The Music of Eric Zeisl: Jacob and Rachel, Variations on a Slovakian Folk Song (CD Review)

The Music of Eric Zeisl: Jacob and Rachel, Variations on a Slovakian Folk Song (Albany Records, 2019)

Los Angeles Jewish Symphony; Noreen Green, Artistic Director

Reviewed by Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

Composer Eric Zeisl (1905-1959) was born into a lower middle-class family of Czech background in Vienna’s Jewish quarter (Leopoldstadt). His parents operated a café and maintained an identifiably Jewish, if not religious, household. The Zeisls were not “tribal” Jews; social and economic mobility outweighed whatever particularistic or ritual concerns they might have had. Still, according to Eric’s wife, lawyer Gertrud Zeisl (née Jellinek, 1806-1987), Eric learned to read Hebrew as a child (without understanding the meaning) and on Shabbat mornings would accompany his grandfather to a synagogue “in the backstreets.” These early experiences informed Zeisl’s use of a “Hebraic element” in a number of compositions.

Like many middle-class European Jewish families, the Zeisls viewed art music as a pathway to acculturation and integration into society. Piano lessons were a fixture in their home. The four Zeisl brothers each needed the piano for practice (two were singers), but Eric just wanted to “play.” Eric’s parents, concerned that he would never make a living in music, discouraged him from following his passion. Undeterred, Eric reportedly sold his stamp collection in order to pursue advanced studies. After a short time at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts, he continued learning privately with Richard Stöhr, a Viennese Jewish composer born in the same year as Arnold Schoenberg. In stark contrast to his better-known contemporary, Stöhr was a traditionalist who championed a nineteenth-century musical language. Zeisl would himself carry the traditionalist torch, favoring tonality and direct emotionalism over the cerebral systems fashionable at the time.

In the early 1930s, Zeisl studied with the conservative Joseph Marx and the progressive Hugo Kauder. Zeisl internalized Kauder’s infatuation with Gustav Mahler, bringing Mahlerian influence to the fore in the final movement of his First String Quartet (premiered in 1933), which features a Slovak melody he later developed into Variations on a Slovakian Folk Song for string orchestra (1937). The latter piece is faithfully performed on this new CD.

When avant-garde music was targeted for prohibition in the early years of the Nazi regime, Zeisl’s traditional sound was more or less tolerated. It was therefore especially tragic when he and Gertrud were forced to flee to Paris in November 1938—narrowly escaping the events of Kristallnacht—leaving his parents behind in Austria. They stayed in Paris for about a year. Unable to find financial security, they arrived in New York in September 1939. Zeisl befriended Hanns Eisler, a fellow Austrian who was teaching composition at the New School of Social Research. Eisler was leaving for Hollywood to work in film, and helped Zeisl secure an eighteen-month contract with MGM.

Zeisl arrived in Los Angeles in 1942. He was among the youngest and least connected of Hollywood’s émigré composers, an illustrious group that included “Hollywood Sound” architects Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, and Miklós Rózsa. A relative late-comer to the competitive film industry, he was limited to writing uncredited “moods” for short scenes and musical effects. Unable to secure a long-term contract from MGM or any other studio, Zeisl became a freelancer, working on background cues for more than twenty films between 1942 and 1958, ranging from Lassie Come Home (1943) to Abbot and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951). Zeisl found more stable employment after the war as an instructor of composition, first at the Southern California School of Music and Arts and, beginning in 1949, at Los Angeles City College.

From 1948 to 1950, Zeisl served as composer-in-residence at the Brandeis Arts Institute for young Jewish artists, musicians, and performers in Simi Valley. The experience allowed him to further explore a Jewish musical aesthetic, and inspired the “Brandeis Sonata” for violin and piano (1949-50), perhaps his best-known chamber work. His time at the Brandeis camp was bookended by compositions on Jewish themes, notably Requiem Ebraico (1945) for SAB soli, SATB choir, and organ (or orchestra)—a tragic setting of Psalm 92 commissioned by German-born Rabbi Jacob Sonderling, considered the first serious musical reflection on the Holocaust—and the biblical ballets Naboth’s Vineyard (1953) and Jacob und Rachel (1954).

Max Helfman, music director of the Brandeis Institute and a noted synagogue composer, was drawn to Zeisl’s use of “Hebraicisms”: stylized echoes of synagogal modes and Jewish folksong. Helfman’s compositions and arrangements similarly display a preference for modal melodies (using diatonic scales that are not strictly major or minor), pentatonic flavors, parallel fourths and fifths, and other vaguely Eastern (or Middle Eastern) elements meant to convey a “Jewish essence.” (To some extent, these propensities mirror those of the Eastern Mediterranean style of composition, which flourished in Israel among European immigrants and native-born Israelis in the 1930s-40s.) In Helfman’s assessment, Zeisl’s Hebraic sensibilities produced “compositions which spring strengthened and renewed from a base which unites East and West through the harmonies of the one and the techniques of the other” (B’nai B’rith Messenger, Oct. 6, 1950).

