Secular Jewish music - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This article is about secular Jewish music from Biblical to Modern times. For the main article on Jewish music, see Jewish music
Jewish music
Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish People which have evolved over time throughout the long course of Jewish History. In some instances Jewish Music is of a religious nature, spiritual songs and refrains are common in Jewish Services throughout the world, while other times, it is...

.

See Secular Jewish culture
Secular Jewish culture
Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena; above all, it is the international culture of secular communities of Jewish people, but it can also include the cultural contributions of individuals who identify as secular Jews...

for the main article on secular Jewish culture.

Israeli music

Modern Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

is heavily influenced by its constituents, which include Jewish immigrants from more than 120 countries around the world, which have brought their own musical traditions, making Israel a global melting pot

Melting pot

The melting pot is a metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture...

. The Israeli music is very versatile and combines elements of both western and eastern music. It tends to be very eclectic and contains a wide variety of influences from the Diaspora

Diaspora

A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...

and more modern cultural importation. Hassidic songs, Asian and Arab pop, especially Yemenite singers, and hip hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

or heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

(including a generally Israeli subgenre of folk metal

Folk metal

Folk metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. As the name suggests, the genre is a fusion of heavy metal with traditional folk music...

called oriental metal).

From the earliest days of Zionist settlement, Jewish immigrants wrote popular folk music. At first, songs were based on borrowed melodies from German, Russian, or traditional Jewish folk music with new lyrics written in Hebrew. Starting in the early 1920s, however, Jewish settlers made a conscious effort to create a new Hebrew style of music, a style that would tie them to their earliest Hebrew origins and that would differentiate them from the style of the Jewish diaspora of Eastern Europe, which they viewed as weak. This new style borrowed elements from Arabic and, to a lesser extent, traditional Yemenite and eastern Jewish styles: the songs were often homophonic (that is, without clear harmonic character), modal, and limited in range. "The huge change in our lives demands new modes of expression," wrote composer and music critic Menashe Ravina in 1943. "... and, just as in our language we returned to our historical past, so has our ear turned to the music of the east ... as an expression of our innermost feelings."

The youth, labor and kibbutz movements played a major role in musical development before and after the establishment of Israeli statehood in 1948, and in the popularization of many of these songs. The Zionist establishment saw music as a way of establishing a new national identity, and, on a purely pragmatic level, of teaching Hebrew to new immigrants. The national labor organization, the Histadrut, set up a music publishing house that disseminated songbooks and encouraged public sing-alongs (שירה בציבור). This tradition of public sing-alongs continues to the present day, and is a characteristic of modern Israeli culture.

Israeli folk music

Termed in Hebrew שירי ארץ ישראל ("songs of the land of Israel

Land of Israel

The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...

"), folk songs are meant mainly to be sung in public by the audience or in social events. Some are children's songs; some combine European folk tunes with Hebrew lyrics; some come from military bands and others were written by poets such as Naomi Shemer

Naomi Shemer

Naomi Shemer was a leading Israeli songwriter hailed as the "first lady of Israeli song and poetry."-Biography:Naomi Sapir was born on Kvutzat Kinneret, a kibbutz her parents had helped found, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. In the 1950s she served in the Israeli Defense Force's Nahal...

and Chaim Nachman Bialik.

The canonical songs of this genre often deal with Zionist

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

hopes and dreams and glorify the life of idealistic Jewish youth who intend on building a home and defending their homeland. A common theme is Jerusalem as well as other parts of Eretz Israel. Tempo

Tempo

In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...

varies widely, as do the content. Some songs show a leftist or right-wing bent, while others are typically love songs, lullabies or other formats; some are also socialist in subject, due to the long-standing influence of socialism

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

on Jews in parts of the Diaspora.

Patriotic folk songs are common, mostly written during the war

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

s of Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. They typically concern themselves with soldiers' friendships and the sadness of death during war. Some are now played at memorials or holidays dedicated to the Israeli dead.

Klezmer

Around the 15th century, a tradition of secular (non-liturgical) Jewish music was developed by musicians called kleyzmorim or kleyzmerim by Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe. They draw on devotional traditions extending back into Biblical times, and their musical legacy of klezmer continues to evolve today. The repertoire is largely dance songs for weddings and other celebrations. They are typically in Yiddish.
The term "klezmer" was a derogatory term referring to low class street musicians. Often the klezmer performed with non-Jewish musicians and played for non-Jewish functions. As a result of this "mixing" the music constantly evolved through the fusing of styles. This practice still plays a major role in the development of musical style to include Jazz, as evident in Benny Goodman's music and even Texas music as evident in the music on the modern Austin Klezmorim

Austin Klezmorim

Austin Klezmorim is a klezmer music group founded in 1979 in Austin, Texas by trumpeter and composer Bill Averbach.-Recordings:Self-Published Recordings*Shalom Y'all 1979*Texas Klez 1984*East of Odessa 1992*Bubba's Waltz 2005Compilations...

Sephardic/Ladino

Sephardic music is the unique music of the Sephardic Jews. Sephardic music was born in medieval Spain, with canciones

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

being performed at the royal courts. Since then, it has picked up influences from across Spain, Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

and various popular tunes from Spain and further abroad. There are three types of Sephardic songs—topical and entertainment songs, romance songs and spiritual or ceremonial songs. Lyrics can be in several languages, including Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

for religious songs, and Ladino.

These song traditions spread from Spain to Morocco (the Western Tradition) and several parts of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

(the Eastern Tradition) including Greece, Jerusalem, the Balkans

Balkans

The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

and Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. Sephardic music adapted to each of these locals, assimilating North African high-pitched, extended ululations; Balkan rhythms, for instance in 9/8 time; and the Turkish maqam

Maqam

- Musical structures :* Arabic maqam, melodic modes* Mugam genre of Azeri-speaking cultures* Maqam al-iraqi genre of Iraq* Weekly Maqam prayer services of Sephardic Jewish culture* Makam, melody types of Turkey* Muqam, melody type of Uyghur culture...

mode

Musical mode

In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...

Mizrahi

Mizrahi music usually refers to the new wave of music in Israel which combines Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i music with the flavor of Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

ic and Mediterranean (especially Greek) music. Typical Mizrahi songs will have a dominant violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

or string

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

sound as well as Middle Eastern percussion elements. Mizrahi music is usually high pitched. In today's Israeli music scene, Mizrahi music is very popular.

Dancing

Deriving from Biblical traditions, Jewish dance has long been used by Jews as a medium for the expression of joy and other communal emotions. Each Jewish diasporic

Jewish diaspora

The Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....

community developed its own dance traditions for wedding celebrations and other distinguished events. For Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews

Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...

in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

, for example, dances, whose names corresponded to the different forms of klezmer

Klezmer

music that were played, were an obvious staple of the wedding ceremony of the shtetl

Shtetl

A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...

. Jewish dances both were influenced by surrounding Gentile

Gentile

The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....

traditions and Jewish sources preserved over time. "Nevertheless the Jews practiced a corporeal expressive language that was highly differentiated from that of the non-Jewish peoples of their neighborhood, mainly through motions of the hands and arms, with more intricate legwork by the younger men." In general, however, in most religiously traditional communities, members of the opposite sex dancing together or dancing at times other than at these events was frowned upon.

