Posted on 09/20/2021 5:33:23 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
To some lovers of classical sounds, organ music seems irremediably goyish, despite outstanding achievements by such Jewish composers as Aaron Copland and Arnold Schoenberg in writing for the so-called “king of instruments.” For these, “The Organ and Its Music in German-Jewish Culture,” recently published in paperback, will be a real ear-opener. Its author, musicologist Tina Frühauf, notes that “until the Middle Ages, the organ was not officially permitted in any Christian liturgy inasmuch as instrumental music was associated… with the Jewish services once held in the temple at Jerusalem.”
Even after organs appeared in churches and became taboo for synagogues, there remained some Jewish fans of organ music, notably the 15th century Italian humanist philosopher Yohanan Alemanno, who in “Solomon’s Desire,” his commentary on the “Song of Songs,” included praise of a performance at the Mantua court by the German organist Conrad Paumann, a touring superstar of the 1400s. By the 18th century Haskalah, Europe’s Jewish Enlightenment movement, the time was ripe for a return of the organ as liturgical instrument. In 1810, at the Jacobstempel synagogue in Seesen, Lower Saxony, an organist named Gerson Rosenstein first participated in services. Debate was sparked and in 1818, Eliezer Liebermann, an Austrian Talmudist, wrote “The Bright Light,” a treatise which argued that organ playing had been the “Jewish custom in the Temple prior to the Christians’ adoption of the instrument.”
Some rabbis worried that if organs needed repair or adjustment on Shabbat, would that qualify as work...
Organ playing in European synagogues was violently halted, along with so much else, in 1938, but has enjoyed an afterlife in Israel, where many modern composers, such as Jacob Gilboa, Josef Dorman, and Ari Ben-Shabtai, are inspired by the instrument, even more than in today’s America.
(Excerpt) Read more at forward.com ...
On the night of 9–10 November 1938, deliberate cultural destruction reached its peak. An eyewitness report of Kristallnacht in Königsberg's (now Kaliningrad, Russia) Jewish community describes how a gang of brawlers systematically demolished benches, pulled out the Scrolls of the Law from the Ark, tore prayer books and piled everything up in a big heap in the middle of the synagogue. The report also details the Kristallnacht bombing and setting on fire of the organs. Adding insult to injury, the organ in the Königsberg synagogue was misused by playing the Horst Wessel Song, which was adopted as a Nazi national anthem by the SA.Synagogue Organ Music | Tina Frühauf | Music and the Holocaust
The Organ and Its Music in German-Jewish Culture
by Tina Frühauf
https://www.amazon.com/The-Organ-Music-German-Jewish-Culture/dp/0199896488
I first read of the origin of the pipe organ when much younger than I am now, in this oldie:
The Jewish Connection: The Incredible ... Ironic ... Bizarre Funny ... and Provocative in the Story of the Jews
October 1, 1976
by M. Hirsh Goldberg
https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Connection-Incredible-Bizarre-Provocative/dp/0812819241
[snip] The Talmud also mentions use in the Temple of a pipe organ (magrepha), and states that the water organ was not used in the Temple as its sounds were too distracting. No provable examples of the music played at the Temple have survived. However, there is an oral tradition that the tune used for Kol Nidrei was sung in the temple. [/snip]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_music#Religious_Jewish_music_in_the_biblical_period
from the wikipedia page, “4th century AD “Mosaic of the Female Musicians” from a Byzantine villa in Maryamin, Syria.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_organ#/media/File:Mosaic_of_the_Female_Musicians.jpg
The magrepha mystery
https://bibliolore.org/2010/06/11/the-magrepha-mystery/
*and*
https://www.beishamikdashtopics.com/2014/10/the-musical-magrepha-of-temple.html
[The magrepha] consisted of a hollow wooden box measuring 1 amah tall, 1 amah wide, and 2.5 amos long. The ten pipes were contained within this box and were arranged horizontally along its length. Some of the pipes were long, others short, and the ten holes in each pipe were facing downward. On the northern and southern sides of the box, on the outside, were two bellows. On the western side the ten pipes emerged from the box and the ends of the pipes were all in a straight line. On the eastern side of the box was a ledge jutting out upon which rested one hundred slats of wood corresponding to the one hundred holes in the pipes. At the other ends of these slats, within the box, were small pieces of metal rising vertically and these were topped with wood. By pressing down on the end of the slat, it raised the other end and closed the hole in the pipe. This instrument was thus able to produce 100 distinct notes and could be played by a single individual [with the help of two bellows operators].
Read later.
The first musical instruments in the Bible:
Genesis 4:21 And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ [כִּנּוֹר וְעוּגָֽב].
Take Me Out To The Ball Game - Full Organ!
Thank you so much for your post. I used to play the pipe organ. It is a really challenging instrument, but wow is it beautiful.
My confirmation Saint name was Cecilia (AD 200-230) who, tradition has it, invented the pipe organ. Now I’m wondering if she built something that was related to or inspired by precursors such as the one in the Temple.
Bookmark.
Thanks!
Switched-On Bach
Wendy Carlos
If you haven’t discovered her yet, hear it is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn0HAWX1TSA&list=PLLICd7vQi7iGUyErozBAwgcr4F49kxiXY
Do try to keep up.
Tron
Clockwork Orange
?
Well, the hydraulis (an early form of organ), was played at the Roman circuses during the chariot races and likely in Greek theater as well. It was invented by the Alexandrian Greeks, about the 3rd century BC. I have never seen any evidence that hydraulises were used in the liturgies of the Jews before the time of Christ.
I hear that the Jewish organs get cut post-birth.
“outstanding achievements by such Jewish composers as Aaron Copland and Arnold Schoenberg in writing for the so-called “king of instruments.”
GARBAGE
Their pieces for organ are completely unknown.
Cool!
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