Jewish music
Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish people. There exist both traditions of religious music, as sung at the synagogue and in domestic prayers, and of secular music, such as klezmer. While some elements of Jewish music may originate in biblical times, differences of rhythm and sound can be found among later Jewish communities that have been musically influenced by location. In the nineteenth century, religious reform led to composition of ecclesiastic music in the styles of classical music. At the same period, academics began to treat the topic in the light of ethnomusicology. Edwin Seroussi has written, "What is known as 'Jewish music' today is thus the result of complex historical processes". A number of modern Jewish composers have been aware of and influenced by the different traditions of Jewish music.
Religious Jewish music
Religious Jewish music in the biblical period
The history of religious Jewish music spans the evolution of cantorial, synagogal, and Temple melodies since Biblical times.The earliest synagogal music of which we have any account was based on the system used in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Mishnah gives several accounts of Temple music. According to the Mishnah, the regular Temple orchestra consisted of twelve instruments, and a choir of twelve male singers. The instruments included the kinnor, nevel, tof, shofar, ḥatzotzᵊrot and three varieties of pipe, the chalil, alamoth and the uggav. The Temple orchestra also included a cymbal made of copper. The Talmud also mentions use in the Temple of a pipe organ, 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.
After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD and the subsequent dispersion of the Jews to Babylon and Persia, versions of the public singing of the Temple were continued in the new institution of the synagogue. Three musical forms were identified by scholars of the period, involving different modes of antiphonal response between cantor and congregation: the cantor singing a half-verse at a time, with the congregation making a constant refrain; the cantor singing a half-verse, with the congregation repeating exactly what he had sung; and the cantor and congregation singing alternate verses. All of these forms can be discerned in parts of the modern synagogue service.
Jewish prayer modes
Jewish liturgical music is characterized by a set of musical modes. These modes make up musical nusach, which serves to both identify different types of prayer, as well as to link those prayers to the time of year, or even time of day in which they are set. There are three main modes, as well as a number of combined or compound modes. The three main modes are called Ahavah Rabbah, Magein Avot and Adonai Malach. Traditionally, the cantor improvised sung prayers within the designated mode, while following a general structure of how each prayer should sound. There was no standard form of musical notation utilised by the Jews and these modes and synagogue melodies derived from them were therefore handed down directly, typically from a chazzan to his apprentice meshorrer. Since the late eighteenth century, many of these chants have been written down and standardized, yet the practice of improvisation still exists to this day.The synagogal reading of the parashah and the haftarah, may recall the melodic tropes of the actual Temple service. Ashkenazic Jews named this official cantillation 'neginot' and it is represented in printed Hebrew versions of the Bible by a system of cantillation marks. In practice the cantillation often echoes the tones and rhythms of the countries and ages in which Jews lived, notably as regards the modality in which the local music was based.
Traditional religious music
Synagogues following traditional Jewish rites do not employ musical instruments as part of the synagogue service. Traditional synagogal music is therefore purely vocal. The principal melodic role in the service is that of the hazzan. Responses of the congregation are typically monophonic—the introduction of a choir singing in harmony was largely a nineteenth-century innovation. However, during the mediaeval period among Ashkenazi Jews there developed the tradition of the hazzan being accompanied for certain prayers by a bass voice and a descant. This combination was known in Yiddish as keleichomos.file:Truth_God_Your_Name.ogg|right|thumb|"Emet El Shmeha", traditional Jewish 17th century song.
There are many forms of song which are used in Jewish religious services and ceremonies. The following are notable examples.
With the piyyutim, dating from the first millennium after the destruction of the Temple, one stream of Jewish synagogal music began to crystallize into definite form. The hazzan sang the piyyutim to melodies either selected by themselves or drawn from tradition. Piyyutim have been written since Mishnaic times. Most piyyutim are in Hebrew or Aramaic, and most follow some poetic scheme, such as an acrostic following the order of the Hebrew alphabet or spelling out the name of the author. A well-known piyyut is Adon Olam, sometimes attributed to Solomon ibn Gabirol in 11th century Spain.
