Franz Schubert and the Vienna Synagogue
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Official Publication of the American Choral Directors Association US ISSN 0009-5028 AUGUST 1997 CHO .d Franz Schubert and the Vienna Synagogue Conducting a Prison Chorus • An Interview with Uwe Gronostay Healthy Soft Singing • Director's Rehearsal Checkup Franz Schubert and the Vienna Synagogue by Joshua R. Jacobson Seitenstettengasse Synagogue, Vienna Franz Schubert is the only great composer before the twen- could not own land, and were refused permission to build a tieth century to compose a setting in Hebrew of the liturgy for synagogue. As late as 1820 only 118 Jewish families had been the synagogue.! This article examines Schubert's unique com- given permission to live in Vienna. Conditions improved some- position and places it in the context of Vienna's social, cul- what during the next ten years under the brief reign of Maria tural, and religious life in the early nineteenth century. Theresa's son, Joseph II (1780-90). In 1782 he issued an "Edict of Tolerance" that included the following proclamation: Jews in Nineteenth-century Vienna Two hundred years ago Vienna was the cultural capital of Since the beginning of our reign, we have made it one of Europe. It functioned as the political. and commercial gateway our most important goals that all our subjects, whatever between East and West and served as the seat of the Hapsburg their nationaliry or religion, since they are accepted and dynasty and the Holy Roman Empire. It was the capital of tolerated in our state, should share in the public welfare Austria-Hungary and the home of Mozart, Salieri, Haydn, and which we are endeavoring to nurture, enjoy liberry in Beethoven. The city boasted magnificent palaces, idyllic parks, accordance with the law, and encounter no hindrance in splendid theaters, concert halls, and, of course, the beautiful obtaining their livelihood and increasing their general blue Danube. In 1810 writer Johann Friedrich Reichardt raved industry by all honorable means.3 about Vienna's cultural life: This very liberal policy reinforced Joseph II's reputation as Surely, for everyone who can enjoy the good things of an "enlightened despot." The seeds for this liberal humanism life, especially for the musical artist, Vienna is the richest, had been planted by the Industrial Revolution and then spread _____--"h=aRRiest, and most agreeable residence in Europe.2 throughout Europe by Napoleon in the late eighteenth and early nmeteenili centunes. ----- The predominant religion in Vienna at that time was Roman Catholicism. Prior to the nineteenth century; Jews were either Under the influence of various measures undertalcen with denied entry or barely tolerated in Vienna and most other regard to the Jews, there will no longer be any difference European cities. During the reign of Empress Maria Theresa between them and other citizens of our empire.4 (1740-80), Jews were required to wear identifYing yellow badges, In Vienna, and throughour Western Europe, Jews were Joshua R. Jacobson is Professor of Music and Director of beginning to leave the confines of ghetto life to participate for Choral Activities at Northeastern University, Boston, the first time in the cultural activities of the surrounding Massachusetts, and Adjunct Professor of Jewish Music at community. 5 They joined their middle-class neighbors at soirees Hebrew College, Brooldine, Massachusetts. of chamber music in private homes and attended concerts and operas in the new public theaters. AUGUST 1997 PAGE 9 These Jews began to lose their con- der why the music of their synagogue ingly out of place in the synagogue. There nection to the ancient homeland in the sounded so different. Some Jews must were no singers capable of performing Middle East, an emotional tie they had have been embarrassed by the negative music in Western notation. Furthermore, maintained ever since they were sent impression that their synagogue music the rabbis had imposed strict guidelines into exile by the Roman conquerors in made on many non-Jewish visitors. Com- on the music of the synagogue, intended the first century of the Common Era. poser Christian Friedrich Schubart wrote to preserve the ancient, monophonic The Jews of Vienna no longer consid- in 1806: Middle Eastern chant from alien accul- ered themselves temporary residents of turation. There were, from time to time, Austria as had their parents and grand- Who could possibly believe that the isolated and remarkable exceptions to this parents, biding their time until the ad- Jews, in times still had rule,_but, for the mostpaJ;t,_the_s}'na-__ vent oftl1elVIessiah who would rescue good taste, sang as horribly as the gogue did not admit European art music. them and return them to the Holy cantors in the synagogue today! At the beginning of the nineteenth cen- Land. They began to feel more like per- They distort the sound so horribly, tury, music in the Catholic churches of manent citizens. They began to feel very and their faces become often so red Vienna was splendid. After the passing of _comfortable_ll_Vienna._and_wanted_to ___and_blue_that one is sometimes . Haydn, Beethoven;·and Schubert;how.;;- blend in with their neighbors. They inclined to fear for their very lives. 