Zeisl undertook the ballet Jacob and Rachel with a grant from the New York Art Foundation and the University of Judaism (now American Jewish University) in Los Angeles. Together with Russian-born dancer and choreographer Benjamin Zemach (1902-1997), he adapted scenes from the biblical narrative. As Malcom E. Cole, the late musicologist and Zeisl scholar, explains in the liner notes accompanying the CD: “The action begins with Esau declaring his intent to slay his brother Jacob (Genesis 27:41). Jacob flees. After various encounters—human and divine—he fulfills the seven years of labor he pledged in return for his uncle Laban’s permission to marry the beloved daughter, Rachel. A trickster [like Jacob], Laban on the couple’s wedding night, replaces Rachel with Leah, the older sister.” Some incidents are omitted, others are embellished, and the ballet concludes with an invented ending: “embracing as they sit on a hill, Jacob and Rachel see a vision of angels and listen to God reiterate his promise [to Abraham, Genesis 22:17-18].”

Financial issues prevented Jacob and Rachel from being performed in Zeisl’s lifetime. The long-overdue world premiere took place on May 9, 2009, fifty years after the composer died of a sudden heart attack at age 53. Underwritten by E. Randol Schoenberg (grandson of Eric Zeisl and Arnold Schoenberg) and his wife, Pamela Lynn Schoenberg, the ballet was performed by the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony (LAJS), under conductor Noreen Green, and the BODYTRAFFIC Dance Company.

The recording of Jacob and Rachel, released in early 2019 to commemorate LAJS’s twenty-fifth year, was also underwritten by the Schoenbergs. Exquisitely executed and finely recorded at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, the ballet gives mature expression to Zeisl’s Judaic sound.

Punctuated by plucked strings, driving rhythms, percussive piano, and fluttering reeds and flutes—techniques used to replicate Middle Eastern aesthetics—Jacob and Rachel has a distinctive “Eastern” quality. At the same time, it is highly cinematic, with whole-tones underpinning the “neither here nor there” mysteriousness of “Night” (track 3) and a concluding passage suitable for “The End” title of any Hollywood epic (track 22).

“Hebraicisms” are heard in the “exotic” parallel fourths and fifths and shofar-like trombone in “Jacob’s Dream” (track 4), which also introduces a folk-like theme played to different rhythms throughout the piece (e.g., “Rachel Appears,” track 7; “Rachel Enters,” track 18; “Finale—The Promise Reiterated,” track 22). “The Wandering Feast” (track 17) and other dances could have sprung from Slovakian, Eastern European, or Israeli repertoires, while “Slaves at Work” (track 9) has hints of a quirky Raymond Scott ditty.

Noreen Green and the LAJS have done a great service in bringing this little-known work to life. One can only imagine that Eric Zeisl, who was regrettably underappreciated in his day, would have whole-heartedly endorsed this brilliant realization of his unique musical voice.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.

Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel (Book Review)

Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel, by Robert D. Miller II, Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011. 154 pp.

Reviewed by Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

The concept of oral tradition has long captivated scholars and lay readers of the Hebrew Bible. Many find comfort in the notion that behind the written text is a sturdy and unfailing oral tradition, able to preserve accurate memories across generations. This hypothesis gained support when Hermann Gunkel (1862-1932), the founder of form criticism (which attempts to trace scriptural units to oral transmission), encountered the writings of Wilhelm Wundt. Wundt posited that human societies advance in predictable stages parallel to the development of the complexity of language—that is, from oral/illiterate to written/literate. Gunkel applied Wundt’s theory to the Bible, concluding that oral folklore was at the root of Israel’s stories. His position picked up steam with the oral-formulaic theory of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, whose study of epic poems led them to conclude that illiterate poets employed groups of repeated words (formulas) to retain and transmit their poetry. A certain percentage of formulas present in a written text was considered evidence of oral composition.

The oral-formulaic theory remains entrenched in biblical scholarship, with Lord’s The Singer of Tales (1960) occupying a particularly hallowed space. However, numerous holes have been poked in the theory since the late 1980s. Folklorists, classicists, anthropologists, and ethnomusicologists have exposed its limited applicability, and the absence of any one touchstone of oral tradition. For example, some oral folklore contains no formulas (e.g., Old Norse-Icelandic Skaldic poetry), some cultures value word-for-word memorization (e.g., Maori and Somali), and many societies produce oral and written literature simultaneously.

