Herzlian Zionism and the Chamber Music of the New Jewish School, 1912-1925 Erin Fulton

Q&A How did you become involved in doing research? I first began to do some musicological research around the age of 11 or 12 when I became curious about the musical traditions of a nearby sect of Holdeman Mennonites. Those first inquiries led me to become interested in the larger tradition of Anglo-American hymnody, and shape-note and dispersed-harmonic music in particular, which remains my primary research interest. How is the research process different from what you expected? The unusual resources that turn out to be helpful constantly surprise me. I About Erin Fulton always expected my research to draw primarily on books and sheet music, but correspondence and ephemera have proven increasingly useful to my HOMETOWN recent endeavors. Lane County, Kan. What is your favorite part of doing research? MAJOR I am a bibliophile at heart and love the smell and touch of old books. Musicology Working with 19th-century tune books at Spencer Research Library has become one of my fondest memories of KU. ACADEMIC LEVEL Senior RESEARCH MENTOR Ryan Dohoney Assistant Professor of Musicology Herzlian Zionism and the chamber music of the New Jewish School, 1912-1925 Erin Fulton The stated goals of the St. Petersburg scholarship has emphasized ease presenting compositions inspired Society for Jewish Folk Music—the of performance in encouraging by Russian Jewish folk music as organization around which the New chamber music composition during an expression of Herzlian Zionism. Jewish School of composition arose— these years. While smaller works By programming newly-written focused on the creation of opera and doubtless presented reduced fiscal works alongside canonic chamber large-scale choral and symphonic and logistical challenges, two political pieces, these composers drew on works. However, the middle factors also contributed to this the perceived importance and period of the New Jewish School interest in chamber music. profundity of the chamber repertoire (ca. 1912-1925) was dominated Firstly, the Society used touring to legitimize their own music and instead by chamber music.1 Previous chamber ensembles as propaganda, the political agenda they supported. 1 “Chamber music” refers to art music for a small ensemble in which each player is responsible for his or her own part, as opposed to symphonic or choral practice in which multiple performers play or sing the same part. Chamber instrumentations have historically been associated with music intended for private performance, frequently meant for the performers’ rather than an audience’s pleasure. Because of this, chamber music acquired, and to some degree still holds, a reputation for being intricate and erudite, written with a musically literate audience in mind. 30 | journal OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH Secondly, the reverence in which of Settlement, anti-Semitic violence assimilation. Since many Cultural Herzlian Zionists held Yiddish folk only increased, especially after Zionists viewed traditional Judaism culture led New Jewish School reports of Jewish involvement in the as outmoded, they aimed to construct composers to draw on klezmer 1881 assassination of Alexander II.3 a secular culture—based in the music, a genre already associated The aesthetic ideals of Herzlian revival of the Hebrew language— with chamber instrumentations.2 Zionism centered on creating an that Jews could adopt while still As Hebraicist ideals that came into independent and distinctly Jewish art participating in European society. vogue with Cultural Zionism in that could serve as a legitimization At the dawn of the twentieth the late 1920s fostered a musical of their political cause; nationalist century, a contradiction weighed on idiom drawing instead on cantorial art was a proof of nationhood. Herzl the Russian Jewish intelligentsia: chant, the importance of chamber himself wrote that the Jewish state a disproportionate number of music to the New Jewish School would be “a model country for social professional musicians were Jews, yet correspondingly declined. This experiments and a treasure house there was no distinctly “Jewish” art examination of the role of Herzlian for works of art,” one worthy of the music for them to perform. As a St. Zionism in encouraging chamber admiration of the established nations Petersburg newspaper stated in 1909, music composition during the whose support he was attempting They say that we Jews are the most middle period of the New Jewish to garner.4 As nationalist artists had musical nation, that the violin is our School further confirms the far- done throughout the nineteenth national instrument; we have given the reaching influence of Zionism on the century, Zionists turned to their folk world composers of genius; we