Klezmer ( or כּלי־זמר) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe.Moishe Beregovsky (1982). 081227833X, University of Pennsylvania Press. 081227833X
After the destruction of Jewish life in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust, and a general fall in the popularity of klezmer music in the United States, the music began to be popularized again in the late 1970s in the so-called Klezmer Revival.
Etymology and usage
The term , as used in the
Yiddish language, has a
Hebrew language etymology:
klei, meaning "tools, utensils or instruments of" and
zemer, "melody"; leading to
k'lei zemer , meaning "musical instruments".
Over time the usage of "" in a Yiddish context evolved to describe musicians instead of their instruments, first in
Bohemia in the second half of the sixteenth century and then in
Poland, possibly as a response to the new status of the musicians who were at that time forming professional guilds.
Previously the musician may have been referred to as a (לץ) or other terms.
After the term became the preferred term for these professional musicians in Yiddish-speaking Eastern Europe, other types of musicians were more commonly known as or . Twentieth century Russian scholars sometimes used the term klezmer;
Ivan Lipaev did not use it, but Moisei Beregovsky did when publishing in Yiddish or Ukrainian.
It was not until the late 20th century that the word "klezmer" became a commonly known English-language term.
Musical elements
Style
The traditional style of playing klezmer music, including tone, typical cadences, and ornamentation, sets it apart from other genres.
Although klezmer music emerged from a larger Eastern European Jewish musical culture that included
hazzanut,
Hasidic Judaism , and later
Yiddish theatre music, it also borrowed from the surrounding folk musics of Central and Eastern Europe and from cosmopolitan European musical forms.
Therefore it evolved into an overall style which has recognizable elements from all of those other genres.
Few klezmer musicians before the late nineteenth century had conservatory musical training, but they generally learned through apprenticeship and inherited a rich tradition with its own advanced musical techniques.
Klezmer musicians apply the overall style to available specific techniques on each melodic instrument. They incorporate and elaborate the vocal melodies of Jewish religious practice, including the vocal style of the Hazzan, Jewish prayer, and paraliturgical song, extending the range of human voice into the musical expression possible on instruments.[Yale Strom, "The absolutely complete klezmer songbook", 2006, , Introduction][Strom 2012, pp. 101, 102] Pedal point, mordents, slides and typical klezmer cadences are also important to the style.[Chris Haigh, The Fiddle Handbook, 2009, Example 4.9] Unlike in Classical music, vibrato is used sparingly, and is treated as another type of ornament.
The accompaniment style varies a lot depending on instrumentation and context, ranging from playing in octaves without harmonization, to partial chords played by a second violinist, to very elaborate harmonized brass bands arrangements in the twentieth century.
Historical repertoire
The repertoire of klezmer musicians was very diverse and tied to specific social functions and dances, especially of the traditional wedding.
These melodies might have a non-Jewish origin, or have been composed by a klezmer, but only rarely are they attributed to a specific composer.
Generally klezmer music can be divided into two broad categories: music for specific dances, and music for listening (at the table, in processions, ceremonial, etc.).
Dances
Given that Ashkenazic Jewish weddings have taken place in many countries and historical contexts, the dances preserved in klezmer music show a variety of ritual and cultural origins:
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A is the simplest and most widespread type of klezmer dance tunes are those played in and intended for group circle dances.
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A , or is a circle dance originating in Moldavia dance with a recognizable syncopated rhythm in or .
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Sher is a contra dance in , typically arranged for four couples who move together and trade places during the dance. Musically, it sounds like a Freylekhs, but the total number of sections allows the particular dance to be performed.
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(kosher dance) or (mitzvah dance) are ritual dances dating back hundreds of years, often in and borrowing the form and melodies of a polonaise or a gavotte.
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, or , named after Hasidic Jews, is a more dignified embellished dance in or . The dance steps can be performed solo, or in a circle or in a line. Stutschewsky notes that it can contain elements of irony or self-parody.
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Hora or (from the Romanian ) is a circle dance in which entered the klezmer repertoire from Romanian and Moldavian music.
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kolomyjka is a fast and catchy dance in time, which originated in Ukraine, and is prominent in the folk music of that country.