Not Jewish in form

The below two sections address instances in which Jews have contributed musically using originally non-Jewish forms or the forms used by the mainstream culture,

Jews in mainstream and jazz music

Jews have also contributed to popular music, primarily in the United States (and, obviously, in Israel

Music of Israel

The music of Israel is a combination of Jewish and non-Jewish music traditions that have come together over the course of a century to create a distinctive musical culture. For more than 100 years, musicians have sought original stylistic elements that would define the emerging national spirit...

), and in some specific forms of popular music have become or are dominant. This is true to a lesser extent in Europe, but some of the first influential Jewish popular musicians in the US were actually natives of Europe, such as Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...

, Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

and Sigmund Romberg

Sigmund Romberg

Sigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...

. The most visible early forms of American popular music in which Jews have contributed are the popular song and musical theater. Approximately half of the members of the Songwriters Hall of Fame

Songwriters Hall of Fame

The Songwriters Hall of Fame is an arm of the National Academy of Popular Music. It was founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer and music publishers Abe Olman and Howie Richmond. The goal is to create a museum but as of April, 2008, the means do not yet exist and so instead it is an online...

are Jewish. However, the latter especially has been dominated by Jewish composers and lyricists throughout its history and to a certain extent still today.

While Jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

is primarily considered an art form with African-American originators, many Jewish musicians have contributed to it including clarinetists Mezz Mezzrow

Mezz Mezzrow

Milton Mesirow, better known as Mezz Mezzrow was an American jazz clarinetist and saxophonist from Chicago, Illinois. Mezzrow is well known for organizing and financing historic recording sessions with Tommy Ladnier and Sidney Bechet. Mezzrow also recorded a number of times with Bechet and...

, Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

and Artie Shaw

Artie Shaw

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky , better known as Artie Shaw, was an American jazz clarinetist, composer, and bandleader. He was also the author of both fiction and non-fiction writings....

(the latter two swing

Swing Era

The Swing era was the period of time when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. Though the music had been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Moten, Ella Fitzgerald,...

bandleaders made significant contributions in bringing racial integration

Racial integration

Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...

into the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

music industry), saxophonists Michael Brecker

Michael Brecker

Michael Leonard Brecker was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Acknowledged as "a quiet, gentle musician widely regarded as the most influential tenor saxophonist since John Coltrane," he has been awarded 15 Grammy Awards as both performer and composer and was inducted into Down Beat Jazz...

, Kenny G

Kenny G

Kenneth Bruce Gorelick , better known by his stage name Kenny G, is an American, adult contemporary and smooth jazz saxophonist. His fourth album, Duotones, brought him breakthrough success in 1986...

, Stan Getz

Stan Getz

Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...

, Benny Green, Lee Konitz

Lee Konitz

Lee Konitz is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings...

, Ronnie Scott

Ronnie Scott

Ronnie Scott was an English jazz tenor saxophonist and jazz club owner.-Life and career:Ronnie Scott was born in Aldgate, east London, into a family of Russian Jewish descent on his father's side, and Portuguese antecedents on his mother's. Scott began playing in small jazz clubs at the age of...

and Joshua Redman

Joshua Redman

Joshua Redman is an American jazz saxophonist and composer who records for Nonesuch Records. He won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991.-Biography:...

, trumpeters and cornetists Randy Brecker

Randy Brecker

Randal "Randy" Brecker is an American trumpeter and flugelhornist. He is a highly sought after performer in the genres of jazz, rock, and R&B, and has performed or recorded with Stanley Turrentine, Billy Cobham, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Sandip Burman, Charles Mingus, Blood, Sweat & Tears,...

, Ruby Braff

Ruby Braff

Reuben "Ruby" Braff was an American jazz trumpeter and cornetist. Jack Teagarden was once asked about him on the Gary Moore TV show and described Ruby as "The Ivy League Louis Armstrong."Braff was born in Boston...

, Red Rodney

Red Rodney

Robert Roland Chudnick , who performed by the stage name Red Rodney, was an American bop and hard bop trumpeter.-Biography:...

and Shorty Rogers

Shorty Rogers

Milton “Shorty” Rogers , born Milton Rajonsky in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was one of the principal creators of West Coast jazz. He played both the trumpet and flugelhorn, and was in demand for his skills as an arranger. Rogers worked first as a professional musician with Will Bradley and...

, vibraphonist Terry Gibbs

Terry Gibbs

Terry Gibbs is an American jazz vibraphonist and band leader.He has performed and/or recorded with Tommy Dorsey, Chubby Jackson, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Louie Bellson, Charlie Shavers, Mel Tormé, Buddy DeFranco, and others...

, drummers Buddy Rich

Buddy Rich

Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...

, Mel Lewis

Mel Lewis

Mel Lewis was an American drummer, jazz musician and band leader. He was born Melvin Sokoloff in Buffalo, New York to Russian immigrant parents....

, and Victor Feldman

Victor Feldman

Victor Stanley Feldman was a British jazz musician, best known as a pianist.-Early history:...

, and singers and pianists Billy Joel

Billy Joel

William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...

, Al Jolson

Al Jolson

Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....

, Ben Sidran

Ben Sidran

Ben Sidran is an American jazz and rock pianist, organist, vocalist and writer born in Chicago, noted for his work with the early Steve Miller Band.-Biography:...

and Mel Tormé

Mel Tormé

Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...

. Some artists such as Harry Kandel

Harry Kandel

Harry Kandel was an American clarinetist and bandleader, one of the pioneers of modern klezmer music. He ran an orchestra which consisted of a variety of instruments, including himself on clarinet, trombone, tuba, xylophone, cornet, violin, flute, viola and piano...

were famous for mixing Jazz with klezmer as was modern Texas klezmer Bill Averbach. Since a great deal of Jazz music consisted of musical cooperation of Jewish and African-American musicians or black musicians funded by Jewish producers, the art form became "the racist's worst nightmare".

Although the early rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

performers were mostly either African Americans or Southern Whites, Jewish songwriters played a key role: Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

Jerome "Jerry" Leiber and Mike Stoller were American songwriting and record producing partners. Stoller was the composer and Leiber the lyricist. Their most famous songs include "Hound Dog", "Jailhouse Rock", "Kansas City", "Stand By Me" Jerome "Jerry" Leiber (April 25, 1933 – August 22, 2011)...

, Carole King

Carole King

Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...

and Gerry Goffin

Gerry Goffin

Gerry Goffin is an American lyricist. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 with former songwriting partner and first wife, Carole King. he has co-written six Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers.-Career:Goffin enlisted with the Marine Corps Reserve after graduating from...

, Neil Diamond

Neil Diamond

Neil Leslie Diamond is an American singer-songwriter with a career spanning over five decades from the 1960s until the present....

, Neil Sedaka

Neil Sedaka

Neil Sedaka is an American pop/rock singer, pianist, and composer. His career has spanned nearly 55 years, during which time he has sold millions of records as an artist and has written or co-written over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collaborating mostly with lyricists Howard...