Robert D. Miller explores the latter observation in his slim but informative book, Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel. Miller, an associate professor of Old Testament at the Catholic University of America, advocates abandoning the outdated and simplistic linear model, in which oral stories circulate among bards and storytellers, are eventually written down, and are then recited or chanted to illiterate audiences. In its place, Miller proposes a fluid oral-written model for biblical literature, wherein “written texts circulated in spoken form by recitation long after they were committed to writing. And those recited forms begat oral forms that were not in writing, or were not put in writing for some time afterwards. Oral texts that circulated from bard to audience or bard to bard could be recorded in writing, could be consulted by writers, could be consulted by bards of other stories” (p. 54).

Miller appropriates Anthony Campbell’s “User Theory,” which sees the biblical narrative neither as a record of oral lore nor as a literary composition, but as “written outlines for oral elaboration (or for omission in performance)” (p. 55). This could explain why the ancient editors allowed alternative accounts and conflicting details into the text. Such kernels were, perhaps, optional rubrics to be chosen from for oral performance. This could also account for anachronistic accretions and other anomalies sprinkled throughout the stories. As the outlines were used and re-used in various contexts, they picked up ingredients from the local geography, social conditions, prevailing attitudes, regional folktales, and the like—some of which were recorded in writing.

These possibilities lie at the heart of Miller’s performance-centered analysis. In his reading, the Hebrew Bible is partially made up of “gobbets”: intentionally crafted memory aids that function as generic markers for narrative construction. They include story patterns, structural pathways, character sketches, images of situations, and traditional phraseology. These basic elements, swimming together in “tradition pools,” were selected and activated in performance or for a written text (pp. 37-38). The storyteller would assemble selected gobbets in a semi-rigid order, varying the details and style of delivery according to the needs of the moment, and modifying them to suit the setting. This improvisatory picture is enhanced by the likelihood that the performers told their stories with some sort of chant: a flexible spectrum of vocal utterance that includes plain speech, sung speech, spoken song, syllabic song, melismatic song, and adventurous vocalizations (p. 104).

The most tentative portion of Miller’s book deals with identifying orally derived bits in the Hebrew Bible. Although he confidently argues for the Bible as an accumulation of oral and written material, he hesitates to make definite statements regarding specific scriptural sections. That being said, his oral performance approach does shed light on the perplexing “bare gobbets,” such as empty references to Nimrod (Gen. 10:9) and the “giants” Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai (Num. 13:22), which were likely allusions to other stories and possibly served as starting points for individual storytellers. Miller also points out evidently oral elements in Genesis 49:9-12, 22-25 (Jacob’s final blessing), Numbers 24:17-19 (Balaam’s fourth oracle), and elsewhere, such as parallelism, ambiguous syntax, repetitions, obvious gaps, and broken connections.

With Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel, Miller offers a rich analysis of the interplay between literacy and orality in the Hebrew Bible. He paints a convincing portrait of bards and storytellers in antiquity composing from both oral and written sources, inserting their own contributions, and performing their tales. This lively picture stands in contrast to the fixed text as we have it today, and highlights the functional aspect of scripture.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.

A Musical Heart

Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

The human heart was an object of fascination in the ancient world. Its position in the center of the body and extending circuitry of veins and arteries made it an organ of obvious importance and wide speculation. With only a rudimentary grasp of anatomy and physiology, the ancients envisioned the heart as the generator of fundamental human qualities. It was not valued for its mechanical function, but for its supposed control over aspects of our personalities. Yet, while almost every culture developed heart imagery, the details varied drastically from place to place.

The Hebrew Bible describes the heart as the locus of intelligence, reason and diligent deliberation. It makes virtually no connection between the heart and emotions, and never associates it with romantic love. Having a heart meant possessing wisdom; lacking a heart meant stupidity. It was a storehouse of lessons and memories—“Take to heart [remember] these instructions with which I charge you this day” (Deut. 6:6)—and was distinguished from the spiritual essence of our being—“serve the Lord your God with all your heart [intellect] and soul” (Deut. 29:4). In fact, the body’s non-rational center was thought to be the kidneys, as depicted in Proverbs 23:16: “I shall rejoice with all my kidneys.”

Clearly, this biblical symbolism has little to do with the heart in Western culture. This is because our conception has roots in non-biblical sources, mainly Egypt, Greece and Rome. The racing heart is a recurring motif in the love songs of ancient Egypt, and the influential Roman physician Galen (129–c. 200 C.E.) identified the heart as the seat of emotions. These ideas permeate our society, where the heart denotes romance, compassion, enthusiasm, deep feelings and desire-based decisions.

