Kolberg and Jewish Music
The world of the Jews must have attracted Kolberg, who as an educated member of the intelligentsia must have been conscious of what was happening in Judaism in his times. The nineteenth century was indeed a time of the flourishing Hasidism, the travelling hazanim, the development of the Jewish Enlig...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Sciendo
2014-12-01
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| Series: | Musicology Today |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.2478/muso-2014-0010 |
| Summary: | The world of the Jews must have attracted Kolberg, who as an educated
member of the intelligentsia must have been conscious of what was
happening in Judaism in his times. The nineteenth century was
indeed a time of the flourishing Hasidism, the travelling hazanim, the
development of the Jewish Enlightenment movement (the Haskalah),
a great numbers of Jewish Tanzhaus openings. Jewish themes also
appear in almost every volume of Kolberg’s Complete Works. However,
Jews only formed the backdrop for the events taking place among
Poles. Only in the case of a few records left by Kolberg can we surmise
that the musical performers were themselves Jewish. This is most likely
true of five songs with texts in the Yiddish language. More melodies
set down in writing from the Jews or from the repertoire taken over
by Polish musicians are probably to be found among the pieces without
verbal text or referred to by Kolberg as ‘dances’. It is unknown whether
Jewish musicians played Jewish melodies for Kolberg, but we cannot
exclude the possibility of their performances constituting a basis
for some transcriptions of pieces that were not marked as Jewish. |
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| ISSN: | 1734-1663 2353-5733 |