Jewish music

Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish people. There exist both traditions of religious music, as sung at the synagogue and domestic prayers, and of secular music, such as klezmer. While some elements of Jewish music may originate in biblical times (Biblical music), differences of rhythm and sound can be found among later Jewish communities that have been musically influenced by location. In the nineteenth century, religious reform led to composition of ecclesiastic music in the styles of classical music. At the same period, academics began to treat the topic in the light of ethnomusicology. Edwin Seroussi has written, "What is known as 'Jewish music' today is thus the result of complex historical processes".^[1] A number of modern Jewish composers have been aware of and influenced by the different traditions of Jewish music.

Jewish art music[edit]

Preclassical, classical, romantic and 20th-century composers[edit]

Salamone Rossi (1570 – c. 1630) of Mantua composed a series of choral settings called "The Songs of Solomon", based on Jewish liturgical and biblical texts.

Most art musicians of Jewish origin in the 19th century composed music that cannot be considered Jewish in any sense. In the words of Peter Gradenwitz, from this period onwards, the issue is "no longer the story of Jewish music, but the story of music by Jewish masters."^[24] Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880), a leading composer of operetta in the 19th century, was the son of a cantor, and grew up steeped in traditional Jewish music. Yet there is nothing about his music which could be characterized as Jewish in terms of style, and he himself did not consider his work to be Jewish. Felix Mendelssohn, the grandson of the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, continued to acknowledge his Jewish origins, even though he was baptized as a Reformed Christian at the age of seven. He occasionally drew inspiration from Christian sources, but there is nothing characteristically Jewish about any of his music.

wrote Mélodies hébraïques for violin and piano.

Maurice Ravel

a German Protestant, (but a student of the German Jewish composer Ferdinand Hiller) made an arrangement, Kol Nidrei, of the Jewish Yom Kippur prayer Kol Nidre for cello and orchestra.^[30]

Max Bruch

wrote Overture on Hebrew Themes, an arrangement of traditional Jewish folksongs for clarinet, string quartet, and piano.

Sergei Prokofiev

incorporated elements of Jewish music in some of his compositions. Most notable are the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry, and the 13th symphony, titled Babi Yar.

Dmitri Shostakovich

A number of non-Jewish composers have adapted Jewish music to their compositions. They include:

Biblical music

List of Jewish musicians

Klezmer

Burney, Charles, ed. Percy A. Scholes (1959). An Eighteenth Century Musical Tour in Central Europe and the Netherlands. " vols. London: Oxford University Press.

Conway, David (2012). Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 978-1-107-01538-8

ISBN

Gradenwitz, Peter (1996). The Music of Israel from the Biblical Era to Modern Times. 2nd. edition. Portland: Amadeus Press.

Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental song (10 vols.)

Idelsohn, A. Z.

Idelsohn, A. Z., int. A. Orenstein (1992). Jewish Music: Its Historical Development. New York: Dover.

Seroussi, Edwin et al. (n.d.), in Oxford Music Online (subscription required)

"Jewish Music"

Walden, Joshua S. (2015). The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Music. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Werner, Eric (1976). A Voice Still Heard: The Sacred Songs of the Ashkenazic Jews. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press

Rabinovitch, Israel, Of Jewish Music, Ancient and Modern, trans. from the Yiddish by A. M. Klein

- Perform wide range of Jewish music

London Jewish Male Choir

Archived 2017-09-07 at the Wayback Machine

Jewish Sheet Music Archive

Milken Archive of Jewish Music

The Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive

Jewish Music Research Center

Archived 2020-09-29 at the Wayback Machine

Judaica Sound Archives at Florida Atlantic University Libraries

The Jewish Music WebCenter

Articles, images and recordings of music of 1933–1945.

Music and the Holocaust

of Jewish composers with sheet music published by IMSLP.com.

A list

print: Brill, Leiden 2010