This department—in which cultural and social trends and events are reported—this month presents an analysis and survey of activities in the field of Jewish music during 1948.
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Jewish musical life in New York in the past season did not differ markedly from that of the previous one.1 However, it seemed to highlight more sharply the perennial problems and the inherent contradictions of Jewish music in the American scene.
In general, there was somewhat less activity this year than last, noticeable mainly in the reduced volume of newly-composed or published Jewish music. Performances, however, went on as previously. The old-established Sabbath Eve Festivals at the Park Avenue Synagogue, the Festival of Jewish Arts at Carnegie Hall and the Music Festival at Temple Emanu-El were the most publicized events. In addition, there were the expanded activities of the Vinaver Chorus, whose concerts grew from one in the previous season to three, with each one repeated, as well as several recitals at the newly-founded Jewish Museum. 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—mainly the publication of bulletins, the awarding of prizes for compositions, and the active steps taken to encourage large symphonic organizations and radio stations to perform music by Jewish composers during the month of the Jewish Music Festival—but because of its assumption of the role of “official” spokesman of Jewish music.
The present article, let me warn the reader in advance, does not attempt a complete survey of all musical activities in the Jewish community. It did not seem profitable to investigate the routine performances of sacred music that have been conducted in the regular synagogue services in Orthodox, Conservative, semi-Reform, or Reform manner, respectively, for many decades now. Nor is there much point in evaluating concerts unless these indicated a definitive trend toward either the solution or the negation of the problem of a symbiosis between Western and Jewish culture. Accordingly the events discussed here are not necessarily the ones that involved a majority of the community, but they are certainly those which for either external (investment of time, money, and publicity) or internal reasons (experiment toward aesthetic solutions) will have the strongest influence on the evolution of Jewish cultural life.
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To one who, like this writer, has taken great pains not to become involved in the internecine organizational struggles or politics of the Jewish musical community, it is sad to see how many of the performances and how much of the quality of the music itself was colored by factional considerations. Even the veteran music critic, fully acquainted with such widely different bodies as the League of Composers, the National Concert and Artists Corporation, and the Metropolitan Opera, is amazed at the extent to which intrigue seems to preoccupy those engaged professionally in Jewish music.
The lack of ambition—that is, the basic lack of interest in the material itself—shown by those who regard their functions as Jewish music directors or composers as just jobs, is responsible for the mediocre scores and performances that, by and large, have become so characteristic of Jewish musical events. But even greater damage is done by those artists who seem to consider their positions primarily as vantage-points for self-aggrandizement. Their commercial attitude is all the more anomalous since the Jewish scene is practically the only place left in America where music is not a mere commodity, tailored and processed by managers and large industrial interests such as radio networks and record companies. Jewish music is an ideal and a cause on which many patrons are willing to spend a great deal of money, and make real sacrifices regardless of the eventual results. It is doubly heartbreaking to see it become the object of self-seeking exploitation.
This commercialism is not restricted solely to the composer who wants to make his product pleasant and acceptable to a public which he apparently conceives of as a conglomeration of simpletons; more often it is manifested in priority given to their own publicity by organizations supposedly sponsoring creativity in Jewish music. The music section of the National Jewish Welfare Board recently rejected a prominent conductor’s offer to have the prize-winning symphony of its contest performed at Hunter College, on the grounds that “the press does not go to these concerts.” It is this hunger for publicity that not only deprives composers of performances that might be important to them, press or no press, but also leads to the choice of only such works as are apt to meet with the widest critical—i.e. uncritical—approval. The hope of such approval will hardly inspire any truly serious artist to ambitious work.
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In general, the craving for publicity in the Jewish musical world reflects the yearning for recognition by those who know fame and fortune in the world “outside.” What better way to do this than to commission prominent American composers for Jewish festivals? It hardly matters that their work has nothing to do with the problem of Jewish music in a Western world. No matter, either, whether the music itself is good or bad; if the composer is well enough known, the performance will attract attention. Thus in the music festivals of the Park Avenue Synagogue and the Temple Emanu-El, we hear music that distinguishes itself from the drab evenings of the League of Composers or any other middle-of-the-road musical organization only by the fact that some of it is written to Hebrew words or decorated with Hebrew titles, and that some professional Jewish composers participate—often on the strength of organizational connections. The Park Avenue Synagogue distributes parts of its Sabbath Eve services to composers of international fame, such as Darius Milhaud, Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Weill, Douglas Moore; other parts to composers prominent in the community, such as Max Helfman and Frederick Jacobi; and still other parts to a few who have reached prominence in Israel, such as Yedidiah Gorochov, Salomo Rosowsky, and Robert Starer. The result is an unbelievable hodge-podge, with as many divergencies of style as composers. Thus only a very small amount of good music comes out of this (as always, Ernest Bloch’s Va-anachnu was the most interesting this year). And certainly no coherent sacred service emerges—and surely that should be a prime consideration in a house of worship.
