Chasing Yiddishkayt: a Concerto in the Context of Klezmer Music
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CHASING YIDDISHKAYT: A CONCERTO IN THE CONTEXT OF KLEZMER MUSIC A Monograph Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Musical Arts By Julia Alford-Fowler May, 2013 Committee Members: Dr. Matthew Greenbaum, Department of Music Studies, Advisor Dr. Rollo Dilworth, Department of Education Dr. Cynthia Folio, Department of Music Studies Dr. Maurice Wright, Department of Music Studies Dr. Steven Zohn, Department of Music Studies, Outside Reader © by Julia Alford-Fowler 2013 All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT Chasing Yiddishkayt: Music for Accordion, Klezmorim Concertino, Strings, and Percussion is a four-movement composition that combines the idioms of klezmer music with aspects of serialism. I aimed to infuse the piece with a sense of yiddishkayt: a recognizable, rooted Jewishness. In order to accomplish this goal, I based each movement on a different klezmer style. I used the improvisatory-style of the Romanian Jewish doina as the foundation for Movement 1. For Movements 2 through 4 I selected tunes from the 1927 Hoffman Manuscript–a fake-book assembled by Joseph Hoffman in Philadelphia for his son, Morris–as the starting point in my process, and also for the generation of pitch material. Each movement places the tunes in a different serialist context through the use of abstraction, manipulation and regeneration. The orchestration of the composition is designed as a modified a concerto structure that alternates between featuring the accordion and contrasting the klezmorim concertino (fiddle, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, tuba, and accordion) with the orchestra. Depending on the context, the percussion section functions as part of the concertino and the orchestra. In the monograph, I place the composition in a historical and musical context. In Chapter 1, I trace my travels to Kraków, Poland for the Jewish Culture Festival, where I began to explore and understand the intricate language of this music. In Chapter 2, I provide a summary of the history of klezmer music by looking at it through the context of a musical style that has developed across regional and cultural boundaries, and has drawn influences as far and wide as the Turkish maqam system in Constantinople, to the Moldavian Roms (Gypsies), to czarist Military bands, to jazz and swing, and to rock and roll. I conclude the chapter with a brief survey of four contemporary klezmer musicians iii of the new generation. In Chapter 3, I look at the modal structure of klezmer music. I used the work of Joshua Horowitz as the starting point for my research on various modal progressions and tetrachords. I then applied this research by analyzing a set of thirty freilechs in the Hoffman manuscript. In Chapter 4, I present an analysis of my composition as well as historical background for the tunes that I used as source material. I outline my future research goals in Chapter 5. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I must first thank my advisor, Matthew Greenbaum, whose ear for music has made my compositions what they are today and whose eye for editing has been endlessly patient. I am in debt to Joshua Horowitz for his unfailing mentorship, to Dan Blacksberg for including me in his community and encouraging me to push the boundaries of the music as far as I could take them, and to Elaine and Susan Hoffman Watts for the use of the Hoffman manuscript and for their warmth and kindness. Thank you to Hankus Netsky for his generosity in sharing his forthcoming book, Klezmer Philadelphia, to Sonia Gollance, for being my faithful expert in Yiddish and all things Jewish culture, and to those who have guided me as a novice klezmer, especially Lauren Brody, Steve Weintraub, Deborah Strauss, Jeff Warschauer, Sanne Möricke, and Frank London. I am grateful for my composer friends at Temple University for their willingness to go along with my crazy ideas, especially Annie Neikirk, Ryan Olivier, David Carpenter, Adam Vidiksis, James Falconi, Kento Watanabe, and Andrew Litts. I have had a continued wealth of support from the Music Studies faculty, especially Maurice Wright, Richard Brodhead, Cynthia Folio, Steven Zohn, Michael Klein, Steven Willier, David Canata, and Jeremy Gill. I am ever appreciative of my dear friends for their love and support, especially Dustin, Mengsen, Michael GW, Woods, Missy, Conrad, the gentlemen of Mercury Radio Theater, and my sister, Carrie Ann Alford. I cannot thank my parents, Tom Alford and Linda Leitch-Alford, enough for always encouraging my love of music and education. And finally, Kurt Alford-Fowler, who has schlepped my gear to Europe and Kerhonkson, NY, listened to my ideas, proofread my manuscript, suffered through MIDI renderings of my score, insisted that I never give up, and loved me eternally. v DEDICATION For Elaine, Susan, Dan and Josh Without whom this research would not have been possible. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................................v DEDICATION................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................x CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................1 Kazimierz and the Jewish Culture Festival..............................................................1 A Note on Yiddish and Hebrew Spelling ................................................................9 2. KLEZMER MUSIC HISTORY.....................................................................................10 Jewish Instrumentalists in the Middle Ages ..........................................................13 European Klezmer in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries ...........................15 Multifunctional Wedding Music................................................................15 Multicultural Influences.............................................................................18 Pale of Settlement ..........................................................................19 Haskalah and Hasidic Movements.................................................21 The Klezmer and Rom Relationship..............................................23 Cross-Cultural Interactions in Eastern Europe ..............................29 Mass Emigration to the United States and the American Style.............................34 Early Klezmorim in New York City..........................................................34 Weddings in the New World .........................................................36 Music Publishing and Recording...................................................37 Musicians.......................................................................................39 Post World War II Transitional Period ......................................................47 The Klezmer Revival .............................................................................................49 The Future of Klezmer...........................................................................................55 3. THE FUNCTION OF MODES WITHIN KLEZMER MUSIC ....................................62 Tendencies .............................................................................................................62 Modes.....................................................................................................................65 Freygish/Ahava Rabboh ............................................................................69 Mi Shebarach .............................................................................................70 Adonoy Moloch .........................................................................................71 Mogen Ovos...............................................................................................72 vii Modal Progression .................................................................................................72 Hoffman Manuscript Freilechs ..............................................................................76 Simple Progression ....................................................................................77 Complex modal progression .....................................................................78 Modal Interchange .....................................................................................80 Sequential Progression...............................................................................82 Case Study 1: Possible Use of Secondary Dominants...............................83 Case Study 2: Beregovski Comparison & Yishtabakh Maneuver....................................................85 Case Study 3: Cadences.............................................................................88 Group I: C Minor–D Major A........................................................90 Group II: D Major–C Minor–D Major A.......................................90 Group III: C Minor–D Major B .....................................................91 Group IV: D Major–C Minor–D Major B .....................................92 Group V: D Major..........................................................................92 Group VI: C Minor–D minor–Yishtabakh Cadence......................93 Group VII: (D