As opposite as the biblical and Western images are, they do merge elegantly in the experience of music. Music simultaneously makes us feel and stimulates cognitive interest. When we hear a piece of music, we are first struck by its emotional effect. But this is not enough to hold our attention. Almost immediately, we begin to process the unfolding sound and ponder why it makes us feel a certain way. This is normally understood as the engagement of heart and mind. However, we can also see it as the triggering of the emotional heart and the intellectual heart.

Music is unusual in its ability to captivate both our rational and non-rational sides. It is a complete human experience. Of course, the emotional and intellectual appeal of a piece is never perfectly balanced. Music, like the people who make it, tends to emphasize one aspect over the other. Still, even the most academic work can touch us on a sentimental level, while the simplest song can activate the brain. In this sense, music is a “whole heart” phenomenon.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.

After the Song

Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

The biblical account of the Israelites’ journey out of Egypt concludes with the fabled crossing of the Red Sea. As the story goes, Moses held out his arm over the sea and split the waters, revealing a path of dry ground leading to freedom’s shore. When the sea march was complete, Moses raised his arm again, this time causing the waters to fall upon the pursuing Egyptians. The unlikely victory filled the Israelites with a mixture of elation and awe. Mere words could not express the magnitude of their feelings or do justice to the spectacle they had witnessed. Without hesitation and without rehearsal, they burst forth in a spontaneous yet poetically elaborate song of gratitude (Exod. 15:1-21).

Though clearly legendary, this episode is musically significant. It is the first prayer-song we encounter in the Bible and the first example of what might be called congregational singing. It shows music performance as a natural response to momentous events and overwhelming emotions. It presents song as a means of proclaiming group affiliation and expressing national pride.

These and other aspects of the musical occasion are repeated elsewhere in the Bible and are common to human societies throughout the ages. The depiction of the Red Sea song is memorable in large part because it resonates with our own experiences. Most of us have, at one time or another, felt the camaraderie of communal singing, turned to music as an emotional outlet, or used songs to assert our identities. These universal musical functions are readily ascertained from the climactic song of the exodus. There is, however, a less obvious but similarly important role the song plays in the biblical narrative: the return to normalcy.

A characteristic remark appears in the verses leading up to the Red Sea crossing. Catching sight of the advancing Egyptian army, the frightened Israelites ask Moses, “Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness?’” (14:11-12). This sort of complaint—and the lack of trust underlying it—recurs throughout the Israelites’ desert sojourn. They were unmitigated complainers, constantly pressing Moses to satisfy their physical and psychological needs, and prove the alleged might and compassion of their deity.

We can, then, classify as anomalous the exuberant words of thanksgiving the Israelites sang while gazing at the sea. Although springing organically from their lips, the lyrics were a departure from their ordinary disposition. Indeed, the scene’s immensity is accentuated by the fact that the song was so atypical of this grumbling lot. The Israelites were stunned  both by the remarkable chain of events and by the unusual feelings it excited. The rush of sentiments and sensations was unlike anything they had experienced before, and singing was the best they could do to deal with it. The song’s success in this regard is demonstrated shortly after the music stopped: “the people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’” (15:24).

This normalizing effect should be added to the more familiar musical elements of Exodus 15 (e.g., congregational singing, emotional outlet and identity assertion). When the course of life is interrupted by dramatic incidents—big or small, good or bad—music can help ease the transition back to a comfortable and ordinary state. If the exodus legend is any indication, this effect was as well appreciated by the ancients as it is today.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.

Everyone’s a Critic

Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

The second half of the Book of Exodus concerns itself mostly with the construction of the Tabernacle: the portable sanctuary the Israelites reportedly used during their journey from Egypt to Canaan. As the Bible tells it, the structure was built according to meticulous specifications revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. “Exactly as I show you,” God commands Moses, “the pattern of the Tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishing—so shall you make it” (Exod. 25:9). An array of artistic skills are needed for fashioning the extensive and minute details of the glorious tent, from architecture to embroidery to interior design. We read excruciating particulars about different woods, fabrics, dyes, precious metals and lustrous stones. There are instructions regarding materials needed for the Ark (ch. 25), partitions (ch. 26), copper altar (ch. 27), priestly vestments (ch. 28), anointing oils (ch. 30) and on and on. Adding to the ploddingness, there is enormous repetition throughout these punctilious verses, which amount to the largest and most exhausted single subject in the entire Pentateuch.

Contrast this with the Bible’s crudeness and over-simplicity when addressing the ways of nature. Biblical apologists usually paint these childlike passages as reflective of the intellectual and technological development of people at the time, not the knowledge of the heavenly creator. Stories of the origins of life, the positioning of celestial bodies, the mechanisms of earthquakes and the like are presented in imagery and terminology the Israelites could understand. Thus, palpability of information was an act of divine wisdom and compassion rather than an indication of naiveté.