One has less fault to find with the efforts of the Temple Emanu-El, mainly because its music director, Lazare Saminsky, is a musician of taste and experience. Three concerts, of music from Scandinavia, the Northlands and America, and the Celtic North, respectively, proved mildly interesting. The performances were fair, and the compositions by and large up to the level of most concerts of contemporary music today. True, it is a nice gesture for a synagogue to encourage the dissemination of folk and uneventful contemporary music. On the other hand, one fails to see what Temple Emanu-El aims to accomplish for itself with these replicas of Museum of Modern Art concerts. Certainly they do not further Jewish culture; nor do they offer encouragement to the more advanced contemporary composers. The schools of music that have shown a path-breaking, experimental attitude—that is, the expressionist composers under the inspiration of Schoenberg, the composers who have explored the possibilities of sound such as Varèse, or even composers who write in their own froward and individualistic styles—such as Charles Ives, Roger Sessions, and Carl Ruggles—have remained consistently and conspicuously absent from the programs of the festivals of both temples mentioned above.
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There is one sector of Jewish life where music is definitely a commodity, and this is among the people who frequent the Yiddish theaters, cabarets, and vaudeville houses. They often show appreciation for the well-turned virtuoso phrase of a cantor from East Europe, but seldom for musical quality as such. The bulk of published scores of Jewish music falls into this category of cabaret music. It is of little direct influence on the American Jewish community, although the texture and sentiment of such songs as Meidel, Meidel, Hob Mich Lieb can often be found in more serious contemporary Jewish compositions that try to achieve a certain “authenticity.” At best these tunes are related to the modern Jewish community the way a cowboy song is to some of the more populist American compositions, like those by Elie Siegmeister and Ernst Bacon.
More interesting is the attempt of some of the cabaret composers to break into the serious field, of which the Quartet in C minor by Sholom Secunda, performed under the auspices of the School of Jewish Studies, was a most significant example, mixing cabaret schmaltz with the austerity of the Brahmsian conception of chamber music. That it was accepted by its audience can be attributed partly to the public’s familiarity with current mixtures of folk tune and art texture in recent “progressive” American scores, and pardy to the nostalgia such music engenders in the older generation of American Jews. It would be a serious blow, however, were the American Jewish community to adopt such music as an authentic Jewish style, an eventuality that is, alas, not as far-fetched as it seems. This combination of the strictly commercial prowess of cabaret musicians with a sentimental plucking of the heartstrings can contrive the appearance of a certain sincerity and genuineness that may have charms for the less initiated listener who is proud of his heimishe background.
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In addition to an excessively commercial and monolithic approach, it is often merely plain musical ignorance that helps keep Jewish music on such a deplorable level. A vivid example of this was given at the celebration of the first anniversary of the Jewish Museum, at which Dr. Simon Greenberg, acting president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, stressed the importance of high aesthetic standards in the Jewish community—standards to which he pledged the Museum. His speech was followed by an interlude at the organ that consisted of about the worst possible medley of cheap Israeli melodies, thrown together in a texture of half-popular, half-Second Avenue electric-organ effects that reminded one painfully of matinees at the Paramount. No doubt, the Museum is sincere in its desire for high standards, but there seems also to be no doubt that its leading executives have not the faintest idea of what music is, nor the taste to judge it. (This writer did not attend a series of organ recitals offered at the Museum by Alexander Richardson. But the announced choice of composers, ranging from Jacob Weinberg and Lazare Saminsky to A. W. Binder and Joachim Stutchewsky, follow the routine uninspired pattern of most affairs of this kind).
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The behavior and attitudes of the persons who form the theory and practice of Jewish musical life may perhaps improve with time. But the political attitudes of Jews, as Jews, today form a more serious stumbling block to a natural development of Jewish music. One felt this increasingly as the tension in Palestine heightened. Israeli music played a substantial role in the Jewish concerts for the first time in the 1947-8 season; and what was presented will undoubtedly exert a strong influence on musicians.
