Intercultural Dialogue through the Arts; A Conversation on Jewish Music with Allie Brault
By Jane Fitzpatrick
How can engaging with music and history promote peace through intercultural dialogue? Jane Fitzpatrick sits down with soprano, teacher, doctoral student, and historian, Allie Brault, for a conversation about Jewish music – what it means, where it comes from, and how it can make a difference.
How would you describe Jewish music? (describe with non-music majors in mind) What are some common sounds, colors, languages, places, and textual or historical inspirations?
So, there are a million different ways to define Jewish music. There’s the music we’d find within the religious aspects of Judaism, like music sung at the synagogue and in prayers. Then, of course, there’s secular music. A lot of people would quickly associate secular Jewish music with klezmer (think: clarinet, violin, accordion, etc). This music is probably the immediate stereotype of Jewish music that people have, and it isn’t necessarily incorrect for it to be the definition of “Jewish” music, but it stems from the Ashkenazi tradition, and therefore is leaving out many other Jewish musical and cultural traditions that do not come from Central/Eastern Europe. There’s contemporary Jewish music, dance music, classical Jewish art music, and probably a ton of other genres I haven’t even heard of! Jewish music is super rich in both tradition and musical complexity.
However, leaning into these stereotypes, you’d typically find these aspects in Jewish music:
Languages: Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic.
Minor scales, or characteristics of a minor mode -- about 88% of Jewish tunes have this. We know Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do. Jewish music primarily uses scales like Do-Re-Me-Fa-Sol-Le-Te-Do or even the Jewish scale of Do-Ra-Mi-Fa-Sol-Le-Te-Do. There’s a heavy emphasis on that Ra-Do interval.
Cantorial melismas (long phrases using one syllablle -- typically in one of those modes listed above).
Nigunim: Vocal music with repetitive syllables (lai-lai-lai, biddy-biddy-bum).
Jokes aside, Fiddler on the Roof contains pretty much all of these elements, and I think it represents Jewish music beautifully. So, if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, go listen to Fiddler on the Roof!
Does Jewish music have to follow specific themes and melodies in order to be categorized as uniquely Jewish? If not, then what makes Jewish music “Jewish?” Can you describe the identification qualities and why it is significant that the world hears and learns about Jewish music?
There’s a really wonderful resource called The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Music. In it, ethnomusicologist Philip V. Bohlman creates categories for defining what Jewish music is. This music can either:
Derive from sacred traditions, as “revelation of sacred voice.”
Linguistically be in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, etc.
Come from the synagogue or ritual practices (e.g. Kabbalah)
Have a theme of surviving in a “world of otherness.”
That last one in particular is very important to me. The classical Jewish art song I focus on often doesn’t have those first three musical elements referenced above, but are simply about navigating the world as a Jewish person. To me, that’s the utmost important thing about this genre of music.
I remember sitting in a music history class in college. There were a couple of paragraphs in our textbook about Jewish music, and I couldn’t wait to cover it in class. When we got to that paragraph, my professor literally said it wasn’t important and we skipped over it. Perhaps the music wasn’t “important” in the grand scheme of Western musical traditions, but it was incredibly invalidating to just skip over my culture’s music, and for it to be deemed as unimportant.
Learning about Jewish music is as important as learning about any other musical traditions of another culture. If you’re part of that culture, it only brings you closer to your roots and validates your experiences. If you’re not part of that culture, you gain a new perspective both musically and culturally. And what’s the harm in that?
What made you decide to look more deeply into identifying Jewish music and learning about its history?
I didn’t grow up religious, nor am I religious now. But, when I was 12, I had to go to a friend’s Bar Mitzvah service in the temple. I remember rolling my eyes and hearing about how I had to sit through the service. I just wanted to go to the party! But, then I heard the reading of the Torah. I was amazed at how musical it all sounded, and I fell in love with it. It was the first time I really felt proud of being Jewish, and I also remember at that moment regretting the decision to not go to Hebrew school.