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is generally thought to be a more elaborate which could be played either for dancing or listening.
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Nigun, a very broad term which can refer to melodies for listening, singing or dancing.
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were very popular, whether classical, Russian, or Polish. A padespan was a sort of Russian/Spanish waltz known to klezmers.
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Mazurka and polka, Polish and Czech dances, respectively, were often played for both Jews and Gentiles.
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Kozak or is a dance of Ukrainian origin in popular among klezmer musicians.
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Sirba – a Romanian dance in or (Romanian sârbă). It features hopping steps and short bursts of running, accompanied by triplets in the melody.
Non-dance repertoire
Historically, klezmer musicians also performed a variety of ritual and listening music which may have been rhythmic or freeform depending on the type. As with dances, these often borrowed from Jewish or non-Jewish folk melodies, religious music, and so on.
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There were a variety of non-metrical, semi-improvised listening genres. The best known is the borrowed from the Romanian music doina.
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Forms centering on bridal rituals, including the (seating of the bride) or (singing to the bride). In these freeform pieces the would sing to the bride as the soloist accompanied with a freeform piece.
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Other more rhythmic listening pieces drew on the Hasidic Nigun. A (table tune) was a melody played for listening at the table; a (or called Devekut in Hebrew language) inspired spiritual arousal or a pious mood.
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A (Waltz), pieces in especially in the Hasidic Judaism context, may be slower than non-Jewish waltzes and intended for listening while the wedding parties are seated at their tables.
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Processional melodies could have a variety of musical forms or even borrow non-Jewish melodies, and were used to lead wedding parties or other groups as they walked. These include (street tunes), (to the table) were used to lead the wedding party around the neighborhood or between different stages of the wedding.
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Other types of listening music borrowed from the forms and melodies of neighboring cultures, either from folk melodies or non-Jewish dances. A is a type of virtuosic solo piece in in an Ottoman music or "oriental" style, and melodies may incorporate references to Greek Hasapiko into an Ashkenazic musical aesthetic.
Orchestration
Klezmer music is an instrumental tradition, without much of a history of songs or singing. In Eastern Europe, Klezmers did traditionally accompany the vocal stylings of the
Badchen (wedding entertainer), although their performances were typically improvised couplets and the calling of ceremonies rather than songs.
(The importance of the Badchen gradually decreased by the twentieth century, although they still continued in some traditions.
)
As for the klezmer orchestra, its size and composition varied by time and place. The klezmer bands of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century were small, with roughly three to five musicians playing woodwind or string instruments.
The melody in klezmer music is generally assigned to the lead violin, although occasionally the flute and eventually clarinet.
Percussion in early 20th-century klezmer recordings was generally minimal—no more than a wood block or snare drum. In Eastern Europe, percussion was often provided by a drummer who played a frame drum, or poyk, sometimes called baraban. A poyk is similar to a bass drum and often has a cymbal or piece of metal mounted on top, which is struck by a beater or a small cymbal strapped to the hand.
Melodic modes
Western, Cantorial, and Ottoman music terminology
Klezmer music is a genre that developed partly in the Western musical tradition but also in the
Ottoman Empire, and is primarily an oral tradition which does not have a well-established literature to explain its modes and modal progression.
But, as with other types of Ashkenazic Jewish music, it has a complex system of modes which were used in its compositions.
Many of its melodies do not fit well in the
Major key and
Minor key terminology used in Western music, nor is the music systematically
Microtonal music in the way that Middle Eastern music is.
Nusach terminology, as developed for
Hazzan in the nineteenth century, is often used instead, and indeed many klezmer compositions draw heavily on religious music.
But it also incorporates elements of
Baroque music and Eastern European folk musics, making description based only on religious terminology incomplete.
Still, since the
Klezmer revival of the 1970s, the terms for Jewish prayer modes are the most common to describe those used in klezmer.
The terms used in
Yiddish language for these modes include
nusach (נוסח); (שטײגער), "manner, mode of life", which describes the typical melodic character, important notes and scale; and (גוסט), a word meaning "taste" which was commonly used by Moisei Beregovsky.