Israeli music first appeared hand in hand with the idea of Jewish solidarity. But that solidarity has become identified, in the context of music, with the inferior variety of Palestinian music that first came to our ears, and there is danger that a new myth of “authenticity” has been developed on the basis of this. Whether it was out of ignorance or lack of real interest, or whether no other scores were available, the fact remains that what one heard of Palestinian music was of the worst kind, and most frequently reminiscent of cheap and antiquated Continental café music. (This is as yet the only music of Israel with which the writer is acquainted. But Dr. Peter Grandenwitz,2 a first-rate musician and working music critic of Tel Aviv, informs me that the Israeli music performed here is not at all representative of the younger generation of Israeli composers, who are deeply conscious of their artistic responsibilities and combine experimental spirit in aesthetic questions with the desire to create a new national Jewish music.)
Thus the works by Joachim Stutchewsky, Robert Starer, Nachum Nardi, Yedidiah Gorochov, and Salomo Rosowsky that were performed at an evening of the Jewish Music Forum, held at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, all had one thing in common: despite individual differences, a complacent, comfortable expression of musical ideas that were as old and shabby as the cheap semi-Oriental, semi-Slavic salon music of the 19th century from which these works obviously took their inspiration.
The one piece that formed an exception was Mordechai Starominsky’s Choral Suite, performed by the Vinaver Chorus, which proved to be an ambitious effort in its sensitive application of modal harmony, driving rhythm, and originality of atmosphere. It is by no means iconoclastic (none of the Israeli compositions heard here seemed occupied with the combined problem of polyphony and rhythm), but at least it recognized the necessity of approaching one facet—the rhythmical—of contemporary music.
Conversely, when our own composers try to work in what they call the “Israeli medium” they show themselves prone to imitate the cheap music of Israel they hear in American performances. This is only natural: with the political issues involved close to one’s heart, and lacking acquaintance with any but the worst of the Yishuv’s music, aesthetic barriers come down and political sentiment wins out. Thus Jacob Weinberg’s oratorio, Isaiah, which was performed at the Festival of Jewish Arts, did not sound substantially different from the works of the Israeli composers Starer, Rosowsky, Gorochov, and Nardi heard on the same program. This, despite the fact that Mr. Weinberg is a far more experienced and accomplished craftsman than most of his colleagues.
Similarly, as Dr. Gradenwitz informs this writer, the music of our own American Jewish composers that is performed in Israel represents only the very lowest level, and the younger generation of Israelis has become, on the basis of this evidence, contemptuous of our music. Occasionally, however, superhuman efforts are enlisted to perform a more valuable and experimental piece of American Jewish music in Israel. Thus Dr. Gradenwitz is preparing a performance of Schoenberg’s Kol Nidre for the next season there. But these more adventurous enterprises are rare and seldom reach the public limelight. In any case there is a lack of contact between our serious musicians and those of Israel. Although both here and there some Jewish composers write good and ambitious music, they remain unaware of one another. Thus, while we have come to assume on the evidence heard so far that there is no creative originality whatsoever in Israel, our more sensitive Israeli colleagues seem to assume the same for us. So Jewish music written in America is degraded not only at home, but apparently abroad in equal measure.
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Even though what has been said adds up to a very gloomy picture, one need not wholly despair. There are some hopeful phenomena in Jewish musical life, notably in those spheres relatively free from vested organizational interests.
Most important here is the work of Ernest Bloch, which was heard in extenso at a festival of his music held at the Juilliard School and at an evening of the Jewish Museum. The release of the recording of his Second String Quartet (International Records IM-302) and the republication of his Trots Poémes Juifs (Schirmer’s) made the past season a veritable, and very welcome, Bloch year. (It was only slightly spoiled by the low performance level of the concert at the Jewish Museum.)
Bloch is both an exceptional case as a creative artist and a typical phenomenon in the alternate acceptance and rejection he has experienced from an ungrateful audience. He has been hailed as the typical American composer for his American Rhapsody; as a significant Swiss composer for his symphonic fresco, Helvetia; and as a typically Jewish composer for such works as the Israel Symphony, the ’cello rhapsody Schelomo, the sacred service Avodat hakodesh, the symphonic poem Voice in the Wilderness, the violin-piano sketches Baal Shew, and Avo-dah, the ‘cello-piano pieces From Jewish Life and Méditation héhraiaue, and the already mentioned Trois Poèmes Juifs. In the early 20’s his music was considered chic by the pseudo-bohemians, who have now quite abandoned it. True, Bloch is neither a visionary of the stature of a Schoenberg, nor a percussive Orientalist of the dimensions of a Stravinsky, but he is of extreme importance to Jewish music because he so consciously endeavors to render for us his musical experience as a Jew.