As I grew older, I realized how tokenized Jewish music was in my circles. In the choirs I sang in, the Hanukkah song they’d program was the “funny” one. I think I performed only one choir piece in Hebrew that was actually taken seriously. It bothered me that we couldn’t just perform Jewish-related music without the guise of Hanukkah in a Christmas program.
When I got to college, I expressed to my voice teacher how desperately I wanted to sing something Jewish-related. He referred me to Maurice Ravel’s “Kaddish.” It’s absolutely beautiful, and I really love it so much, but Ravel isn’t Jewish. I tried finding more music by Jewish composers, especially those who harnessed that “Jewish” sound, but it’s incredibly hard to find.
So, that leads me to where I am today. My goal is to just make this music easier to find for Jewish (and non-Jewish!) singers to find. There’s absolutely no reason why it should be inaccessible.
Why did you decide to create The Jewish Art Song Database?
Going off my previous answer, I wanted to create a resource that teachers can use to find this music for their students. From my knowledge, a website this comprehensive doesn’t exist. I plan on finding as many Jewish art songs as I can, and then analyzing them from a pedagogical standpoint. This lets teachers spend less brain-power on figuring out whether or not a song is the right fit for their student. Many of these songs also don’t have linguistic translations or IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transliterations, so I hope to provide those too for students and teachers. Like I said, it’s just about making this all more accessible. These songs will not become part of the canon if they aren’t accessible to the public.
How do you think sharing Jewish music can help facilitate intercultural dialogue, and how can non-Jewish people play a positive role in that effort? Is performing Jewish music as a non-Jewish person appropriate, for example?
This is a great question :) It’s been an interesting time to start this work. My lecture-recital on this topic was only a couple weeks after October 7th, and I’ve been really scared to share my work since then. I don’t want people to perceive that Jewish = Israel and such, and I hope that the music I share can emphasize that. I think this music just makes people so much more aware of what it is like to navigate the world as a Jew, and the good and bad that may come with it.
It is SO appropriate for a non-Jewish person to perform these songs, and I encourage it! The beauty of music (or really any other performance medium) as an art form is that it allows people to step into someone else’s shoes and view the world from a different perspective. The songs I specialize in are particularly great for encouraging strong and authentic acting choices, which can only be made if the student have done their research and knows the complexities of what they’re singing about.
I encourage non-Jewish people to approach this repertoire with a hunger to learn and genuine respect. Study the historical contexts of the songs, know where the texts come from, and imagine what it would be like to be this character/person without tokenizing it. This music can be so moving when genuinely sung. And who wouldn’t want that?!
If I am new to the repertoire of Jewish music and want to learn and hear more, where should I start? Do you have any favorite composers, performances, or songs?
Composers: Salomone Rossi, Lori Laitman, Viktor Ullmann, Ilse Weber, Pavel Haas, Simon Laks, Darius Milhaud, Ernest Bloch, Lazar Weiner
Performances: Cecilia Bartoli’s rendition of Ravel’s Kaddish (not a Jewish composer, but of Jewish material and it perfectly captures the Jewish sounds discussed earlier)
Songs: Samuel Rosner’s set “A Kindling Flame”
Bio:
Allie Brault is a soprano known for her work towards making Jewish art songs more accessible to teachers and singers. In particular, she focuses on the songs of poet and musician, Ilse Weber (1903-1944). Brault was awarded the Professional Master’s Excellence Award from Penn State for her extensive work on Weber, as well as her high academic performance. She has also created The Jewish Art Song Database (www.JewishArtSong.com), which is the first comprehensive online database of this repertoire to exist. Brault received her Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education and Music Performance from The Crane School of Music, under the tutelage of Dr. Lonel Woods. She graduated this past May with her Master of Music degree in Voice Performance and Pedagogy from Penn State, where she studied voice with Dr. Rachel Copeland and pedagogy with Dr. Norman Spivey. In August, Brault will begin her doctoral studies in Voice Pedagogy at the University of Maryland.