Beregovsky, who was writing in the Stalinist era and was constrained by having to downplay klezmer's religious aspects, did not use the terminology of synagogue modes, except in early work in 1929. Instead, he relied on German-inspired musical terminology of Major key, minor, and "other" modes, which he described in technical terms.
Another set of terminology sometimes used to describe klezmer music is that of the Turkish makam used in Ottoman music and other Middle Eastern music.
Finally, some Klezmer music, and especially that composed in the United States from the mid-twentieth century onwards, may not be composed with these traditional modes, but rather built around chords.
Description
Because there is no agreed-upon, complete system for describing modes in Klezmer music, this list is imperfect and may conflate concepts which some scholars view as separate.
Another problem in listing these terms as simple eight-note (
octatonic scale) scales is that it makes it harder to see how Klezmer melodic structures can work as five-note
, how parts of different modes typically interact, and what the cultural significance of a given mode might be in a traditional Klezmer context.
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, , or Phrygian dominant scale resembles the Phrygian mode, having a flat second but also a permanent raised third.
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, Av HaRachamim, "altered Dorian" or Ukrainian Dorian scale is a minor mode which has a raised fourth.
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or a synagogue mode with a flatted seventh.
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is a synagogue mode which resembles the Western natural minor.
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resembles and . It is a variant of the Mogen Ovos scale that frequently flattens the second and fifth degrees.
History
Europe
Development of the genre
The Bible has several descriptions of orchestras and
Levites making music, but after the destruction of the
Second Temple in 70
Common Era, many
discouraged musical instruments.
Therefore, while there may have been Jewish musicians in different times and places since then, the concept of a "Klezmer" musician arose much more recently.
The earliest written record of the use of the word was identified by as being in a Jewish council meeting from Kraków in 1595.
They may have existed even earlier in
Prague, as references to them have been found as early as 1511 and 1533.
It was in the 1600s that the situation of Jewish musicians in
Poland improved, as they gained the right to form
(
Khevre), and therefore to set their own fees, hire Christians, and so on.
Therefore over time this new form of professional musician developed new forms of music and elaborated this tradition across a wide area of Eastern European Jewish life. The rise of
Hasidic Judaism in the late eighteenth century and onwards also contributed to the development of klezmer, due to their emphasis on dancing and wordless melodies as a component of Jewish practice.
The Eastern European klezmer profession (1700–1930s)
The nineteenth century also saw the rise of a number of klezmer violin virtuosos who combined the techniques of classical violinists such as
Ivan Khandoshkin and of
folk violinists, and who composed dance and display pieces that became widespread even after the composers were gone.
Among these figures were Aron-Moyshe Kholodenko "
Pedotser", Yosef Drucker "
Stempenyu", Alter Goyzman "
Alter Chudnover" and
Josef Gusikov.
Unlike in the United States, where there was a robust Klezmer recording industry, there was relatively less recorded in Europe in the early twentieth century. The majority of European recordings of Jewish music consisted of Cantorial and Yiddish Theatre music, with only a few dozen known to exist of Klezmer music.
Klezmer in the late Russian empire and Soviet era
The loosening of restrictions on Jews in the
Russian Empire, and their newfound access to academic and conservatory training, created a class of scholars who began to reexamine and evaluate klezmer using modern techniques.
Abraham Zevi Idelsohn was one such figure, who sought to find an ancient Middle Eastern origin for Jewish music in the diaspora.
There was also new interest in collecting and studying Jewish music and folklore, including Yiddish songs, folk tales, and instrumental music. An early expedition was by Joel Engel, who collected folk melodies in his birthplace of
Berdyansk in 1900. The first figure to collect large amounts of klezmer music was
Susman Kiselgof, who made several expeditions to the Pale of Settlement from 1907 to 1915.
He was soon followed by other scholars such as Moisei Beregovsky and
Sofia Magid, Soviet scholars of Yiddish and klezmer music.
Most of the materials collected in those expeditions are now held by the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine.
Beregovsky, writing in the late 1930s, lamented how little scholars knew about the range of playing technique and social context of Klezmers from past eras, except for the late nineteenth century which could be investigated through elderly musicians who still remembered it.