Underlying this comparison is a still-pervasive reality: we are open and critical when discussing art, yet we freely concede ignorance when science becomes too complex. Works of art, like the Tabernacle, are designed to have a visceral and instant impact upon us. That is why sacred spaces from ancient days to the present are regularly adorned with eye-catching features. Scientific explanations, like those absent from the Bible, often exceed the average person’s ability to comprehend. That is why scientific inquiry is the domain of a highly intelligent, highly trained and highly specialized few. While art is for immediate human consumption, science seeks the best explanations for complicated phenomena, however unapproachable the methods or outcomes might be.

One result is that we fancy ourselves qualified to judge artistic creations, and do so impulsively. The reason the Tabernacle had to be made a certain way is the same reason we like art to look or sound a certain way: aesthetic preference. Our natural response to scientific work is essentially the opposite. When we come across scientific data, we tend to throw up our hands in a gesture simultaneously signaling ignorance and awe.

Bertrand Russell described these reactions in The Conquest of Happiness. “When the public cannot understand a picture or a poem,” he wrote, “they conclude that it is a bad picture or a bad poem. When they cannot understand the theory of relativity they conclude (rightly) that their education has been insufficient. Consequently Einstein is honored while the best painters are (or at least were) left to starve in garrets, and Einstein is happy while the painters are unhappy.”

Partly because of his awareness of this human tendency and partly because of his professed ignorance of art, Russell, when asked “What is your attitude toward art today?” replied, “I have no view about art today.” He elaborated in another interview: “You ask why I have never written on the subject of painting. The chief reason is that I suffer from an inadequate appreciation of pictures. I get very great delight from music and also from architecture, but for some reason I get much less from painting and sculpture. This inability makes we unable to form any judgment from the reproduction of the picture . . .”

Russell’s responsible remarks are far from the norm. Most of us are quick to voice our opinions on paintings, buildings, sculptures, poems and music, usually blurting out the unsophisticated (and basically meaningless) words “good” and “bad.” As Russell noted, our assessments hinge mainly on whether or not we understand the art work. But when it comes to science, the less comprehensible the theory or concept, the more impressive it is.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.

Musical Canons

Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

The canonization of the Hebrew Bible occurred in several stages, though it is difficult to determine how and when it coalesced into the standard version we have today. Despite the enormous significance of the process and its monumental outcome, there is no direct record of the canon’s origination or the criteria employed by those who fixed it. Certainly the canonized books do not comprise the entire literary output of ancient Israel, nor were its books the only ones reputed to be holy or believed to be written under divine influence. The Bible itself lists several collections that were, for one reason or another, excluded from the final edition and thus lost to history (e.g., the “Book of the Wars of the Lord” referenced in Num. 21:14 and the “Book of Jashar” cited in Josh. 10:13 and 2 Sam. 1:18). In the absence of contemporaneous documentation, scholars have had to rely on indirect evidence, such as early surviving versions of biblical texts and later discussions of canonization in rabbinic sources. As a result, any suggestion of a timeline is tentative, speculative and subject to revision.

Perhaps the best that can be claimed are these points from Marc Zvi Brettler. First, the final phases of canonization were a reaction to the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E., a crisis that spurred the transformation of the Jews from a people of territory to the People of the Book. Second, canonization was not just a top-down procedure conducted by groups of elites. Certain works were already considered authoritative by large segments of the population, and their inclusion amounted to official recognition of their significance. Third, the canonization process was highly inclusive, yielding an anthology of works reflecting the assorted cultural, ideological, theological and aesthetic tapestry of ancient Israel.

The three attributes of cultural necessity, two-directional selection and representative sampling are also present in the formation of musical canons: corpuses of pieces viewed as illustrative of a place, period or group. Every age and every genre generates far too much music to be remembered or retained in wide usage. Statistically, there can only be a few survivors. As the (subjectively determined) cream rises to the top it is packaged into a canon, which may take the form of a songbook, performance repertoire, industry list, greatest hits album or another type of essentially stable compilation.

Like the Bible, musical canons help preserve the cultures they represent. A book of show tunes from the 1920s, for example, will contain only a fraction of pieces written for that setting. But its selections—which have earned enough notoriety to be included—are received as exemplary of the period, and are thus an important part of American heritage. As with biblical literature, the anthologized sounds carry associations with their place of origin and contribute to the self-understanding of those who have inherited them.