have blossoming of Russian Jewish art in culture for inspiration, especially more professional musicians among the early twentieth century. that of Yiddish-speaking Eastern us than any other people […but] you Herzlian Zionism took its name European Jews. will hardly find another nation whose from Theodor Herzl, the journalist Around 1900, Achad Ha’am national music has been so much and political theorist who founded established the foundations of neglected as ours.5 the World Zionist Organization Cultural Zionism, which would in 1897. Herzlian Zionists rejected gradually overtake Herzlian Zionism The examples set by Zionism, assimilation as a viable option for following the refusal of the Ottoman Russian nationalist art, and the last European Jews, claiming that they Empire to relinquish Palestine to breath of the Haskalah supported would never flourish except in a state Jewish control. Ha’am postulated a flourishing of Russian Jewish art of their own, preferably in Palestine. that, since the establishment of a and literature in the final years of Herzlian Zionism found the most Jewish state was impossible under the nineteenth century.6 The work favor among Eastern European, and the current political circumstances, of Marc Chagall in visual art and of especially Russian, Jews, who did Jews would have to create a Abram Efros in poetry are examples not have the level of emancipation respectable role for themselves of this burst of activity.7 After enjoyed by those in Western Europe. within the Diaspora. Cultural Zionists lagging behind the other arts, music Even as the Russian government considered their main threat to be blossomed into the New Jewish relaxed some restrictions on Jewish not anti-Semitism but the loss of a School of composition. activity and travel outside the Pale distinctive cultural identity through 2 Klezmer music is a genre of instrumental music typical of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe. Small ensembles of four or five musicians known as klezmorim, led by a pair of violins, would perform dance music, improvisations, and paraliturgical pieces for holidays and other celebrations. 3 The Pale of Settlement was an area of the Russian Empire encompassing much of modern-day Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Moldova, and Lithuania, founded by Catharine the Great in 1791 and dissolved in 1917. Russian Jews were forbidden to permanently settle outside the Pale of Settlement without special permission, frequently requiring conversion to Christianity. Most of the composers of the New Jewish School were such semi-assimilated Jews living outside the Pale. 4 Isaiah Friedman, “Herzl, Theodor,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2009), 9: 55. 5 James Loeffler, The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 7. 6 The “Haskalah” refers to the so-called “Jewish Enlightenment,” a movement towards increased rationalism and secularism in Ashkenazic thought generally traced back to Moshe Mendelssohn (1729-1786). 7 Jascha Nemtsov and Beate Schröder-Nauenburg, Der Eintritt des Jüdischen in die Welt der Kunstmusik: die Anfänge der Neuen Jüdischen Schule, werkanalytische Studien (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), 18. Fall 2012 – Spring 2013 | 31 Several composers who would Scholars have long divided inaugural public concert in 1909.14 eventually be associated with the the music of the New Jewish The emphasis on chamber music New Jewish School turned towards School into three periods. This only increased in the middle period, Jewish nationalism in music view likely originated with Aron when members of the New Jewish independently and at roughly the Marko Rothmüller, who traces the School started applying chamber same time. Perhaps earliest were a development of the School thus: instrumentations to typically large- group of students from the Moscow first, an initial period focusing on scale genres. For example, Yoel Conservatory who presented an the collection and arrangement of Engel’s incidental music for Shlomo opera for the festival of Purim to the folk music; second, a middle period Anski’s Yiddish play Der Dibuk oder Zacharievka Kruyok salon in 1894.8 in which folk melodies become Tzvishn Tsvey Veltn is scored for Seven years later, Efrayim Shkliar bases for free compositions, almost only six players.15 A similar focus and Shlomo Rosovsky founded universally for chamber ensemble; on chamber music is evident in the Kinor Tziyon, a club of St. Petersburg and finally a mature period marked activities of the Moscow chapter of Conservatory students dedicated to by a preference for larger forms and the Society. After its founding in 1912, the composition of Jewish art music; the abandonment of folk tunes for chamber music performances were Shkliar was

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