy.
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It will be one of the most important tasks of the newly established School of Jewish Sacred Music in New York to create a scientific basis for the exploration and evaluation of our musical tradition. The school, which operates under the auspices of the Hebrew Union College with the cooperation of the Society for the Advancement of Jewish Liturgical Music, opened in the fall of last year. Most serious attention is being paid to the study of nusach and cantillation, the two pillars of synagogue music. A solution of the dilemma of tradition versus modernism can be found only if we possess sufficient knowledge and insight to understand fully what constitutes our musical tradition and what its real function is. In the meantime, it would be best if we abstained from apodictic statements and dilettante analyses; they are more likely to obscure the real problem than to elucidate it.
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