Jewish Composers

[San Antone]

Jacob Gotlib : experimental chamber and electronic music



Jacob Gotlib was born and raised in Louisville, KY, and has written music for instruments, electronics, dance, and multimedia.

Bio and audio clips here.

[kishnevi]

How can you stop being a jew? It's not a DNA thing is it?

By Jewish religious law,  a person who is born to a Jewish mother or who converts according to the standards of religious law* is a Jew unto death.  One may abandon the religion, of course, but that's an individual thing...and one can always repent of the abandonment.   Schonberg is a famous case.   But essentially, once a Jew, always a Jew.  Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn were, according to religious law, fully Jewish, although they were baptized and lived as Christians. (A conversion may be annulled on the grounds the convert turned out not to be sincere, of course.)  The child of a Jewish father and a Gentile mother would need to convert.  So religious standing and ethnicity are not quite the same thing.  Lenny Kravitz has a Jewish father and Gentile mother, and as far as I know never converted.  So while we Jews have a reason to claim him as "one of us", he is not a Jew in the religious sense.  But Israeli law would admit him under the law of return as a Jew, since it goes on an ethnic definition, used in response to the Holocaust.  (Basically, if you were a Jew under the standards of the Nuremberg laws, with at least one Jewish grandparent, you can be accepted as a Jewish immigrant to Israel.)

Sculthorpe's Wikipedia biography gives no hint of being Jewish, beyond his father's name being Joshua, a rather thin reed to lean on.  He want as a child to the local Anglican church grammar school.  If he had a Jewish background, it was thoroughly secularized by the time he was born. 

I don't know what the situation is in the UK, but I imagine Australia is like the US...a hospital is "Jewish" only in the sense that it was started by Jewish doctors or had a significant number of Jewish benefactors who contributed it.  But, especially in a well established hospital,  patients and staff are from all sections of the community, not just Jews.  Catholic affiliated hospitals often have crucifixes in the rooms and a chapel to celebrate Mass on the premises.  Jewish hospitals have none of that.

*what exactly are the standards and who gets to decide if a convert meets them is often the subject of great debate in the US and Israel, since the current Chief Rabbinate of Israel tries to impose very strict standards.  In theory, the child of a woman whose mother or maternal grandmother were Jewish but abandoned the religion would not need to convert because their mother was Jewish by religious law.

[Ken B]

Does Gustav count? I think of him as Jewish, even though he converted.

sanantonio

Of course.

Of course not. Why should I accept David's opinion over Mahler's own on this point?

By Jewish religious law,  a person who is born to a Jewish mother or who converts according to the standards of religious law* is a Jew unto death.

If one rejects Judaism one presumably rejects Jewish religious law.

Religions are ideas, not taints. You can be cured.

[amw]

Judaism is a religion, Jews are an ethnicity. The topic seems to have focused on composers who are ethnically Jewish rather than on composers who practice Judaism (as is fairly clear with the mention of e.g. Mendelssohn, a devout Christian, and other similar examples)

[San Antone]

I created this thread as a place to discuss and post about the music written by Jewish composers; and our favorite recordings of same.  Although the issue of "who is a Jew" might be related I consider it a question outside the parameters of the thread.  Would it be too much to ask that we agree that any composer with Jewish ancestry qualifies for inclusion whether or not he converted?

Thanks,

[Todd]

Lenny Kravitz has a Jewish father and Gentile mother, and as far as I know never converted.  So while we Jews have a reason to claim him as "one of us", he is not a Jew in the religious sense.

This calls to mind the great Dave Chappelle skit Racial Draft.

(as is fairly clear with the mention of e.g. Mendelssohn, a devout Christian, and other similar examples)

Even the definitive online resource for determining celebrity Jewishness is not completely clear on this one.

[Todd]

To the point of the thread, I don't believe Milhaud or Dukas have been mentioned yet.

[vandermolen]

Here is some more music I like by Jewish composers:
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[vandermolen]

And this. Bloch's 'Sacred Service' reminds me a bit of a cross between Vaughan Williams's choral music and Hollywood Epic film scores - but it is one of my favourites:
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[Ken B]

I created this thread as a place to discuss and post about the music written by Jewish composers; and our favorite recordings of same.  Although the issue of "who is a Jew" might be related I consider it a question outside the parameters of the thread.  Would it be too much to ask that we agree that any composer with Jewish ancestry qualifies for inclusion whether or not he converted?

Thanks,

Bach is my favourite living composer.