, and nearly all of the other Brill Building

Brill Building

The Brill Building is an office building located at 1619 Broadway on 49th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, just north of Times Square and further uptown from the historic musical Tin Pan Alley neighborhood...

songwriters were Jewish, as was Phil Spector

Phil Spector

Phillip Harvey "Phil" Spector is an American record producer and songwriter, later known for his conviction in the murder of actress Lana Clarkson....

. With the mid-1960s rise of the singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

, some (King, Diamond, Sedaka) became performers; others (such as Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach

Burt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...

) managed to continue to work primarily as songwriters. In the rock era, Jewish musicians were by no means dominant, but many worked with a mix of folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

and rock forms, including Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Lou Reed

Lou Reed

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...

, David Bromberg

David Bromberg

David Bromberg is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Bromberg has an eclectic style, playing bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock and roll equally well. He is known for his quirky, humorous lyrics, and the ability to play rhythm and lead guitar at the...

, David Grisman

David Grisman

David Grisman is an American bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist and composer of acoustic music. In the early 1990s, he started the Acoustic Disc record label in an effort to preserve and spread acoustic or instrumental music.-Biography:Grisman grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey...

, Kinky Friedman

Kinky Friedman

Richard S. "Kinky" Friedman is an American Texas Country singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician and former columnist for Texas Monthly who styles himself in the mold of popular American satirists Will Rogers and Mark Twain. He was one of two independent candidates in the 2006 election...

, Jorma Kaukonen

Jorma Kaukonen

Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen Jr. is an American blues, folk, and rock guitarist, best known for his work with Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna.-Biography:...

, Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...

, Simon and Garfunkel

Simon and Garfunkel

Simon & Garfunkel are an American duo consisting of singer-songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel. They formed the group Tom & Jerry in 1957 and had their first success with the minor hit "Hey, Schoolgirl". As Simon & Garfunkel, the duo rose to fame in 1965, largely on the strength of the...

; more purely on the rock side are David Lee Roth

David Lee Roth

David Lee Roth is an American rock vocalist, songwriter, actor, author, and former radio personality. Roth was ranked nineteenth by Hit Parader on their list of the 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Singers of All Time....

, Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Kravitz

Leonard Albert "Lenny" Kravitz is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and arranger, whose "retro" style incorporates elements of rock, soul, R&B, funk, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, folk and ballads...

, pop bands such as Army of Lovers

Army Of Lovers

Army of Lovers are a Swedish dance music group formed in 1987.The name of the band alludes to a documentary Armee der Liebenden oder Revolte der Perversen about the German gay rights activist Rosa von Praunheim, the title of which in turn alludes to the Theban Band.-History:The founding members,...

and all three Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....

. Many American rock and metal bands have at least one Jewish musician, notably both leading members of KISS

KISS (band)

Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...

(Gene Simmons

Gene Simmons

Gene Simmons is an Israeli-American entrepreneur, singer-songwriter, actor, and rock bassist. Known as "The Demon", he is the bassist/vocalist of Kiss, a hard rock band he co-founded in the early 1970s.-Early life:...

and Paul Stanley

Paul Stanley

Stanley Harvey Eisen , better known by his stage name Paul Stanley, is an American hard rock guitarist, singer, musician, painter and songwriter best known for being the rhythm guitarist and primary lead vocalist of the rock band Kiss. He is the writer or co-writer of many of the band's...

), Geddy Lee

Geddy Lee

Gary Lee Weinrib, OC, better known as Geddy Lee , is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist, bassist, and keyboardist for the Canadian rock group Rush...

of Rush

Rush (band)

Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...

, Aerosmith

Aerosmith

Aerosmith is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "The Bad Boys from Boston" and "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based hard rock, has come to also incorporate elements of pop, heavy metal, and rhythm and blues, and has inspired many...

drummer Joey Kramer

Joey Kramer

Joseph Michael "Joey" Kramer is the drummer for the American hard rock band Aerosmith....

, Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

percussionist Mickey Hart

Mickey Hart

Mickey Hart is an American percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band the Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 to February 1971, and from October 1974 to August 1995...

, Bon Jovi

Bon Jovi

Bon Jovi is an American rock band from Sayreville, New Jersey. Formed in 1983, Bon Jovi consists of lead singer and namesake Jon Bon Jovi , guitarist Richie Sambora, keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, as well as current bassist Hugh McDonald...

(keyboardist David Bryan

David Bryan

David Bryan is the keyboard player of the band rock classic, Bon Jovi. Bryan also sings backing vocals and often at live shows sings part of or the whole of the song "In These Arms", one of a handful of Bon Jovi songs credited to him as songwriter...

), the Doors

The Doors

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

guitarist Robby Krieger

Robby Krieger

Robert Alan "Robby" Krieger is an American rock guitarist and songwriter. He was the guitarist in The Doors, and wrote some of the band's best known songs, including "Light My Fire," "Love Me Two Times," "Touch Me," and "Love Her Madly."...

, Ramones

Ramones

The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...

' Joey Ramone

Joey Ramone

Joey Ramone was an American vocalist and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist in the punk rock band the Ramones. Joey Ramone's image, voice and tenure as frontman of the Ramones made him a countercultural icon.-Early life:Joey Ramone was born Jeffry Hyman to parents Noel and Charlotte Hyman...

and Tommy Ramone

Tommy Ramone

Tommy Ramone, also known as Thomas Erdelyi , is a Hungarian American record producer and musician...

, and Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...

drummer Steven Adler

Steven Adler

Steven Adler is an American musician. He is best known as the former drummer of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s...

; a few prominent UK examples are Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...

's Peter Green

Peter Green (musician)

Peter Green is a British blues-rock guitarist and the founder of the band Fleetwood Mac...

, and perhaps the most notably the late Marc Bolan

Marc Bolan

Marc Bolan was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and poet. He is best known as the founder, frontman, lead singer & guitarist for T. Rex, but also a successful solo artist...

of T. Rex

T. Rex (band)

T. Rex were a British rock band, formed in 1967 by singer/songwriter and guitarist Marc Bolan. The band formed as Tyrannosaurus Rex, releasing four folk albums under the name...

, added to all that many Jewish musicians have been and are part of the progressive rock/metal movement including: King Crimson bassist Tony Levin (also from Peter Gabriel's band), Rod Morgenstein (drummer for the Dixie Dregs), Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater keyboardist), Mike Portnoy (drummer for Dream Theater and Transatlantic). Today, some Jews have begun to experiment with forms such as reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

and rap

Hip hop music

, and artists such as Matisyahu have used forms of secular culture to express religious ideas.

"Popular" music in Europe during the early 20th century would have been considered to be lighter classical forms such as operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

and entertainments like cabaret

Cabaret

Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...

, and in these Jewish involvement was very large, especially in Vienna and Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Probably the most notable ethnically Jewish composer of operettas was Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....

, a Roman Catholic convert; in the second half of the 20th century, Serge Gainsbourg

Serge Gainsbourg

Serge Gainsbourg, born Lucien Ginsburg was a French singer-songwriter, actor and director. Gainsbourg's extremely varied musical style and individuality make him difficult to categorize...