Bloch writes music with Jewish flavor—that is to say, music into which there is infused the melos of the service, of the Hasidim, even of the theater—not for extraneous reasons, but because of a logic that emanates from his inner experience. His use of traditional Jewish melos, no matter how watered down it may be, does not amount to mere excerpts from a melody but is an invariably essential interweaving of his own musical originality with the borrowed folklore. In his works folklore themes sound as representatively Blochian as his freely invented Jewish themes sound authentically folkloristic. This is accomplished, in the main, by tremendous solidity of craftsmanship, a solidity no other professional Jewish composer can match, and this carries Bloch through all his works, whether impressionistic, nationalistic, or Jewish. The climate may change slightly, but first and foremost stands the fact that each work is unmistakably Bloch.
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Bloch’s weak point lies in an occasional wavering between atmosphere and the use of experience that has not always been fully apprehended or digested. Yet his great talent helps him almost always to remain true to himself, and thus he is able to fill his chosen role as the modern Jewish composer. Bloch himself defines his aims and attitude in these words: “It is not my desire to attempt a ‘reconstitution’ of Jewish music. . . . It is the Jewish soul that interests me, the complex, glowing agitated soul that I feel vibrating through the Bible . . . . In my work termed ‘Jewish’ . . . I have not approached the problem from without—by employing melodies more or less authentic (frequently borrowed from or under the influence of other nations) or ‘Oriental’ formulas, rhythms, or intervals, more or less sacred. No! I have but listened to an inner voice, deep, secret, insistent, ardent, an instinct much more than cold and dry reason, a voice which seemed to come from far beyond myself, far beyond my parents . . . a voice which surged up in me on reading certain passages in the Bible, Job, Ecclesiastes, the Psalms, the Prophets . . . . This entire Jewish heritage moved me deeply, it was reborn in my music. To what extent it is Jewish, to what extent it is just Ernest Bloch, of that I know nothing. The future alone will decide.”
This dependence on inner experience reaches its height in the Sacred Service, where the composer is little concerned with liturgical formalism or the emulation of hazanic practice. Of this Service, he says that in it “the words express the hope, the ardent desire, that one day men may at last recognize that they are all brothers and may live in harmony and in peace.” It was this humanist idea, and not an institutionalized religious approach, that enabled him to create a great modern Jewish service.
If Jewish composers ever needed to be taught the lesson that great music, Jewish or otherwise, can come only from the inner self, they certainly needed it in the past season. And if ever one man could give them this lesson, it was Ernest Bloch. That such non-Jewish organizations as the Juilliard School, Schirmer’s Publications, and International Records were instrumental in bringing his music to life only proves how negligent our Jewish institutions are with regard to the truly modem tradition of Jewish composers.
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Bloch was not the only bright spot. The announcement of the projected publication of a Jewish Song Book, a compilation of the songs of the entire Jewish religious year for Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform communities arranged by the late A. Z. Idelsohn, to be distributed here and abroad, proves that certain sections of the community are still aware of the necessity for standards and tolerance. Although it is impossible to evaluate this work before examining it carefully, the fact that it is based upon the work of so eminent and unassailable a scholar as Idelsohn, and that it attempts to encompass all shades of Jewish worship, testifies to the integrity of its sponsors.
That the publication of this book has encountered very many material difficulties so far is characteristic, once more, of a situation in which money gets thrown about on all sorts of fashionable and organizationally entrenched enterprises, most of them worthless, but in which nobody seems to want to take a chance on serious ventures.
Definitely on the plus side is also the publication of Volume III of the Cantorial Anthology, compiled and edited by Gershon Ephros (Bloch Publishing Company). This volume deals with the Sholosh R’golim, the chants of the three festivals, and assembles the various musical prayers widely used in present-day synagogue practice. Traditional and contemporary settings are juxtaposed and give the reader a vivid picture of the divergency and essential disorientation of contemporary religious life.
