ADON OLAM

(Having previously revisited my Religion section, I am briefly returning to the Tikkun Olam section, much of which has already been posted on this blog.)

“…Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto HaShem… HaShem is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation.” (Shemot/Exodus 15:1-2.)

Making a bridge between the Religion section and this one, which can be capsulated in one word Judaica, what better way could there be than to venture a personal comment about the music of religious services? I was raised on the unbeatable combination of the beautiful a capella singing in the Russian church and the magnificent heritage of the Western classical tradition, covering, as far as its sacred music was concerned, both the “Roman Catholic” and the “Protestant” liturgy, most great classical composers writing for both. Religious music, when it rises to the heights of great art, can never offend one’s denominational sensibilities. The art of music is justifiably rated by Schopenhauer as the purest form of human expression, and, as such, always and easily, transcends the conventional boundaries of cultural, and even religious differences.

“O come, let us sing unto HaShem; let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.” (Psalm 95:1.)

Alas, the situation with Christian church music in modern America is aesthetically catastrophic. Not only in the Baptist hymnals, where the music has been traditionally coarser, but throughout the other Protestant denominations, and, most surprisingly, in modern-day Catholicism (culturally crippled by Vatican II, when the wealth of the historical Latin-based chanting was dropped in a hurry, in favor of native-language crops from contemporary third-rate musical wannabes), church music has deteriorated to such depths of shabby mediocrity that the colossal impact of this purest form of human expression has undergone a tragic change of its character, either losing its former appeal altogether, or chameleonically ingratiating itself into public acceptance by assuming the familiar vulgar tones of pop music for the masses…

Against the backdrop of such pathetic degradation of religious aesthetics (riding the same bus to hell with the rest of modern pop culture), the musical fabric of religious services in both Reform and Conservative Synagogues is magnificent, despite the conspicuous shallowness, and even occasional offensiveness, of the overall religious content of these services. (The highest intensity of ‘religion’ is permeating the services of the ultra-orthodox Jews, but, ironically, their music is horrible even when the musical original is excellent, like in the case of La Marseillaise: its tune is sung by the orthodox Jews as a religious hymn in appreciation of their idol Napoleon’s righteous-gentile contribution to Jewish welfare.)

The question of musical originality can be raised here, theoretically, noting that Jewish music in general is overwhelmingly dependent on other peoples’ musical traditions, while very conspicuously it lacks its own. Here is what Encyclopaedia Britannica says about this in its Macropaedic article on Jewish music (the following passage is actually my considerably compacted summary):

After the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, in AD 70, and the revolts against Rome, in AD 135, the Jews were dispersed through Northern Africa and Western Asia, and migrated to Europe. Three main musical traditions thereafter emerged: Yemenite, Sephardic, and Ashkenazic. The Yemenite tradition reaches to the pre-Christian epoch and has close parallels to the Gregorian chant (which shows their same origins.) The Sephardic tradition uses elements of the medieval Spanish music. The Ashkenazic tradition is distinctly Slavonic in character.

During the Renaissance, the Italian Jews began to apply Western art music to their synagogue music. By 1820 the idiom of Haydn and Mozart crowded out the traditional elements in Ashkenazic cantorial songs. The use of the organ stirred arguments between the liberal and orthodox Jewish communities. Where the organ did not prevail, the music regressed into stagnation. Where it took root, as in most Western and in the American Jewish communities, synagogue music would rank with fine Protestant and Catholic music.

Modern Israeli music makes use of all the techniques of Western music. The works of Jewish composers in the last two centuries do not represent Jewish music, except in compositions using traditional chants.

In other words, Jewish music may often emulate fine Western music, but it lacks originality... What next? My answer to this claim of unoriginality is: so what? Good music is always transnational. Its power has an unmistakably universal appeal. All classical composers of the past were only too happy to incorporate into their music the traditional folk tunes of other nations, as well as of their own. (Beethoven, for instance, is well known for his use of Russian and British folk songs in his music; Brahms’ Hungarian Dances are legendary among music lovers, and these are just two of many such examples of cross-cultural music pollination.) The only criterion of principle to be applied to any kind of music is its artistic, aesthetic value.

Most of the Jewish songs sung at the Reform synagogues are not musically original, but that does not take anything away from their high quality and inspiring character. Most conspicuously, even Israel’s national anthem Hatikva: Hope, although using the lyrics of the Zionist Jewish poet Naphtali Herz Imber, originates in non-Jewish music written by the Czech composer Bedrych Smetana (who is, ironically, himself employing an earlier Polish folk tune!) as a Czech-nationalist symphonic poem The Vltava, the authentic Czech name for the Moldau river. (The fact that Smetana’s most recognizable melody has been thus appropriated as the Israeli national anthem is still of some substantial concern, having nothing to do, however, with the quality of the music.)

(But some of the most remarkable Jewish music is unmistakably authentic, such as most of the music for the High Holidays and especially, for Yom Kippur. Avinu Malkeinu and Kol Nidre are absolutely superb, in that Schopenhauerian sense…)

The name in the title of this entry belongs to the musically perfect, emotionally powerful, and aristocratic in its simplicity and composure hymn Adon Olam: Lord of All. Its profoundly reverent words were composed in the eleventh century by Solomon ben Judah Ibn Gabirol (1021-1058), a Jewish philosopher and poet of note. The music of the particular version, which is my favorite, is reported as traditional, and is best known in the excellent arrangement by David Karp. In my view, it could have made one of the most stirring national anthems in existence, had the Israelis made such a choice. Personally, I would have much preferred Adon Olam as Israel’s musical self-introduction to the world of nations, rather than the borrowed, and easily traced to its original source, even if hauntingly beautiful, tune of The Vltava…