Canons of music also mirror the biblical canon in that they arise through a mixture of top-down and bottom-up processes. The former is a conscious and calculated effort of authoritative entities, such as entertainment executives, academicians, cultural societies, publishing houses and professional organizations. These influential bodies can—and often do—play a considerable role in determining what reaches the ears of the general populace. However, the latter movement—bottom-up—is historically more prevalent. For example, the musical menus of synagogues and churches most commonly take shape through the organic forces of taste and time. According to Roman Catholic theologian Edward Schillebeeckx, new music enters religious services on an ephemeral (temporary) circle. If the music is not rejected outright, it may pass into a conjectural (more stable) circle, and from there eventually be incorporated into a structural (mainstream) circle. This natural selection accounts for the survival and continued singing of a handful of melodies from disparate periods and locations, as well as the “new traditions” that emerge within a generation.

Musical canons also possess an inclusiveness resembling that of the Bible. Though they epitomize a certain kind of music or music accepted by a particular group, the collections display internal diversity. The very term representative implies a snapshot of the music-culture as a whole, which rarely (if ever) is a homogenous soundscape. One need only survey contemporary songs on the radio to appreciate the diversity of our popular music. A select few of these recordings—which are themselves a tiny sliver of songs being made—will be included in the retrospective canon of American popular music of the 2010s.

Due to the limited size of a musical canon and the variable factors that affect its complexion, worthy pieces are inevitably left out while questionable ones invariably appear. This, too, is a characteristic of the Hebrew Bible. Yet, despite such inescapable flaws—and the calls for revision they may provoke—canons remain crucial contrivances for condensing, conserving, shaping and sharing culture.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.

Ritual Chickens and Musical Eggs

Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

John Blacking, the late British ethnomusicologist, posed an ostensibly innocuous question: “Which came first: music or ritual?” The conventional assumption is that ritual was first, since ceremonies seeking contact with the spirit world arose in the early phases of human evolution. Music and dance, it is thought, were added to ritual as a reliable means of promoting the desired atmosphere. But Blacking postulated that it might have been the other way around. Just as children instinctively dance, sing and gravitate toward instruments well before they begin to walk or talk—let alone engage in structured activities—musical experimentation might have been the primordial spark that ignited ideas of a supernatural realm and eventually led to ceremonial enactments. The absorbing effect of music—mysterious to peoples ancient and modern—sent the mind groping for otherworldly explanations. To ensure that musical-spiritual sensations would be controlled and repeatable, increasingly complex mélanges of words, objects and gestures were devised, and music took on a (seemingly) secondary status. In other words, music was the egg that hatched religion.

This scenario is entirely plausible. Music was discovered long before religious behaviors developed and could have inspired beliefs about contactable spirits. But since we are so distant from that prehistoric moment, a conclusive statement on musico-religious origins remains out of reach. What is uncontestable is that music and ritual have been joined for millennia.

This is important when examining liturgical segments of the Hebrew Bible. Although the book is brimming with prayer-songs—including a daunting assortment of 150 psalms—references to associated rituals are surprisingly sparse. Even if we presume—as we do—that prayers were regularly sung in ceremonial contexts, the Bible itself provides only hints of confirmation. In fact, it is our own experience of music in ritual that best supports a biblical link between music, liturgy and cultus. Were it not for that alliance, we could hardly account for the preservation and transmission of psalms over extended periods prior to their canonization. But again, concrete evidence is lacking.

The place of song within biblical religion is treated extensively in the writings of Sigmund Mowinckel. Taking a “cult functional” approach, Mowinckel maintained that all of the psalms were connected to the cult: they both originated in and were intended for communal ritual. Placing this general claim in a specific setting, Mowinckel attached more than forty psalms to a hypothetical autumnal New Year festival. His grounds for this celebration came from the Babylonian New Year feast, which celebrated the rule of the chief deity Marduk and the corresponding earthly reign of the king of Babylonia. The king played a major role in this dramatic celebration, and was a central figure in cultic activities more generally. Mowinckel proposed that the festival, which had pre-Davidic roots but apparently lingered in the Israelites’ consciousness, was the basis for Israel’s own autumn New Year commemoration (Exod. 23:16; 34:24; Lev. 23:23–24). According to Mowinckel, the event culminated with the procession of the Ark to the Temple, representing God’s enthronement, and the singing of “enthronement psalms” praising God as king (e.g., Pss. 47; 93; 95–99). Following Babylonian practice, the ritual coincided with the reaffirmation of the Israelite king, and was proclaimed in “royal psalms” celebrating his status as the earthly embodiment of God’s heavenly kingship (e.g., Pss. 2; 89; 110).