Mr. Ephros’ rich knowledge of Jewish music and his scholarly thoroughness have helped to make this volume a valuable cross-section of modem religious practice. If the music is poor in most of the contemporary examples and if the notation is not always representative of the real qualities of the traditional specimens, this is hardly Mr. Ephros’ fault. In the first case, the modem composer himself is to blame, and in the second it is the rigid modern notation system that is at fault: it makes no allowance for the subtle variegation of rhythm and pitch for which the traditional melisma is noted.
Mr. Ephros’ anthology should prove highly valuable to practicing cantors, but it is more than a mere reference book. It is a true replica of sacred Jewish music. Whether it be for good or for bad, it shows us the kind of music we have today in our synagogues.
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The impression that good music alone is of consequence was further confirmed by the performance at the Temple Emanu-El of the Ballade (for cello and piano) by Ben Weber, a young composer who is not concerned with Jewish themes. Ballade was written in 1943, with no idea in the composer’s mind that the work would ever be performed at a temple festival. It is a simple, touching piece and had more effect on the audience than any of the consciously nationalist pieces performed that same day. It testifies to Mr. Saminsky’s fine taste that he scheduled it for performance at the Temple.
One may object to the inclusion of Ballade on the ground that it has nothing to do with any revival of Jewish music; and, except for its demonstration, once more, that emotional impact is more necessary to music than anything else, it certainly throws no light on the problems of Jewish music. But if the Jewish community must embark on a musical inter-faith program—an undertaking whose value seems questionable to this writer because it again puts the emphasis on rather extraneous grounds—then only performances of accomplished and sincere pieces will have beneficial results. If there is any sense in an inter-faith program, it must lie in the demonstration of a concern on the part of the Jewish community for the maintenance of Western culture above and beyond its own necessarily narrower ends as a community.
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The First Annual Conference of the Cantors’ Assembly and of the Department of Music of the United Synagogue of America, which was held at the Jewish Theological Seminary, showed a serious concern with the problem of modern Jewish culture. The discussion obviously arose because of the cantors’ practical needs: they have to present the religious community with music that will hold its interest and still remain within the flow of tradition. The sincerity of this concern was demonstrated not only by the liveliness of the discussion, but also by the demand for a music school for cantors in which theoretical and practical training would lead to a deeper and more professional use of the ancient and modern sources of liturgy. And it is indeed absurd that the Jewish community should have no funds for the professional training of its cantors.
The problems inherent in the vital issue of sacred music were discussed from various angles, of which Mr. Chemjo Vinaver and this writer presented the most extreme and opposite views.
The main problem presented itself as follows: 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. Undoubtedly, our time offers us the last chance to preserve this tradition in writing, for so far it has been handed down only orally. (Tradition has also lost its foothold among both Catholics and Protestants, who seem to prefer the fireside ballads of the 19th century to the early Gregorian or simple Baroque hymns. But at least their music is preserved in notation.) Whether a written compilation of cantorial music will command more than a musicological interest in the modern community seems doubtful.
It is true that some of the modern composers, among them most notably Mr. Vinaver, 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 20th-century music.
Yet the new trend toward a more spiritual, ritualistic approach to religion should demand a new music to move the soul of modern man. But then again, America does not seem truly interested in music. Of course, people go to concerts, collect records, become enthusiastic about jazz. But for a hundred intellectuals who go to great lengths to absorb the more hermetic works of James Joyce, there is hardly a single music lover who will go to equal lengths to become acquainted with a similarly radical piece of music.
The deeper mysticism now felt stirring in Jewish religion should demand higher aesthetic responsibility toward sacred music. We have seen this happen lately in the Catholic Church. In the synagogue, specifically, we are faced with the problem of how to combine tradition with advanced art. Schoenberg has demonstrated one possible solution in a few individualistic works. Bloch has given us a faint inkling of the difficulties involved. But by and large the problem is not solved. In the absence of an interested audience, and given the complacency of most professional musicians, the rabbis should be those most concerned with this problem, simply out of their desire to retain religious music as a vital factor of Jewish community life. By using the reformed tune of the 19th century, or even mere archaeological tradition—as Mr. Vinaver wants them to do—they banish music to the realm of musicology, and in doing so reduce one of the important emotional aspects of religion to an abstraction separated from life and reality. Perhaps this is the final destination of religion. But if this is so, we must anticipate a final parting of the ways between artist and synagogue. If, however, this destination can be avoided, then there must come at least a real recognition of the problem as a foundation on which some common work between the cleric and the musician can be done.