's was one of the dominant figures in the evolution of cabaret music. During the more recent period with its different definition of popular music, Jews have to a lesser extent still contributed.

Popular music in Israel

Music of Israel

has also a been medium for Jewish secular musical expression. Many Israeli secular musicians explore topics such as the Jewish and Israeli people, Zionism

Zionism

and nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, agriculture and the land of Israel, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israeli popular music for the most part uses borrowed American forms like rock

Rock and roll

and alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

, pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

, heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

, hip hop

Hip hop music

, rap and trance

Trance music

Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...

. In addition to these and classical music, Israel is host to a wealth of styles of Mizrahi music
Mizrahi music
Mizrahi music refers to the music integration that combines elements from Europe, the West, and Middle Eastern/North African countries transported to Israel by migrating Jews. It is usually sung in Hebrew, literary Hebrew and Arabic slang...

, featuring the influences and contributions of Arab

Arab Jews

Arab Jews is a term referring to Jews living in the Arab World, or Jews descended from such persons.The term was occasionally used in the early 20th century, mainly by Arab nationalists, to describe the 1 million Jews living in the Arab world at the time...

, Yemenite

Yemenite Jews

Yemenite Jews are those Jews who live, or whose recent ancestors lived, in Yemen . Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of Yemen's Jewish population was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet...

, Greek and Ethiopian Jews.

Jews in classical music

Before the Jewish Emancipation

Jewish Emancipation

Jewish emancipation was the external and internal process of freeing the Jewish people of Europe, including recognition of their rights as equal citizens, and the formal granting of citizenship as individuals; it occurred gradually between the late 18th century and the early 20th century...

, virtually all Jewish music in Europe was sacred music

Jewish music

Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish People which have evolved over time throughout the long course of Jewish History. In some instances Jewish Music is of a religious nature, spiritual songs and refrains are common in Jewish Services throughout the world, while other times, it is...

, with the exception of the performances of klezmorim

Klezmorim

Klezmorim can refer to:*Musicians who play klezmer, a style of music originating with the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe*The Klezmorim, a klezmer band...

during weddings and other occasions. The result was a lack of a Jewish presence in European classical music until the 19th century, with very few exceptions, normally enabled by specific aristocratic protection, such as Salamone Rossi

Salamone Rossi

Salamone Rossi or Salomone Rossi was an Italian Jewish violinist and composer. He was a transitional figure between the late Italian Renaissance period and early Baroque.-Life:...

(whose work is considered the beginning of "Jewish art music"). Although during the Classical period small numbers of Jewish composers were present in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Southern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

and Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, the vast majority of Jewish classical composers were active during the Romantic

Romantic music

Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....

period (following the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

) and even more so in the 20th century

20th century classical music

20th century classical music was without a dominant style and highly diverse.-Introduction:At the turn of the century, music was characteristically late Romantic in style. Composers such as Gustav Mahler and Jean Sibelius were pushing the bounds of Post-Romantic Symphonic writing...

. Paul Johnson summarizes the dynamics of this cultural pattern:

The Jewish musical tradition, for instance, was far older than anyone else's in Europe. Music remained an element in Jewish services, and the cantor
Hazzan
A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...

was almost as pivotal a figure in local Jewish society as the rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

. But Jewish musicians, except as converts, had played no part in European musical development. Hence the entry, in considerable numbers, of Jewish composers and performers on the musical scene in the middle decades of the nineteenth century was a phenomenon, and a closely observed one.

Likewise, music historian

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

David Conway notes that

At the start of the nineteenth century there were virtually no Jewish professionals in music and the standard of music in Jewish synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

s was generally appalling. Yet by the end of the same century throughout Europe Jews held leading positions as conductors
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

, soloists
Solo (music)
In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...

, producers
Theatrical producer
A theatrical producer is the person ultimately responsible for overseeing all aspects of mounting a theatre production. The independent producer will usually be the originator and finder of the script and starts the whole process...

, music publishers and patrons
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...

of music; a Jew [ Meyerbeer ] was the most successful opera composer of the century, and the Jews were commonly held, what would have seemed nonsensical a hundred years earlier, to be a 'musical people'.

However, the origin of Gregorian chant, which was the earliest manifestation of European classical music, was Jewish choral music

Jewish music

of the Temple

Temple in Jerusalem

The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...

and synagogue

Synagogue

A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...

, according to a large number of analytical liturgists

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

and music historians

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

.

After Jews were admitted to mainstream society in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

(gradually after their return in the 17th century), France

France in the nineteenth century

The History of France from 1789 to 1914 extends from the French Revolution to World War I and includes:*French Revolution *French First Republic *First French Empire under Napoleon...

, Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

, the German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

, and Russia

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

(in that order), the Jewish contribution to the European music scene steadily increased, but in the form of mainstream European music, not specifically Jewish music. Notable examples of Jewish Romantic composers (by country) are Charles-Valentin Alkan

Charles-Valentin Alkan

Charles-Valentin Alkan was a French composer and one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of his day. His attachment to his Jewish origins is displayed both in his life and his work. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of six, earning many awards, and as an adult became a famous virtuoso...

, Paul Dukas

Paul Dukas

Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...

and Fromental Halévy

Fromental Halévy

Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy , was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...

from France, Josef Dessauer

Josef Dessauer

Josef Dessauer , was a Czech-born composer who wrote many popular songs, and also some less successful operas.-Life:...

, Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst was a Moravian-Jewish violinist, violist and composer. Ernst was widely seen as the outstanding violinist of his time and one of Paganini's greatest successors....

, Karl Goldmark

Karl Goldmark

Karl Goldmark, also known originally as Károly Goldmark and later sometimes as Carl Goldmark; May 18, 1830, Keszthely – January 2, 1915, Vienna) was a Hungarian composer.- Life and career :...

and Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

from Bohemia (most Austrian Jews during this time were native not to what is today Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

but rather the outer provinces of the Empire), Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

and Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...

from Germany, and Anton

Anton Rubinstein

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...

and Nikolai Rubinstein from Russia. Singers included John Braham

John Braham

John Braham was a tenor opera singer born in London, England. His long career led him to become one of Europe's leading opera stars. He also wrote a number of songs, of minor importance, although The Death of Nelson is still remembered...

and Giuditta Pasta

Giuditta Pasta

Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Pasta , born in Saronno, Italy, was a soprano considered among the greatest of opera singers, to whom the 20th-century soprano Maria Callas was compared.-Studies and career:...

. There were very many notable Jewish violin and pianist virtuosi, including Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...

, Ferdinand David, Carl Tausig

Carl Tausig

Carl Tausig was a Polish virtuoso pianist, arranger and composer.-Life:Tausig was born in Warsaw to Jewish parents and received his first piano lessons from his father, pianist and composer Aloys Tausig, a student of Sigismond Thalberg. His father introduced him to Franz Liszt in Weimar at the...

, Henri Herz

Henri Herz

Henri Herz was a pianist and composer, Austrian by birth, and French by domicile.Herz was born Heinrich Herz in Vienna...

, Leopold Auer

Leopold Auer

Leopold Auer was a Hungarian violinist, teacher, conductor and composer.-Early life and career:...

, Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...

, and Ignaz Moscheles

Ignaz Moscheles

Ignaz Moscheles was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso, whose career after his early years was based initially in London, and later at Leipzig, where he succeeded his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as head of the Conservatoire.-Sources:Much of what we know about Moscheles's life...

. During the 20th century the number of Jewish composers and notable instrumentalists increased, as did their geographical distribution. Jewish composers were most heavily concentrated in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

and other cities in pre-Nazi Austria and Germany. During the late 19th century and early 20th century, after Jews moved out of the Austrian-Hungarian province

Province

A province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state.-Etymology:The English word "province" is attested since about 1330 and derives from the 13th-century Old French "province," which itself comes from the Latin word "provincia," which referred to...

s into Vienna, they "comprised a third of the students of the city’s conservatories and more than half of its music audiences. Jewish children acquired musical instruction at rates exceeding three times that of the non-Jewish population. Beyond Vienna, Jews were also to a certain extent prominent in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

and New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

(the latter's Jewish population being heavily multiplied by waves of immigration). During the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s, when works by Jews were labelled as degenerate music

Degenerate music

Degenerate music was a label applied in the 1930s by the Nazi government in Germany to certain forms of music that it considered to be harmful or decadent. The Nazi government's concern for degenerate music was a part of its larger and more well-known campaign against degenerate art...

(not only because of the Jewish origins of the composers but also their association with Modernism), many European Jewish composers emigrated to the United States and Argentina

Argentina

, strengthening classical music in those countries. Sample Jewish 20th-century composers include Arnold Schönberg and Alexander von Zemlinsky

Alexander von Zemlinsky

Alexander Zemlinsky or Alexander von Zemlinsky was an Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher.-Early life:...

from Austria, Hanns Eisler

Hanns Eisler

Hanns Eisler was an Austrian composer.-Family background:Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy...

, Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill

and Theodor W. Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno

Theodor W. Adorno was a German sociologist, philosopher, and musicologist known for his critical theory of society....

from Germany, Viktor Ullmann

Viktor Ullmann

Viktor Ullmann was a Silesia-born Austrian, later Czech composer, conductor and pianist of Jewish origin.- Biography :...

and Jaromír Weinberger

Jaromír Weinberger

- Biography :Weinberger was born in Prague, from a family of Jewish origin. He heard Czech folksongs from time spent at his grandparents' farm as a youth. He started to play the piano at age 5, and was composing and conducting by age 10. He began musical studies with Jaroslav Křička. Later teachers...

from Bohemia and later the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

(the former perished at the Auschwitz extermination camps), George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

and Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

from the United States, Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...

and Alexandre Tansman

Alexandre Tansman

Alexandre Tansman was a Polish-born composer and virtuoso pianist. He spent his early years in his native Poland, but lived in France for most of his life...

from France, Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke ; November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony and First Concerto Grosso...

and Lera Auerbach

Lera Auerbach

Lera Auerbach is a Russian-born American composer and pianist.-Early life & education:Auerbach was born in Chelyabinsk, a city in the Urals bordering Siberia. She holds degrees in piano and composition from The Juilliard School, where she studied piano with Joseph Kalichstein and composition...

from Russia, Lalo Schifrin

Lalo Schifrin

Lalo Schifrin is an Argentine composer, pianist and conductor. He is best known for his film and TV scores, such as the "Theme from Mission: Impossible". He has received four Grammy Awards and six Oscar nominations...

and Mario Davidovsky

Mario Davidovsky

Mario Davidovsky is an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the US, where he lives today...

from Argentina and Paul Ben-Haim

Paul Ben-Haim

Paul Ben-Haim was an Israeli composer. Born Paul Frankenburger in Munich, Germany, he studied composition with Friedrich Klose and he was assistant conductor to Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch from 1920 to 1924...

and Shulamit Ran

Shulamit Ran

Shulamit Ran is an Israeli-American composer. She moved from Israel to New York at 14, as a scholarship student at the Mannes College of Music. Her Symphony won her the Pulitzer Prize...

from Israel.

There are some genres and forms of classical music that Jewish composers have been associated with, including notably during the Romantic period French

France

Grand Opera

Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...

. The most prolific composers of this genre included Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer

, Fromental Halévy

Fromental Halévy

Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy , was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...

, and the later Jacques Offenbach

Jacques Offenbach

; Halévy's La Juive

La Juive

La Juive is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on February 23, 1835.-Composition history:...

was based on Scribe's

Eugène Scribe

Augustin Eugène Scribe , was a French dramatist and librettist. He is best known for the perfection of the so-called "well-made play" . This dramatic formula was a mainstay of popular theater for over 100 years.-Biography:...

libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

very loosely connected to the Jewish experience. While little-known today, this "work by a Jewish composer in which anti-Semitism is a motivating force" was an extremely potent influence on late Romantic composers from Mahler

Gustav Mahler

(who took the story of anti-Semitism and assimilation personally, also calling it "one of the very greatest works ever written") to (ironically) the anti-Semitic

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

In the 20th century, Jewish composers were pioneers of avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

and contemporary music. Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

in his middle and later periods devised the twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...

and was a primary advocate of atonality

Atonality

Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...

, a system of composition which was later used by Jewish composers Paul Dessau

Paul Dessau

Paul Dessau was a German composer and conductor.- Biography :Dessau was born in Hamburg into a musical family...

and René Leibowitz

René Leibowitz

René Leibowitz was a French composer, conductor, music theorist and teacher born in Warsaw, Poland.-Career:...

. George Rochberg

George Rochberg

George Rochberg was an American composer of contemporary classical music.-Life:Rochberg was born in Paterson, New Jersey. He attended the Mannes College of Music, where his teachers included George Szell and Hans Weisse, and the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Rosario Scalero and...

and Milton Babbitt

Milton Babbitt

Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...

were leading composers in the school of serialism

Serialism

In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

, Steve Reich

Steve Reich

Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...

and Philip Glass

Philip Glass

Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...

worked with minimalism

Minimalist music

Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....

, George Perle

George Perle

George Perle was a composer and music theorist. He was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. Perle was an alumnus of DePaul University...

devised his own form of twelve-tone tonality, Leo Ornstein

Leo Ornstein

Leo Ornstein was a leading American experimental composer and pianist of the early twentieth century...

helped develop the tone cluster

Tone cluster

A tone cluster is a musical chord comprising at least three consecutive tones in a scale. Prototypical tone clusters are based on the chromatic scale, and are separated by semitones. For instance, three adjacent piano keys struck simultaneously produce a tone cluster...

, Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...

and Armand Lunel

Armand Lunel

Armand Lunel was a French writer and the last known speaker of Shuadit , a now-extinct Occitan language...

were noted composers of chance music

Aleatoric music

Aleatoric music is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer...

(the latter is also considered the inventor of spatialization), and Mario Davidovsky

Mario Davidovsky

Mario Davidovsky is an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the US, where he lives today...

was famous for writing a series of compositions mixing acoustic

Acoustic music

Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...

and electronic music. In addition, Lera Auerbach

Lera Auerbach

, Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke

and John Zorn

John Zorn

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

have worked with Polystylism and other forms of Postmodern music

Postmodern music

Postmodern music is either simply music of the postmodern era, or music that follows aesthetical and philosophical trends of postmodernism. As the name suggests, the postmodernist movement formed partly in reaction to modernism...

