Introduction: What Is Jewish Music?

There is two kind of general approaches to the subject. One is a very precise and sharp definition of the Jewish music as:

``Music composed by Jews for the Jews as Jews''^1.1

and the other is a composer's point of view:

It is not my purpose, nor my desire, to attempt a reconstitution of Jewish music, or to base my work on melodies more or less authentic. I am not an archaeologist...

It is the Jewish soul that interests me...the freshness and naiveté of the Patriarchs; the violence of the Prophetic books; the Jewish savage love of justice...^1.2

The first definition, though somewhat limiting, can be sharply defining the frighteningly wast subject matter of this research.

But, as a composer, I will bend here towards the composer Ernest Bloch's approach.

Jewish music can and is studied from the points of view of historical, liturgical and non-liturgical music of the Hebrews dating from the pre-Biblical times (Pharaonic Egypt); religious music at the first and second Solomon's Temples; musical activities immediately following the Exodus^1.3; the (seemingly?) impoverished religious musical activities during the early middle ages; the emergence of the concept of Jewish Music in the mid-19th century; in its nation-oriented sense as coined by the landmark book Jewish Music in its Historical Development (1929) by A. Z. Idelsohn (1882-1938)[] and finally as the art and popular music of Israel.

More specific focusing areas can be spotted as the influences of the Hebraic liturgical music at the Talmudic times to the Gregorian chants, the usage and their differentiation of a common maqam melodic vocabulary shared by people inhabiting the Israel-Palestine region.

Early emergences of Jewish musical themes and of what may be called ``the idea of being Jew'' in European music can be examined in the works of Salamone Rossi (1570-1630), in the works of the famous Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn's (1729-1786) grandson: Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). Fromental Halévy's (1799-1862) opera La Juive and its occasional use of some Jewish themes can be an auxiliary research subject as compared to the lack of ``anything Jew'' in his almost contemporary fellow composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) who was actually Jew and grew up in straight Jewish tradition.

The seemingly endless subject can include the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Music led by the composer-critic Joel Engel (1868-1927) on how they discovered their Jewish roots, inspired by the Nationalistic movement in the Russian music as exemplified by Rimsky-Korsakov, César Cui and others, and how set out to the Shtetls^1.4 and meticulously recorded and transcribed thousands of Yiddish folksongs.

Ernst Bloch's (1880-1959) Schelomo for cello and orchestra and specially Sacred Service for orchestra, choir and soloists seems to be an attempt to create a ``Jewish Requiem''.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968)'s Sephardic^1.5 upbringings and their influences on his music as they appear in his Second Violin Concerto and in many of his songs and choral works; cantatas Naomi and Ruth, Queen of Shiba and in the oratorio The Book of Jonah among others are worth noting as well.

Many scholars did not missed the borrowed Synagogue motives in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Gershwin biographer Edward Jablonski has claimed that the melody to ``It Ain't Necessarily So'' was taken from the Haftarah blessing^1.6 and others have attributed it to the Torah blessing^1.7.

In Gershwin's some 800 songs allusions to Jewish music have been detected by other observers as well. One musicologist detected ``an uncanny resemblance'' between the folk tune ``Havenu Shalom Aleichem'' and the spiritual ``It Take a Long Pull to Get There''^1.8.

One can also dig into the works of contemporary Israeli composers such as Chaya Czernowin, Betty Olivera, Tsippi Fleisher, Mark Kopytman, Yitzhak Yedid.

There are also very important non-Jew contributors to the Jewish music, Maurice Ravel with his Kaddish for violin and piano based on a traditional liturgical melody; Max Bruch's famous arrangement of the Yom Kippur prayer Kol Nidrei for cello and orchestra^1.9.

Sergei Prokofieff's Overture sur des Thèmes Juives for string quartet, piano and clarinet clearly display its inspirational sources in non-religious Jewish music. The melodic, modal, rhythmical materials and the use of the clarinet as a leading melodic instrument is a very typical sound in folk and non-religious Jewish music.

Dmitri Shostakovich was deeply influenced by Jewish music as well. This can be seen in many of his compositions, most notably in the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry, and in the Second Piano Trio. However his most outstanding contribution to the Jewish culture is without doubt the 13th. Symphony Babi Yar.