That such views as these could be aired and discussed without bitterness at the Cantors’ Assembly gave this writer the feeling that the existence of the problem was keenly sensed and that at least some practicing Jewish musicians were working toward a solution.
In this respect the Assembly was indeed one of the most reassuring events of the season.
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But gratifying as such events are, it is their very nature as exceptions that indicates how small a part of the community is seriously interested in music. Possibly the real salvation of Jewish musical life lies not so much in these exceptional enterprises as in the maintenance of the many solid, if neither unusual nor daring, musical endeavors that go on year in and year out—not noticed sufficiently, but convincing proof of the seriousness of some parts of Jewish musical life.
Under this heading the concerts of the Vinaver Chorus rank high. Although they are not uniformly satisfactory, their wide selection of sacred music from many different times and religions, always with emphasis on the purity and authenticity of Jewish tradition, gave the listener a full feeling of the richness of the musical past and of the many national strands that contributed to it. Mr. Vinaver’s catholic taste is both his strength and his weakness. It is his strength because, guided by a rarely erring devotion to high standards, such catholicity gives one a kaleidoscopic view of music. It is his weakness because it permits Mr. Vinaver to be unselective in those fields in which he is not fully at home—as, for instance, in the music of this century. Thus discords in point of quality are thrown into the otherwise carefully planned programs of his chorus by the inclusion of such things as David Diamond’s insipid Young Joseph, Frederick Jacobi’s tired Prelude for Organ, and Vaughan Williams’ excessively conventional Hundredth Psalm. At least one or two pieces of more adventurous modern music and a fuller representation of medieval choral pieces might have served better to round out the picture.
Mr. Vinaver’s first concert of the present season (this time at New York’s Town Hall) followed more or less the same pattern, with modern music completely absent—although it is true that several mild pieces are announced for the two subsequent concerts. Again one asks oneself why Mr. Vinaver does not avail himself of such splendid material now at hand as the more substantial and daring Kol Nidre by Schoenberg, the Rhapsodic hassidique and the Jewish Madrigals by Erich Itor Kahn, and the searching compositions of Paul Dessau and Herbert Fromm. The Vinaver Chorus is practically the only organization around that is devoted to an authentic recreation of Jewish tradition, and which at the same time functions on a high performance level. Such high standards also impose responsibilities. In neglecting those it has toward contemporary music—which can demand the same seriousness and musical veracity as traditional music—the organization is at fault.
But once inside the Jewish field Mr. Vinaver’s selections are excellent indeed. The work of A. B. Birnbaum, with its perfect blending of East European and Oriental melismata; Seidel Rovner’s music in the authentic hazanic tradition, despite arrangements that occasionally lapse into Western sequences; and some of Mr. Vinaver’s own compositions, whether in contemporary style or in a pure, traditional climate, were the interesting and inspiring highlights of these concerts. Above all, the music is performed on the highest possible level and with consistent sureness of execution. This feat probably counts for just as much as anything else, in view of the frightful dilettantism in performance of most Jewish concerts.
The continuing publication of compositions by Heinrich Schalit is another hopeful sign. Schalit is not a great master, nor is his music advanced. But his 98th Psalm and his choral piece O Lord! What is Man are sincere efforts, drawn from inner experience and carried by a noble emotional intent and serious and solid craftsmanship. One regrets that the composer himself has to publish his music and that no official organization has yet undertaken to do so.
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In recapitulation, we see the situation of Jewish music in nuce as one controlled all too largely by personal ambitions and political and nationalist sentiment. It is a state of affairs made possible only by the indolence of the community itself. Jewishness is not served, music is not furthered, and the problem of tradition versus modernism is not solved—all this, despite the great financial support some branches of Jewish music have been receiving from the community.
One recalls Mr. Vinaver’s words in closing his remarks at the Cantors’ Assembly: “In the Old World, the rebbe was a rebbe, the hazan was a hazan, and the community was a community. The only thing that was a fiction was the budget. In the New World, the rebbe is not a rebbe, the hazan is not a hazan, and the community is not a community. The only reality is the budget.”
Obviously, this reality is not enough. Only if the community as a whole develops a true concern with music will it be able to develop musicians who can give both sacred and secular music a new and more valuable content. Then, only then, will the reality of the budget become real in terms of culture.
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1 See “The Renaissance of Jewish Music” by the same author in Commentary, December 1947.
2 Peter Gradenwitz’s appraisal of American-issued Israeli music and his observations on Israeli music itself, will appear in a forthcoming issue of Commentary—Ed.