Jewish music in the Soviet Union, and the continued use of klezmer music, went through several phases of official support or censorship. The officially supported Soviet Jewish musical culture of 1920s involved works based on or satirizing traditional melodies and themes, whereas those of the 1930s were often "Russian" cultural works translated into a Yiddish context.
United States
Early American klezmer (1880s–1910s)
The first klezmers to arrive in the United States followed the first large waves of Eastern European Jewish immigration which began after 1880, establishing themselves mainly in large cities like New York, Philadelphia and Boston.
Klezmers—often younger members of klezmer families, or less established musicians—started to arrive from the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Romania and
Austria-Hungary.
Some of them found work in restaurants, dance halls, union rallies, wine cellars, and other modern venues in places like New York's Lower East Side.
But the major source of income for klezmer musicians seems to have remained weddings and
, as in Europe.
Those early generations of klezmers are much more poorly documented than those working in the 1910s and 1920s; many never recorded or published music, although some are remembered through family or community history, such as the Lemish klezmer family of Iași, Romania, who arrived in Philadelphia in the 1880s and established a klezmer dynasty there.
Big band klezmer orchestras (1910s–1920s)
The vitality of the Jewish music industry in major American cities attracted ever more klezmers from Europe in the 1910s. This coincided with the development of the recording industry, which recorded a number of these klezmer orchestras. By the time of the First World War, the industry turned its attention to ethnic dance music and a number of bandleaders were hired by record companies such as
Edison Records,
Emerson Records,
Okeh Records, and the Victor Recording Company to record 78 rpm discs.
The first of these was
Abe Elenkrig, a barber and cornet player from a klezmer family in Ukraine whose 1913 recording (From the Wedding) has been recognized by the Library of Congress.
Among the European-born klezmers recording during that decade were some from the Ukrainian territory of the Russian Empire (Abe Elenkrig, Dave Tarras, Shloimke Beckerman, Joseph Frankel, and Israel J. Hochman), some from Austria-Hungary Galicia (Naftule Brandwein, Harry Kandel and Berish Katz), and some from Romania (Abe Schwartz, Max Leibowitz, Max Yankowitz, Joseph Moskowitz).
The mid-1920s also saw a number of popular novelty "Klezmer" groups which performed on the radio or vaudeville stages. These included Joseph Cherniavsky's Yiddish-American Jazz Band, whose members would dress as parodies of Cossacks or Hasidic Judaism.
Celebrity clarinetists
Along with the rise of klezmer "big bands" in the 1910s and 1920s, a handful of Jewish clarinet players who had led those bands became celebrities in their own right, with a legacy that lasted into subsequent decades. The most popular among these were Naftule Brandwein,
Dave Tarras, and Shloimke Beckerman.
Klezmer revival
In the 1970s there was a renewal of interest in Klezmer music centered primarily in the United States. Notable early figures and groups were
Giora Feidman,
The Klezmorim, Walter Zev Feldman,
Andy Statman, and the Klezmer Conservatory Band. They drew their repertoire from recordings and surviving musicians of U.S. klezmer.
In particular, clarinetists such as
Dave Tarras and Max Epstein became mentors to this new generation of klezmer musicians.
In 1985,
Henry Sapoznik and Adrienne Cooper founded
KlezKamp to teach klezmer and other Yiddish music.
The 1980s saw a second wave of revival, as interest grew in more traditionally inspired performances with string instruments, largely with non-Jews of the United States and Germany. Musicians began to track down older European klezmer, by listening to recordings, finding transcriptions, and making field recordings of the few klezmorim left in Eastern Europe. Key performers in this style are Joel Rubin, Budowitz, Khevrisa, Di Naye Kapelye, Yale Strom, The Chicago Klezmer Ensemble, The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, the violinists Alicia Svigals, Steven Greenman,
In the 1990s, musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area helped further interest in klezmer music by taking it into new territory. Groups such as the New Klezmer Trio inspired a new wave of bands merging klezmer with other forms of music, such as John Zorn's Masada and Bar Kokhba, Naftule's Dream, Don Byron's Mickey Katz project and violinist Daniel Hoffman's klezmer/jazz/Middle-Eastern fusion band Davka.