, and Modernist

Modernism (music)

Modernism in music is characterized by a desire for or belief in progress and science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, political advocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with the past or common practice.- Defining musical modernism :...

Miriam Gideon

Miriam Gideon was an American composer.-Life:She studied organ with her uncle Henry Gideon and piano with Felix Fox. She also studied with Martin Bernstein, Marion Bauer, Charles Haubiel, and Jacques Pillois...

combined atonalism and Jewish folk motives in her pieces.

While orchestral and operatic music works by Jewish composers would in general be considered secular, many Jewish (as well as non-Jewish) composers have incorporated Jewish themes and motives into their music. Sometimes this is done covertly, such as the klezmer

Klezmer

band music that many critics and observers believe lies in the third movement of Mahler's

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 1

Symphony No. 1 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 1 in D major by Gustav Mahler was mainly composed between late 1887 and March 1888, though it incorporates music Mahler had composed for previous works. It was composed while Mahler was second conductor at the Leipzig Opera, Germany...

(though ostensibly imitating the sound of a local Moravian town band), and this type of Jewish reference was most common during the 19th century when openly displaying one's Jewishness would most likely hamper a Jew's chances at assimilation

Cultural assimilation

Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...

. During the 20th century, however, many Jewish composers wrote music with direct Jewish references and themes, e.g. David Amram

David Amram

David Amram is an American composer, musician, conductor, and writer. As a classical composer and performer, his integration of jazz , ethnic and folk music has led him to work with the likes of Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Willie Nelson, Langston...

(Symphony – "Songs of the Soul"), Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

(Kaddish Symphony

Symphony No. 3 (Bernstein)

Kaddish is Leonard Bernstein's third symphony. The 1963 symphony is a dramatic work written for a large orchestra, a full choir, a boys' choir, a soprano soloist and a narrator. The name of the piece, Kaddish, refers to the Jewish prayer that is chanted at every synagogue service for the dead but...

, Chichester Psalms

Chichester Psalms

Chichester Psalms is a choral work by Leonard Bernstein for boy treble or countertenor, solo quartet, choir and orchestra...

), Ernest Bloch

Ernest Bloch

Ernest Bloch was a Swiss-born American composer.-Life:Bloch was born in Geneva and began playing the violin at age 9. He began composing soon afterwards. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe...

(Schelomo

Schelomo

Schelomo is a cello concerto written by Ernest Bloch, first published in 1916 and receiving its first premiere on May 3, 1917 in Carnegie Hall, New York City. This Rhapsodie hébraïque pour violoncelle et grand orchestre was completed during Bloch's "Jewish Cycle," which lasted from 1912 to 1926...

), Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

(see below), Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an Italian composer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for that instrument. In 1939 he migrated to the United States and became a film composer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next...

(Violin Concerto no. 2) Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill

(The Eternal Road) and Hugo Weisgall

Hugo Weisgall

Hugo David Weisgall was an American composer and conductor, known chiefly for his opera and vocal music compositions...

(Psalm of the Instant Dove). However, even during the 20th century some Jewish composers often quoted Jewish music within non-Jewish contexts; for example, Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

used liturgical

Liturgy

melodies and Hebrew songs for a few numbers in Porgy and Bess, and many also believe that the opening clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

glissando

Glissando

In music, a glissando is a glide from one pitch to another. It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French glisser, to glide. In some contexts it is distinguished from the continuous portamento...

in his Rhapsody in Blue

Rhapsody in Blue

Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....

is a reference to klezmer. Finally, many non-Jewish (mostly, but not all, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n) composers have composed classical music with clear Jewish themes and inspiration, such as Max Bruch

Max Bruch

Max Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...

(Kol Nidre

Kol Nidre (Bruch)

Kol Nidrei, Op. 47 , is a composition for cello and orchestra written by Max Bruch.Bruch completed the composition in Liverpool, England, before it was first published in Berlin in 1881. It is styled as an Adagio on 2 Hebrew Melodies for Cello and Orchestra with Harp and consists of a series of...

), Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...

(Overture on Hebrew Themes), Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

(Chanson hébraïque in Yiddish, Deux mélodies hébraïques - including "Kaddisch

Kaddish

Kaddish is a prayer found in the Jewish prayer service. The central theme of the Kaddish is the magnification and sanctification of God's name. In the liturgy different versions of the Kaddish are used functionally as separators between sections of the service...

" in Aramaic and "Fregt di velt di alte kashe" in Yiddish), Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

(Second Piano Trio

Piano Trio No. 2 (Shostakovich)

The Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67, by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1944, in the midst of World War II.-Composition history:The composition was dedicated to Shostakovich's good friend, Ivan Sollertinsky, a Russian polymath and avid musician, who had recently died at age 41. The work...

, From Jewish Folk Poetry

From Jewish Folk Poetry

From Jewish Folk Poetry is a song cycle for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and piano by Dmitri Shostakovich. It uses texts taken from archives of Jewish folk music compiled and translated by Moyshe Beregovsky and Y. M. Sokolov....

and Symphony No. 13 "Babi Yar"

Symphony No. 13 (Shostakovich)

The Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was first performed in Moscow on 18 December, 1962 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the basses of the Republican State and Gnessin Institute Choirs, under Kirill Kondrashin . The soloist was Vitali Gromadsky...

) and Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

(Abraham and Isaac - used the Hebrew

Hebrew language

Masoretic text

Masoretic Text

The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...

of a passage of Genesis, and was dedicated to the Jews and the State of Israel). Manyopera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

tic works by non-Jewish composers show a direct connection with and sympathy for the Jewish people and history, like Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

' Samson and Delilah

Samson and Delilah (opera)

Samson and Delilah , Op. 47, is a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire...

and Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

's Nabucco

Nabucco

Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...

.

In addition to composers, many Jews have been prominent music critics, music theorists

Music theory

Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...

and musicologists

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

, such as Guido Adler

Guido Adler

Guido Adler was a Bohemian-Austrian musicologist and writer.His father Joachim, a physician, died of typhoid fever in 1857...

, Leon Botstein

Leon Botstein

Leon Botstein is an American conductor and the President of Bard College . Botstein is the music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director and principal conductor from 2003-2010...

, Eduard Hanslick

Eduard Hanslick

Eduard Hanslick was a Bohemian-Austrian music critic.-Biography:Hanslick was born in Prague, the son of Joseph Adolph Hanslick, a bibliographer and music teacher from a German-speaking family, and one of his piano pupils, the daughter of a Jewish merchant from Vienna...

, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn

Abraham Zevi Idelsohn

Abraham Zevi Idelsohn was a prominent Jewish ethnologist and musicologist, who conducted several comprehensive studies of Jewish music around the world....

, Julius Korngold

Julius Korngold

Julius Korngold was a noted music critic. He was regarded as the top critic in Vienna in the early twentieth century, when that city was viewed as the centre of classical music. He is most notable for championing the works of Gustav Mahler at a time when many did not think much of him...