Although Mowinckel constructed this festival without direct biblical support, the Bible does divulge a few subtle indications of musical-liturgical ritual. For example, there is the priestly benediction with which Aaron and his sons blessed the Israelites (Num. 6:22–26), and the cultic liturgy of the first fruits (Deut. 26:1–11). Solomon’s Temple included “prayer and supplication” (1 Kgs. 8:28), while prophetic books attest to a statutory Temple liturgy (e.g., Isa.1:15; Jer. 33:11; Amos 5:23). Whether the occasion was a local festival, national holiday or regular offering, the singing of psalms and psalm-like prayers seems to have been a regular part of public ritual.

On a practical level, it matters little whether or not we can ascertain details of worship rites in biblical times, or whether music or ritual came first in the development of religion. The bond between music and ceremony is sealed so tightly as to suggest an eternal union. It is an expected element of societies past, present and future.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.

Is It Music?

Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

Neither the particulars nor the generics of musical sound are universally agreed upon. Music exists in many and widely variegated “dialects.” No single conception of what constitutes music is applicable cross-culturally; a definition that satisfies Western principles might fail when applied to a non–Western society. Arriving at a useful conception of music is further complicated by the fact that ideas about sounds change over time, as most music-cultures interact with the outside world, respond to internal and external pressures, and contain subgroups with divergent tastes and preferences.

It is not even foolproof to identify music by ingredients traditionally thought of as musical: rhythm, meter, pitches, durations, dynamics, etc. The musical envelope has been sufficiently stretched in our postmodern world to include an endless array of possibilities. Perhaps the best we can do is combine a few intentionally broad definitions, if only to enhance our recognition of music’s subjectivity.

Edgard Varèse famously called music “organized sound.” Taking a lead from ethnomusicology, the Encyclopædia Britannica states, “while there are no sounds that can be described as inherently unmusical, musicians in each culture have tended to restrict the range of sounds they will admit.” Philosopher Lewis Rowell avoids the “dangerous task” of defining music, recommending an inclusive approach instead: “let music signify anything that is normally called music.”

Merging these quotations, we arrive at a practical (though still lacking) elucidation: Music consists of tightly or loosely organized sounds that adhere to strict or lenient parameters of a given culture or sub-culture, and are accepted by a consensus large enough to qualify it as “normally called music.” But, as intimated above, attempting a catch-all definition is hopelessly problematic. Hearing something as music always depends on a complex web of culturally and personally determined factors, which are themselves subject to shift depending on the agenda of a person or group.

An illustrative case in point is the shofar, a sound-maker fashioned from the horn of an animal in the Bovidae family (excluding the cow). The shofar appears seventy-two times in the Hebrew Bible, usually to announce festivals, rally troops, intimidate enemies and call out to the deity. Any discussion of biblical instruments, long or short, includes a section on the horn. But Talmudic sources refrain from labeling the shofar a musical device.

The rabbis’ rationale had a double motivation: one part aesthetic, one part pragmatic. Outside of modern-day novelty acts (like the shofar player who blows Hatikvah), the shofar is a notoriously temperamental horn. The average blower produces two to three tones, which typically come across as unsettling or unattractive. Unlike other instruments, the shofar does not accompany singing or provide mood-setting preludes, interludes or postludes. Rather, it serves a ritualistic role akin to lighting candles or drinking from a ceremonial cup. For these reasons, it was not thought of as musical.

On a practical level, the rabbis felt obligated to include the shofar in the sacred service despite their ban on musical instruments (a ruling based on historical factors too involved to be discussed here). First and foremost, the biblical command to observe Rosh Hashanah decrees that the day be commemorated with shofar blasts (Lev. 23:24). Added to this are the vivid and abounding associations aroused whenever the horn is blown. Since biblical times, the sound and appearance of the shofar have served as a symbol of group identity, and eliminating it from practice would have diminished Jewish solidarity and self-awareness. Thus, it was not advisable to lump it in with other (banned) instruments. (As an aside, in communities bound by Jewish law the shofar is not blown on Shabbat—not because it falls under the prohibition against instrumental playing, but because it might be carried four cubits in the public domain, which is considered work. See BT RH 29a.)

Taking the minimal view that music is defined as organized sound understood as music, the shofar is clearly a musical instrument. And it has been described as such in enough publications and conversations to make it indisputably so. Still, the rabbis had ideologically coherent reasons for excluding the shofar from the musical realm. Similarly overt motives are present whenever someone remarks that a certain genre “isn’t music,” or makes (elitist) claims about “real music.” Though it is difficult to formulate an objective definition of music that is applicable everywhere, subjective opinions and agendas are easy to spot.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.