Pizmonim are traditional Jewish songs and melodies praising God and describing certain aspects of traditional religious teachings. Pizmonim are traditionally associated with Middle Eastern Sephardic Jews, although they are related to Ashkenazi Jews' zemirot. One tradition is associated with Jews descended from Aleppo, though similar traditions exist among Iraqi Jews and in North African countries. Jews of Greek, Turkish and Balkan origin have songs of the same kind in Ladino, associated with the festivals: these are known as coplas. Some melodies are quite old, while others may be based on popular Middle Eastern music, with the words composed specially to fit the tune.
Zemirot are hymns, usually sung in the Hebrew or Aramaic languages, but sometimes also in Yiddish or Ladino. The words to many zemirot are taken from poems written by various rabbis and sages during the Middle Ages. Others are anonymous folk songs.
The baqashot are a collection of supplications, songs, and prayers that have been sung for centuries by the Sephardic Aleppian Jewish community and other congregations every Sabbath eve from midnight until dawn. The custom of singing baqashot originated in Spain towards the time of the expulsion, but took on increased momentum in the Kabbalistic circle in Safed in the 16th century, and were spread from Safed by the followers of Isaac Luria. Baqashot reached countries all round the Mediterranean and even became customary for a time in Sephardic communities in western Europe, such as Amsterdam and London.
Nigun refers to religious songs and tunes that are sung either by individuals or groups; they are associated with the Hassidic movement. Nigunim are generally wordless.
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century synagogue music
Changes in European Jewish communities, including increasing political emancipation and some elements of religious reform, had their effects on music of the synagogue. By the late eighteenth century, music in European synagogues had sunk to a low standard. The Jewish scholar Eric Werner notes that among the European Ashkenazi communities of Europe "between 1660 and 1720 the musical tradition was waning, and the second half of the eighteenth century witnessed its worst decay". The historian of Jewish music Abraham Zevi Idelsohn considers that "Eighteenth-century manuscripts of Synagogue song display a striking monotony of style and texts". In this context the English music historian Charles Burney visiting the Ashkenazi synagogue of Amsterdam in 1772, gave the opinion of one who was clearly ignorant of synagogue music that the service resembled "a kind of tol- de rol, instead of words, which to me, seemed very farcical".Others in England were more sympathetic to the synagogue service. The singing of the chazan Myer Lyon inspired the Methodist minister Thomas Olivers in 1770 to adapt the melody of the hymn "Yigdal" for a Christian hymn, "The God of Abraham Praise". Many synagogue melodies were used by Isaac Nathan in his 1815 settings of Lord Byron's Hebrew Melodies, and the popularity of this work drew the attention of gentiles for the first time to this music.
Franz Schubert around 1828 made a choral setting of Psalm 92 in Hebrew for the Vienna chazan Salomon Sulzer. German congregations commissioned works from other gentile composers, including Albert Methfessel.
Later in the century, as synagogues began to utilize choirs singing in Western harmony, a number of hazzanim, who had received formal training in Western music, began to compose works for the synagogue, many of which are still in use today in the congregations of their countries. These included Salomon Sulzer in Vienna, Samuel Naumbourg in Paris, Louis Lewandowski in Berlin, and Julius Mombach in London.
Contemporary Jewish religious music
Antisemitism and Modern Jewish MusicAccording to an article published by James Loeffler, Jewish Music actually played a significant role within modern Jewish music. After Wagner's death in 1883 up until 1933, some people began to think that the Jewish people must abandon ideas of assimilation into European culture. Essentially, Wagner's essay created a necessity for the Jewish people to create their own identity through modern music and remove the fingerprints of antisemitism. Two modern Jewish musicians are Abraham Tzvi Idelsohn and Lazare Saminsky, both musicians who were considered the prime intellectuals of modern Jewish music.
Loeffler, James. 2009. Richard wagner's "jewish music": Antisemitism and aesthetics in modern jewish culture. Jewish Social Studies 15, : 2-36,167,