Description
Book SynopsisJewish Music in Nineteenth Century America looks at key Jewish American musical figures and texts from the 19th century, demonstrating the significant influence central European traditions had during this period and complicating the notion that American Jewish musical traditions "progressed" from solo chant to canters and choirs.
Trade ReviewOccasionally an historical work provides the breadth and details of an era that forever changes our perceptions of that period. Judah Cohen's book accomplishes this feat for Jewish music in America in the nineteenth century.
* AJL Reviews *
The story Cohen tells by analyzing these musical works, their authors, underlying ideas, and envisaged practices is fascinating and thoroughly researched. . . . Cohen succeeds in his aim of "chronicling this era in musical terms" without requiring in-depth specialist music knowledge of the reader (p. 9). The author does not trail off in detailed musical analyses of individual compositions. Rather, he examines music publications as a whole, in designing a bigger picture of their genesis and history. He analyzes their scopes and paratexts, their authorship, their meaning for the performance and the liturgy, and their reception in Jewish communities. The generous use of illustrations, showing the original musical material rather than rewritten musical examples, gives an unaltered impression of the settings, layout, and presentation of the original works. A large number of quotations from primary sources, like the contemporary press and meeting minutes from community organizations, make this pioneering study a vivid reading. Unmuting the American Jewish nineteenth century, it is indeed an important contribution to American Jewish history and Jewish music studies.
-- Martha Stellmacher * H-Judaic *
Cohen's achievement here sets a high standard for historical musicology, engaging the archival record while contributing to the establishment of evidence-based criteria for identifying the "Jewish" in "Jewish Religious Music"—criteria that actively deconstruct inherited wisdom that has inhibited the scope of research agendas.
-- Jeremiah Lockwood * Musica Judaica *
Judah M. Cohen's work takes a refreshing approach to Jewish music history, which to date has been largely examined within its own context—that is, away from discussions of other sacred (or secular) music. . . . Cohen's work is an important addition to both Jewish music and more mainstream musicological literature.
-- Danielle Padley * Notes *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Accessing Supplemental Materials
Introduction
1. Early Strata: Of Choirs and Reform through the Mid-Nineteenth Century
2. The Sound of German Jewry: Hymnals and Singing Societies in Wilhelm Fischer's Zemirot Yisrael
3. Bildungsmusik: G. M. Cohen, B'nai B'rith, and the Voices of American Jewish Cultivation
4. Musical Populists: G. S. Ensel, Simon Hecht, and the Quest for the Singing Congregation
5. The 1866 Sulzerfeier: the Viennese Model and the Grandeur of the Urban Worship
6. A New Cantor, A New Repertoire: Zimrath Yah
7. The Path to The Union Hymnal
Conclusion: Restoring the Soundtrack of Jewish Life in Nineteenth Century America
Works Cited
Index
