Description
Book SynopsisThe prevailing essentialist assumptions about 'Jewish music,' maintain that ethnic groups, nations, or religious communities possess an essence that must manifest itself in art created by members of that group. This book scrutinizes concepts of Jewish identity and reorders ideas about twentieth-century 'Jewish music' in three case studies.
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Note on Transliteration Introduction I. JEWISH NATIONALISM A LA RUSSE: THE SOCIETY FOR JEWISH FOLK MUSIC 1. "Trifles of Jewish Music" 2. Zhidi and Yevrei in a Neonationalist Context II. MAN'S MOST DANGEROUS MYTH: ERNEST BLOCH AND RACIAL THOUGHT 3. Racial Mystique: Anti-Semitism and Ernest Bloch's Theories of Art 4. Denied and Accepted Stereotypes: From Jezabel to Schelomo 5. The Confines of Judaism and the Elusiveness of Universality: The Sacred Service III. UTOPIAS/DYSTOPIAS: ARNOLD SCHOENBERG'S SPIRITUAL JUDAISM 6. Uneasy Parallels: From German Nationalism to Jewish Utopia 7. Torsos and Abstractions: "Music in Its Promised Land" 8. On the Ashes of the Holocaust: Anxiety, Abstraction, and Schoenberg's Rhetoric of Fear 9. A Taste for "the Things of Heaven": Cleansing Music of Politics Postscript: "Castle of Purity" Notes Bibliography Index