Theurgy and Concentration

Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

Sometime during the exile following the destruction of the First Jerusalem Temple (586 B.C.E.), a rift emerged between Israel’s hereditary priestly classes: the Levites and Kohanim. The Kohanim won the conflict of power, assuming religio-political dominance in post-exilic Jerusalem. The Levites were consequently reduced to subordinate roles in the restored Temple. Kohanim conducted sacrifices and administered the religion; Levites prepared the sacrifices, held custodial and clerical duties, and provided music for the Temple service. Whether the latter activity—singing and instrument playing—was really ancillary is debatable. According to some sources, the purpose and efficacy of cultic ceremonies relied entirely on the Levites’ musical presentation.

The writings of Philo of Alexandria (20 B.C.E.–30 C.E.), a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, portray the high priest entering mystical awareness with the aid of music. Midrashic literature similarly shows the high priest reaching music-induced ecstasy. Attaining this elevated state was crucial for the high priest’s vocation, which rested on his perceived ability to access and make palpable the divine presence. The music he listened to was not just beautiful; it enabled him to channel and absorb spiritual energy from the heavenly source.

A passage from Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob ha-Kohen, a thirteenth-century kabbalist, elaborates on this musical-magical-mystical phenomenon. Though a late source, its imagery is rooted in earlier material. The rabbi affirms the hierarchical structure of the priestly system, ascribing different levels of understanding (greater and lesser) to the high priest and the musicians. But he also highlights the imperativeness of music in facilitating mystical union, implying that without music the rite would not succeed: “[The high priest’s] power is awakened by the sweetness of the song and the pure prayer. So do the musicians direct their fingers, according to their elevation and understanding, on the key-holes [of wind instruments] and on strings, arousing the song and the melody to direct their hearts toward God. Thus the blessings are aroused and the divine presence resides in them, each one according to his performance and according to his understanding.”

Central to this passage is a progression from music to concentration to theurgy. The high priest first listens to the music, then enters a spiritual state, then achieves a theurgical aim: influencing the supernal structure to release its concentrated energy in the mortal world. According to Isaac ben Jacob ha-Kohen and others who have written on the subject, it is musical sound that grants the high priest access to divine power, which he harnesses and directs toward a desired end.

This scenario is an instructive study in music perception. Frequently, musical strains are felt as sacred portals connecting natural and supernatural realms. The energy music exerts on our minds and bodies is often beyond mundane description, thus lending itself to otherworldly explanations. Specific concepts and formulations vary from culture to culture and system to system; but the force of music rarely evades spiritual interpretation. This earned the Levites a permanent—albeit secondary—place in the Temple rite, and has guaranteed the inclusion of music in virtually all spiritual paths.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.

Words, Words, Words

Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

The first chapter of Genesis is a parable on the creative force of language. It depicts the Hebrew God as a heavenly voice arranging the physical world with commanding words. “Let there be light,”  “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water,” “Let the water below the sky be gathered into one area,” and so on through the six days of creation. The terse decrees spoken by the deity are not empty statements, but rather what J. L. Austin termed “performative utterances”: sentences that transform the reality they are describing. The entire world, according to the Bible, is the product of God’s locutions.

We need not affirm the literalness of this story to appreciate its lesson. Indeed, it is debatable whether the author or original audience even believed the myth in a literal sense. Its deeper truth does not depend on historical accuracy. As any critical thinker knows, our world is substantially shaped by the words we use to process it. Language influences our thought patterns and perceptions, and the specific terms we rely on condition our worldview. In this way, we are mini-gods who speak of reality and, in so doing, make it so.

This phenomenon, sometimes called the linguistic relativity hypothesis (or Sapir-Whorf hypothesis), is borne out in all areas of life, and does much to account for the array of perspectives found among divergent cultures and social groupings. A widely cited passage from anthropologist Edward Sapir, written in 1929, elucidates the process: “Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. . . . The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.”

In religious denominations, which define themselves by world-shaping vocabularies, a basic homogeneity of perception is crucial. This is accomplished most readily in prayer, which distills theology, values, history, mythology, attitudes and expectations into digestible and repeatable formulas. Prayers are evocative, not only because they are thought to inspire a (linguistically determined) divine presence, but also because they stir a network of symbolism: images, moods, memories, aspirations, etc. And it is in the act of recitation that the world becomes as the words describe.

The more direct a prayer’s message and the more convincing its presentation, the more likely it is to condition collective perception. This is, for example, why hymn singing is so effective. Hymns are usually simple and redundant—qualities making them ideal conduits for religious instruction. Their concise verses convey viewpoints argued elsewhere, condensing complex ideas into straightforward poetry. Through a partnership of words and music, these songs impart beliefs and standards of behavior, thereby helping to form the (subjective) world.

In the biblical account, speaking is the cosmogonic act. God says something and it comes to be. The creative agency of language is echoed in our own experience. The words we use—in speech, thought and song—create the world as we know it.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.