, Hedi Stadlen

Hedi Stadlen

Hedi Stadlen , better known in Sri Lanka as Hedi Keuneman, was an Austrian Jewish philosopher, political activist, and musicologist. She was one of the handful of European Radicals in Sri Lanka.-Vienna:...

and Robert Strassburg

Robert Strassburg

Robert Strassburg was aleading American conductor, composer, musicologist and music educator of the twentieth century. His studies in music were completed under the supervision of such leading composers as Igor Stravinsky, Walter Piston and Paul Hindemith, with whom he studied at Tanglewood...

. Jewish classical performers have most frequently been violinists (as can be expected from the violin's importance in klezmer), pianists and cellists. Notable examples are Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern was a Ukrainian-born violinist. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.-Biography:Isaac Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenets, Ukraine. He was fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco...

, Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Russian-Icelandic conductor and pianist. Since 1972 he has been a citizen of Iceland, his wife Þórunn's country of birth. Since 1978, because of his many obligations in Europe, he and his family have resided in Meggen, near Lucerne in Switzerland...

and Leonard Rose

Leonard Rose

Leonard Rose was an American cellist and pedagogue.Rose was born in Washington, D.C., his parents were immigrants from Kiev, Ukraine...

, respectively. Beginning with Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

and most frequently today, Jewish conductors

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

have also been prominent, with many like Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

achieving international stature. As of January 2006, the principal music director

Music director

A music director may be the director of an orchestra, the director of music for a film, the director of music at a radio station, the head of the music department in a school, the co-ordinator of the musical ensembles in a university or college , the head bandmaster of a military band, the head...

s of the American Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, in German Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks is the internationally renowned orchestra of the Bayerischer Rundfunk , based in Munich, Germany. It is one of the three principal orchestras in the city of Munich, along with the Munich Philharmonic...

/Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is a symphony orchestra of the Netherlands, based at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In 1988, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands conferred the "Royal" title upon the orchestra...

, Boston Symphony Orchestra

Boston Symphony Orchestra

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...

/Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

, Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...

/Berlin State Opera

Berlin State Opera

The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...

, National Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, Pittsburgh Symphony Pops Orchestra

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The orchestra's home is Heinz Hall, located in Pittsburgh's Cultural District.-History:...

, San Francisco Symphony

San Francisco Symphony

The San Francisco Symphony is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization...

and Tonhalle Orchestra (in Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

) are of Jewish descent (respectively Leon Botstein

Leon Botstein

, Mariss Jansons

Mariss Jansons

Mariss Ivars Georgs Jansons is a Latvian conductor, the son of conductor Arvīds Jansons. His mother, the singer Iraida Jansons, who was Jewish, gave birth to him in hiding in Riga, Latvia, after her father and brother were killed in the Riga Ghetto...

, James Levine

James Levine

James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...

, Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim, KBE is an Argentinian-Israeli pianist and conductor. He has served as music director of several major symphonic and operatic orchestras and made numerous recordings....

, Leonard Slatkin

Leonard Slatkin

Leonard Edward Slatkin is an American conductor and composer.-Early life and education:Slatkin was born in Los Angeles to a musical family that came from areas of the Russian Empire now in Ukraine. His father Felix Slatkin was the violinist, conductor and founder of the Hollywood String Quartet,...

, Lorin Maazel

Lorin Maazel

Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...

, Marvin Hamlisch

Marvin Hamlisch

Marvin Frederick Hamlisch is an American composer. He is one of only thirteen people to have been awarded Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and a Tony . He is also one of only two people to EGOT and also win a Pulitzer Prize...

, Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas

Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony Orchestra.-Early years:...

and David Zinman

David Zinman

David Zinman is an American conductor and violinist.After early violin studies at the Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota and took up conducting at Tanglewood...

). A few notable cantors

Hazzan

A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...

also worked as opera singers, such as Jan Peerce

Jan Peerce

Jan Peerce was an American operatic tenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film director Larry Peerce....

and Richard Tucker

Richard Tucker

Richard Tucker was an American operatic tenor.-Early life:Tucker was born Rivn Ticker in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of Romanian immigrants from Bessarabia. His father, Shmul Ticker, and mother Fanya-Tsipa Ticker had already adopted the surname "Tucker" by the time their son entered first...

Case study in secular Jewish culture: Jewish identity in 19th-century central Europe

Research regarding the Jewish identity of composers usually focuses on the assimilated

Cultural assimilation

German-speaking

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

Felix Mendelssohn

and Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

; the former, although the grandson of the most famous philosopher

Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted...

of the Haskalah

Haskalah

Haskalah , the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews in the 18th–19th centuries that advocated adopting enlightenment values, pressing for better integration into European society, and increasing education in secular studies, Hebrew language, and Jewish history...

, was baptized

Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...

and raised as a Lutheran, and the latter converted to Roman Catholicism in order to remove his most powerful obstacle to success (anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

) in musical Vienna

Vienna

. While in both cases the conversion was made in order to assimilate with Europe

Europe

an Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

society and therefore leave persecution in favor of prosperity, Mendelssohn wrote overtly and unapologetically Christian music (Symphony No. 5 "Reformation"

Symphony No. 5 (Mendelssohn)

The Symphony No. 5 in D major/D minor, Op. 107, called the Reformation Symphony, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1830 in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession. This Confession was a key document of Lutheranism and its Presentation to Emperor Charles V in...

, St. Paul Oratorio

Oratorio

An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...

and numerous chamber and other vocal pieces), and on one occasion he even changed his appearance in order to avoid looking like related Jewish composer Meyerbeer. Mahler also wrote Christian-inspired music in the fifth movement of the Second Symphony

Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. Apart from the Eighth Symphony, this symphony was Mahler's most popular and successful work during his lifetime. It is his first major work that would eventually mark his...

(although this highly spiritual piece has also been interpreted as fundamentally Jewish at its core), the fifth movement of the Third Symphony

Symphony No. 3 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 3 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1893 and 1896. It is his longest piece and is the longest symphony in the standard repertoire, with a typical performance lasting around ninety to one hundred minutes.- Structure :...

, the fourth movement of the Fourth Symphony

Symphony No. 4 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 4 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1899 and 1901, though it incorporates a song originally written in 1892. The song, "Das himmlische Leben", presents a child's vision of Heaven. It is sung by a soprano in the work's fourth and last movement...

and his Eighth Symphony

Symphony No. 8 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 8 in E-flat major by Gustav Mahler is one of the largest-scale choral works in the classical concert repertoire. Because it requires huge instrumental and vocal forces it is frequently called the "Symphony of a Thousand", although the work is often performed with fewer than a...

.