[Artem]

This book may be fitting for this topic:

[vandermolen]

This book may be fitting for this topic:

Looks very interesting. I also like Korngold's music, especially the Symphony and the short Cello Concerto adapted from the film 'Deception'.

[Wanderer]

...and the short Cello Concerto adapted from the film 'Deception'.

I love this concerto, too, and it's a shame it's not performed more often (or at all). My perennial recommendation for it is an extraordinarily alert and passionate rendition by Quirine Viersen (on Arthaus DVD), so far unsurpassed.

[Mandryka]

Judaism is a religion, Jews are an ethnicity. The topic seems to have focused on composers who are ethnically Jewish rather than on composers who practice Judaism (as is fairly clear with the mention of e.g. Mendelssohn, a devout Christian, and other similar examples)

The question of what a jew is IMO  unanswerable. The religion offers one answer, but unless you're part of the religion it looks like a completely random answer, silly. There is no gene for jewishness as far as I know. And to say that someone's ethnically jewish would at least require some sort of shared jewish culture/identity, which isn't always the case.

All of this would be harmless timewasting, like making a list of fat composers or something. until someone starts to say things like

The contribution of Jewish composers has been pretty amazing to the genre.

There's probably some truth in what Scion7 says -- but to understand it, to move from just noting something vague to explaining a real cultural phenomenon, requires a tighter hold on what Jewishness is.

Imagine "The contribution of fat composers has been pretty amazing to the genre."

[Scion7]

LOL! Of course there's "some truth" in it - if nobody else, Mendelssohn and Mahler and Schoenberg are iconic figures in the genre.  All one has to say is that they are ethnically Jews - which is the topic of the thread.

And there are many others who contributed, if now quite on their level.

[vandermolen]

I love this concerto, too, and it's a shame it's not performed more often (or at all). My perennial recommendation for it is an extraordinarily alert and passionate rendition by Quirine Viersen (on Arthaus DVD), so far unsurpassed.

Thanks for the recommendation. I don't know that version at all. I have a recording on Chandos and also one on that fine old RCA film composers series with Charles Gerhardt conducting.

[Mandryka]

LOL! Of course there's "some truth" in it - if nobody else, Mendelssohn and Mahler and Schoenberg are iconic figures in the genre.  All one has to say is that they are ethnically Jews - which is the topic of the thread.

And there are many others who contributed, if now quite on their level.

What does "ethnically" mean? I don't mean that to sound agressive but I really don't know.

If someone with a jewish mum denies the faith and lives, always has lived, a gentile lifestyle, is he ethnically a jew? If someone with a goy mum likes eating chopped liver and calling people meshuggah, are they ethnically a jew?

[chadfeldheimer]

LOL! Of course there's "some truth" in it - if nobody else, Mendelssohn and Mahler and Schoenberg are iconic figures in the genre.  All one has to say is that they are ethnically Jews - which is the topic of the thread.

And there are many others who contributed, if now quite on their level.

In my opinion Ligeti would fall into the same heavy weight category as Mendelssohn, Mahler, Schoenberg.

Yes the contrubution of Jewish composers to the canon are quite remarkable. Thereby I find the correct definition of jewishness less interesting than the social circumstances that yielded to this. One point may be that in general jews tend to be above average wealthy and edjucated people. But I think this can only be a partial explanation. Maybe back in the time when antisemitism was still prevalent their acceptance in classical music world, was larger than in many other milieus, so that many jews directed there activity to this field. 

[Ken B]

What does "ethnically" mean? I don't mean that to sound agressive but I really don't know.

If someone with a jewish mum denies the faith and lives, always has lived, a gentile lifestyle, is he ethnically a jew? If someone with a goy mum likes eating chopped liver and calling people meshuggah, are they ethnically a jew?

Indeed. Most posters here are confused on the topic and treat jewishness as a taint that cannot be eradicated, unto the seventh generation. My great great great great grandmother was a catholic so I am a catholic is the implication of most comments here. Asked about catholics anyone can see how foolish the claim is. Simpler and better to be precise about what you are asking. I think sanantonio meant to ask about a cultural tradition and those raised in it.

[amw]

What does "ethnically" mean? I don't mean that to sound agressive but I really don't know.

Basically that your distant ancestors are likely to have come from the Levant, and you share common genetic features with other Jews. I have no idea why people felt it necessary to do several hundred genetic studies in order to determine whether Jews are ethnically distinct from other groups (basic summary of the results: they are, kinda, though there's been admixture), I mean they probably could have spent some of that time on curing cancer or w/e, but you know.