Starting in 2008, "The Other Europeans" project, funded by several EU cultural institutions,
A separate klezmer tradition had developed in Israel in the 20th century. Clarinetists Moshe Berlin and Avrum Leib Burstein are known exponents of the klezmer style in Israel. To preserve and promote klezmer music in Israel, Burstein founded the Jerusalem Klezmer Association, which has become a center for learning and performance of klezmer music in the country.
Popular culture
In music
While traditional performances may have been on the decline, many Jewish composers who had mainstream success, such as Leonard Bernstein and
Aaron Copland, continued to be influenced by the klezmeric idioms heard during their youth (as
Gustav Mahler had been).
George Gershwin was familiar with klezmer music, and the opening clarinet glissando of "Rhapsody in Blue" suggests this influence, although the composer did not compose klezmer directly.
Some clarinet stylings of swing jazz bandleaders
Benny Goodman and
Artie Shaw can be interpreted as having been derived from klezmer, as can the "freilach swing" playing of other Jewish artists of the period such as trumpeter
Ziggy Elman.
At the same time, non-Jewish composers were also turning to klezmer for a prolific source of fascinating thematic material. Dmitri Shostakovich in particular admired klezmer music for embracing both the ecstasy and the despair of human life, and quoted several melodies in his chamber music masterpieces, the Piano Quintet in G minor, op. 57 (1940), the Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, op. 67 (1944), and the String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, op. 110 (1960).
The compositions of Israeli-born composer Ofer Ben-Amots incorporate aspects of klezmer music, most notably his 2006 composition Klezmer Concerto. The piece is for klezmer clarinet (written for Jewish clarinetist David Krakauer),
In visual art
The figure of the klezmer, as a romantic symbol of nineteenth century Jewish life, appeared in the art of a number of twentieth century Jewish artists such as Anatoli Lvovich Kaplan, Issachar Ber Ryback,
Marc Chagall, and
Chaim Goldberg. Kaplan, making his art in the
Soviet Union, was quite taken by the romantic images of the Klezmer in literature, and in particular in
Sholem Aleichem's
Stempenyu, and depicted them in rich detail.
In film
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Yidl Mitn Fidl (1936), directed by Joseph Green
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Fiddler on the Roof (1971), directed by Norman Jewison
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Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob (1973), directed by Gérard Oury
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Jewish Soul Music: The Art of Giora Feidman (1980), directed by Uri Barbash
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A Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden (1988), directed by Michal Goldman
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Fiddlers on the Hoof (1989), directed by Simon Broughton
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The Last Klezmer: Leopold Kozlowski: His Life and Music (1994), directed by Yale Strom
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Beyond Silence (1996), about a klezmer-playing clarinetist, directed by Charlotte Link
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A Tickle in the Heart (1996), directed by Stefan Schwietert
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Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler's House (1996), aired 29 June 1996 on Great Performances (PBS/WNET television series)
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L'homme est une femme comme les autres (1998, directed by Jean-Jacques Zilbermann with soundtrack by Giora Feidman)
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Dummy (2002), directed by Greg Pritikin
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Klezmer on Fish Street (2003), directed by Yale Strom
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Le Tango des Rashevski (2003) directed by Sam Garbarski
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Klezmer in Germany (2007), directed by Kryzstof Zanussi and C. Goldie
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A Great Day on Eldridge Street (2008), directed by Yale Strom
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The "Socalled" Movie
[ The "Socalled" Movie] (2010), directed by Garry Beitel
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The Klezmer Project, 2023 Argentine documentary
In literature
In Jewish literature, the klezmer was often represented as a romantic and somewhat unsavory figure.
However, in nineteenth century works by writers such as Mendele Mocher Sforim and
Sholem Aleichem they were also portrayed as great artists and virtuosos who delighted the masses.
Klezmers also appeared in non-Jewish Eastern European literature, such as in the epic poem
Pan Tadeusz, which depicted a character named Jankiel Cymbalist, or in the short stories of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.
In
George Eliot's
Daniel Deronda (1876), the
German Jews music teacher is named Herr Julius Klesmer.
The novel was later adapted into a Yiddish musical by
Avram Goldfaden titled (1908).
See also
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List of klezmer bands
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List of klezmer musicians
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Secular Jewish music
External links
