Mishpacha and Reb Abish Recapture Music of Pre-War Yeshivos » Matzav.com - The Online Voice of Torah Jewry
I got pretty excited reading this, anticipating the long-awaited Geulah of the music of the Mussar Movement. But then I listened to the rendering of Shak'ah Chamah and was disappointed. The trait that we today might call "edginess" is missing. It smoothes the rawness of the message, and to a large extent diminishes the potential Hispa'alus from R' Avrohom Elya's Mussar. See if you think I am right, or am over-reacting.
Rabbi Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer הרב יוסף גבריאל בקהופר
I got excited reading it as well, but the jury is still out here after clicking on the Matzav link. It remains to be seen if the new release will be as good of a job, and do for Slabodka niggunim what was done a few years ago for their Novhardok counterparts (see http://uberdox.aishdas.org/2009/06/niggunei-hisorerus-novhardok and http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2009/07/10/the-novardhok-paradox/). Part of the greatness of the Novhardok release, in addition to high quality of the music part, is the fine accompanying booklet, with lyrics and other info.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Did you ever check out the Novhardok release? I know that you are a Slabodka fan, but curious nevertheless.
Note that the Novhardok niggunim were mostly, if not totally, in Yiddish, while the Slabodka one featured is in lashon kodesh. There is something in that.
RYGB, as for your complaint, it's not really about the music. The notion that one recaptured the music of Slabodka by playing a plaintive song too quickly with instrumentation that equally misses the feel of the words is but a minor symptom in the generation's general religious malaise. Once again, we focused on all the mechanical details, but missed the heart.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't aware of the Novhardok recording. Thanks for letting me know. When I was in Netiv Meir in the '70's we used to sing "Mah Yisaron" - which I think is a Novhardoker nigun, although I don't know for sure.
ReplyDeleteMussar niggunim should probably be sung like early Carlebach - Lulei Soroscha, L'Olom Lo Eshkoch, Gevalt Shoin Brieder, etc.
Of course, RMB, this is a symptom of the greater problem.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way, but at least I can learn the songs this way and then I can take out my guitar and play them in their raw form.
ReplyDeleteDo you know if the album has already been released? Does it come with the words to the songs (and the sources of where the words come from)?
I actually loved the Abish recording. It haunted me and gave me chills.
ReplyDeleteReb Gershon,
ReplyDeleteI think we have RAEK's musical notations for his compositions on the Aishdas RAEK page. IIRC, the Alter from Kelm's compositions' notations are in R' Dov Katz' Tenu'as HaMussar.
Anonymous of this morning,
Great! I'm happy to be wrong.
Try comparing it with this version:
http://victorshushan.com/%D7%A9%D7%A7%D7%A2%D7%94-%D7%97%D7%9E%D7%94/
The old Pirchei version was also beautiful, but I don't think you can find it anywhere today.
Interesting "contemporary" version:
ReplyDeletehttp://ligionhazarim.bandcamp.com/track/--16
It's at http://www.aishdas.org/raek. Scans of the poems, the sheet music, those recordings by your student, and now RAB's Shaq'ah as well.
ReplyDeleteAs well as the first couple of essays from BeIqvos haYir'ah, your essays on RAEK, etc...
1) I share your feeling about this version lacking the "edge" of the original. My memories of it are from the way R' Mordechai Schwab zt"l would sing parts of the niggun as he learned, and there definitely was a greater intensity than in the musical version (although that could have been a function of R' Schwab's personality, not a characteristic of the "original niggun" per se).
ReplyDelete2) I wasn't aware of the Pirchei version, but once you mentioned it, I was able to find it in Dartmouth's excellent musical archive (http://djsa.dartmouth.edu/view_song.php?songId=29128). [Registration is necessary in order to listen to the track and view the label images.] The way it's sung on that album is indeed much closer to the way I remember it being sung.
3) Regarding the Novhardoker Niggunim, see the post by Avakesh (http://www.avakesh.com/2009/06/novhardoker-niggunim.html). Interestingly, the phenomenon of a tune losing some of its essence due to musical arrangements appears to have also happened there to some extent: The first song -- "Vi Di Avos" -- is adapted from a Russian battle hymn, which has the tempo of a march, but the newly recorded version is in standard 4/4 time. [You can hear the two versions here: http://onegshabbat.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog-post_06.html - but note that the author of that post completely missed the point. He though he had "caught" the Novhardokers' plagiarism of (or influence from) local music, but in reality the tune was based on the Russian march *by design* -- see the last page here: http://cancertreatments.typepad.com/files/translations.pdf]