6 ever, the situation deteriorated. Eduard changed their names, their mode of Hanslick wrote that one could hear only· dress, their residences, their system of Synagogue music was chanted by a "the musical bric-a-brac typical of a pe- education, and the language they spoke. male soloist called a hazzan. He sang the riod of intellectual inactivity and the great- They were not prepared, however, to ancient monophonic chants without in- est possible degeneration in Austria."7 renounce all their religious practices as strumental or choral accompaniment. In Another contemporary critic, Joseph many other Jews had done. In Ger- some synagogues he was assisted by two Mainzer, decried the terrible quality of many, some Jews had reformed the meshorerim-a bass and a boy soprano church music, chiding church musicians synagogue service to make it resemble, who created a primitive vocal accompa- for their "unholy devotion to operatic as much as possible, a Lutheran ser- niment. The chant was in Hebrew and fare," for "changing everything into a vice. Some families had even converted was improvised by the soloist based on waltz," and berating church "organists to Christianity-an option taken by ancient melodies that had been transmit- who make their pedals growl" for special Heinrich Heine, the family of Felix and ted in the oral tradition for generations. effects.s Surprisingly, the same authors Fanny Mendelssohn, and others. The rhythms were free, lacking a regular who wrote about the sorry state of music metric beat, and the soloist was expected in Vienna's churches during the 1820s Music in Synagogues to add a good deal of embellishment to found its only redemption in the exotic and Cathedrals the melodic line. The congregation was music of the synagogue. Mainzer, a Ger- The Jews of Vienna wanted to remove rarely silent; rather, they chanted the man composer who had studied for the the barriers that separated them from prayers aloud, not usually in unison with priesthood, found it ironic that the a their Catholic neighbors. Having been the soloist, creating a richly textured, un- cappella ideal of church music that had introduced to the operas, symphonies, coordinated heterophony. Before the disappeared from most churches could and chamber music of Mozart, Haydn, nineteenth century, music by the great be found in the Jewish service. He and Beethoven, many Jews began to won- Western composers would have been glar- quently went to hear the music at Vienna's synagogue: The synagogue was the only place where a stranger could finde, artistically speaking, a source of LIH£ ,AlL WOIIS Of · enjoyment that was as solid as it was dignified .... Never, except for the Sistine Chapel, has art given JACKSOM lillY me higher joy than in the They're all "NEW ISSUE" synagogue .... In seven months I until you've seen them! did not miss a single service. One has to ,attend no more than once, however, in order to find oneself instantly freed, as if by some sudden reaction, of all the odious .. prejudices against the Jews instilled TelephoneII (954) 563-1844 in us with baptism in early FAX (954) 563-9006 childhood. What makes the 170 N.E. 33rd St. Ft Lauderdale, FL 33334 singing of the ... Jews so attractive PAGE 10 CHORAL JOURNAL is precisely that it is not a simple in Jerusalem were drawn from one clan of the Viennese Jewish bourgeoisie. When play of the imagination, a cold exclusively-the tribe of Levi. Sulzer was a Sulzer arrived in Vienna, he found a beau- calculation, like that of the Levite; in the late eighteenth century, his tiful building, a sophisticated community, Christian .... The Dew] follows family's name was Levy. When they left the a liberal and well-educated rabbi, and a the inspiration of his religious village of Sulz to resettle in the town of liturgical music that was in wretched con- fervor, an irresistible need, an Hohenems, they became known as the dition. Sulzer wrote in his memoirs, "I enthusiasm carried to the point of Levys from Sulz, or the Sulzers, to distin- encountered chaos [when I arrived] in ecstasy; his singing is moving guish them from all the other Levys in Vienna, and 1 was unable to discover any 11 because it comes from a heart Hohenems. logic in this maze of opposing opinions." 12 pulsating with sacred emotions.9 Young Sulzer's musical talent was so great that the Jewish community of The English writer Frances Trollope also Hohenems decided to appoint the thir- praised the Vienna synagogue's music: teen-year-old boy as the hazzan of their synagogue.