However, the issue in both cases is not so simple: although his father urged him to drop the name "Mendelssohn" in concert programs to purge any reference to his Jewish past, Felix "retained the name… despite his father's protests, and though undoubtedly a sincere Lutheran, retained a respect for his Jewish history. His professional and social success may have emboldened him to be more forthrightly pro-Jewish than other converts". Mahler wrote what have been perceived as Jewish references in his works, including klezmer-like passages in the third movement of the First Symphony

Symphony No. 1 (Mahler)

and first movement of the Third

Symphony No. 3 (Mahler)

; in addition, the previously mentioned fifth movement of the Second Symphony includes a passage that many believe imitates shofar

Shofar

A shofar is a horn, traditionally that of a ram, used for Jewish religious purposes. Shofar-blowing is incorporated in synagogue services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.Shofar come in a variety of sizes.- Bible and rabbinic literature :...

blasts with a programmatic text

Program music

Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music...

resembling the Unetanneh Tokef

Unetanneh Tokef

Unetanneh Tokef, Unethanneh Toqeph, or Unesanneh Tokef is a piyyut that has been a part of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgy in rabbinical Judaism for centuries. It introduces the Kedusha of Musaf for these days...

prayer.

The most compelling reason why Mendelssohn and Mahler are commonly considered Jewish composers are because they have been repeatedly identified as such both by anti-Semites

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

and Jews. In both cases contemporaries (respectively, Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

in his Das Judenthum in der Musik

Das Judenthum in der Musik

Das Judenthum in der Musik is an essay by Richard Wagner, attacking Jews in general and the composers Giacomo Meyerbeer and Felix Mendelssohn in particular, which was published under a pseudonym in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik of Leipzig in...

, and the virulent Vienna press and Austrian anti-Semites such as Rudolph Louis) argued that no matter how much the composer in question attempted to pass himself off as a good Austrian/German and a good Christian, he and his music would remain fundamentally and unalterably Jewish (in the context, with an obviously negative connotation). Therefore, when Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

suppressed what they considered "degenerate music

Degenerate music

", both Mendelssohn and Mahler were banned as Jewish composers; they were contrasted with "good" German composers like Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, Bruckner and Wagner (to a lesser degree concerning Wagner but especially in the case of Beethoven, the fact that the Nazi propagandists

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

claimed that deceased, and therefore unable to object composers are personifications of their ideology does not mean that they would have approved of such a label). The claim of "fundamental Jewishness" was repeated, but with a completely opposite meaning, by 20th century Jews like Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

(regarding Mahler), who viewed that the dual Jewishness and success of the composers is something to be championed and celebrated. A persuasive argument to the Jewishness of Mahler comes from his wife, Alma Mahler

Alma Mahler

Alma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel was a Viennese-born socialite well known in her youth for her beauty and vivacity. She became the wife, successively, of composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius, and novelist Franz Werfel, as well as the consort of several other prominent men...

He [Gustav] was not a man who ever deceived himself, and he knew that people would not forget he was a Jew.... Nor did he wish it forgotten.... He never denied his Jewish origin. Rather he emphasized it.

Regarding Wagner himself, it often seems ironic to some that many of the most influential and popular interpreters of his work have been Jewish conductors such as the aforementioned Mahler and Bernstein, as well as Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim

Daniel Barenboim, KBE is an Argentinian-Israeli pianist and conductor. He has served as music director of several major symphonic and operatic orchestras and made numerous recordings....

, Arthur Fiedler

Arthur Fiedler

Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country...

, Asher Fisch

Asher Fisch

Asher Fisch is an Israeli conductor.Born in Israel, Fisch began his career as an assistant of Daniel Barenboim and an associate conductor of the Berlin State Opera. He made his United States debut in 1995, conducting Richard Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer at the Los Angeles Opera, and has...

, Otto Klemperer

Otto Klemperer

Otto Klemperer was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century.-Biography:Otto Klemperer was born in Breslau, Silesia Province, then in Germany...

, Erich Leinsdorf

Erich Leinsdorf

Erich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...

, James Levine

James Levine

, Hermann Levi

Hermann Levi

Hermann Levi was a German Jewish orchestral conductor.Levi was born in Gießen, Germany, the son of a rabbi. He was educated at Gießen and Mannheim, and came to Vinzenz Lachner's notice...

(who was chosen by Wagner to conduct the premiere of Parsifal

Parsifal

Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...

Lorin Maazel

, Eugene Ormandy

Eugene Ormandy

Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...

, Fritz Reiner

Fritz Reiner

Frederick Martin “Fritz” Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.-Biography:...

, Sir George Solti

Georg Solti

Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...

, George Szell

George Szell

George Szell , originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer...

and Bruno Walter

Bruno Walter

Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...

. It has been noted that there is a "love of contemporary Jewish conductors for Wagner". While much has been written about Wagner's anti-Semitism in his writings and music, and the Nazi appropriation of his music, research in recent years has analyzed the possibility that Wagner was himself of Jewish ancestry, and explored Wagner's interaction with and attitude towards the Jews through a multi-sided perspective.

Much less complex and disputed is the Jewishness of Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

. Although he was brought up as a Catholic and converted to Protestantism

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

in 1898, during the rise of the Nazis in 1933 he openly embraced and returned to Judaism

Judaism

Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

. The result was a number of later works dealing with Judaism and the Holocaust, such as A Survivor from Warsaw

A Survivor from Warsaw

A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46, is a work for narrator, men's chorus, and orchestra written by the Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg in 1947. The initial inspiration for the work was a suggestion from the Russian émigrée dancer Corinne Chochem for a work to pay tribute to the Holocaust victims of...

, Kol Nidre and Moses und Aron

Moses und Aron

Moses und Aron is a three-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg with the third act unfinished. The German libretto was by the composer after the Book of Exodus.-Compositional history:...

. During this time Schoenberg also began to concern himself with the historical situation of the Jewish people in his essays and other writings.

Both Mahler and Schoenberg were Jewish composers who converted to a form of Christianity to avoid anti-Semitism, but yet were still attacked by the anti-Semitic elements of Viennese

Vienna

society as fundamentally Jewish and therefore a corrupting and perverse influence. According to Paul Johnson,

The feeling of cultural outrage was much more important than anti-Semitism as such; or rather, it turned into anti-Semites, at any rate for the moment, people who normally never expressed such feelings. It was he Jew-as-Iconoclast which aroused the really deep rage... Mahler had begun it; Schönberg carried it on; both were Jews, and they corrupted young Aryan composers like Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...

- so the argument went.

Again, although these critics meant their identifications of Mahler and Schoenberg as Jewish in an offensive way, this context provides a legitimate reason to claim them as Jewish composers today, though now in a neutral or positive sense. Despite the three above examples, however, a majority of Jewish artists and intellectuals in Austria, Germany and France during the 19th century and early 20th century assimilated culturally either by keeping the Jewish religion but living a mainstream European lifestyle (as Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted...

had wished in earlier decades) or renouncing religion in favor of secularism

Secularism

Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...

, but retained at least the identification of Jewishness. It is the dual existence of people who disassociated themselves with Judaism yet remained affiliated with the Jewish people, and those who wished to retain the Jewish religion but eliminate any distinct Jewish culture by blending into Gentile

Gentile

The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....

society in this region and period (as opposed to Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

at the same time, where both the Jewish peoplehood

Jewish peoplehood

Jewish peoplehood is the awareness of the underlying unity that makes an individual Jew a part of the Jewish people....

and religion were preserved) that show the complexities of both Judaism and secular Jewish culture.

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