The Reform Jewish Cantorate during the 19th Century
Encyclopedia
The modern Reform Cantorate
is seen as a result of developments that took place during the 19th Century, largely in Europe. The process continued to evolve in America following the emigration of German Reform Jews towards the end of the century.
was already present within European Jewish thought, the French Revolution
and its aftermath gave free rein
to those who wished to remake Judaism based on the new relationship Judaism had with Western society.
The model for change tended to be the relatively staid Protestant service. The Orthodox service, previously marked by its fervor, slowly changed into a "modern" Synagogue ritual in an attempt to achieve the decorum that was thought to go with recognition by the state. Many aspects of the way in which prayer was rendered (and therefore the music) changed rapidly. "Unsuitable traditional singing which interrupts the prayer" was curtailed, and congregants were "reminded and ordered to follow the cantor's prayers quietly and silently"
Rather than rabbis, the first figures to make and attempt reform were laymen. They felt the severity of the social problems of the Jew more intensely than the rabbis, who lived apart from social life, secluded in the realm of study. The first successful reformer of synagogue ritual was Israel Jacobson
(1768–1822), a wealthy and influential merchant. His goal was to reform ritual as well as religious education of the Jews in Germany
. In Seesen (in Lower Saxony
) in 1810, he erected the first Reform Temple on the grounds of a boys' school. Many innovations were based on the Christian model. The Temple had a bell used to announce the time of prayer. For the first time sermons were delivered in German. Jacobson was the first to introduce confirmation.
The pioneer of Jewish musicology A. Z. Idelsohn
(1882–1938) observes that as long as Jews lived in the belief that their stay in the Diaspora was compulsory galut (exile), as long as it was necessary to hope for a return to Palestine, they instinctively preserved the Semitic-Oriental element in themselves and in their cultural creations. Again, this self-assessment was altered by their self-appraisal as 'citizens' of a nation. The Reform usage of the term 'temple' for their places of worship (rather than 'synagogue
') was intended to convey a renunciation of any desire to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem; one of the crucial events anticipated by those who envisioned the inevitable return of the Jews to the Levant. Since it was no longer necessary to engender this hope via stylistic elements in their music, Western European melodic and harmonic techniques could be embraced without constraint. Idelsohn explains:
But there was a limit to the amount of change the even a liberal congregation would accept. In Berlin, Jacob Herz Beer (1769–1825) a banker and sugar manufacturer, the father of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer
(1791–1864) opened a Temple in his home according to Jacobson's program. His son (who happened to oppose the use of the organ in Jewish services—see below) arranged the music. But from the beginning, Beer was constrained to engage a chazzan in order to attract a greater audience. Back in Seer, Jacobson also acquiesced to public demand and engaged Chazzan Hirsch Goldberg (1807–1893). Together with Julius Freudenthal (1805–1874) (his famous tune to Ein Keloheinu is still sung today) they modernized Synagogue song eventually publishing a collection of solos and two-part choir arrangements.
The first of the great Cantor-composers were Salomon Sulzer, Samuel Naumbourg, and Louis Lewandowski, who held posts in Vienna, Paris, and Berlin, respectively. They created melodies that are today considered 'traditional' in synagogues, temples, and even little shteiblachs of every variety. Their arrangements are still required study for student cantors and continue to be sung by choirs of all levels. Their profiles and achievements are well-documented elsewhere. Here we will deal with a single issue or event, seemingly unimportant in relation to the rest of their work, but having considerable impact on the Reform cantorate or music in Reform Temples.
(1808–1890) was the legendary Oberkantor ('chief cantor') of Vienna. He was the first to consciously devise this role (and the title), basing it on the example of J.S. Bach. He is revered as an innovative composer, a singer of marvelous range and expression (a tenor/baritone) and as a prominent teacher, having been a member of the Vienna Conservatory faculty. His compositions combined 'old' and 'new' by setting traditional melodies in arrangement for four-part chorus, influencing the musical style of many synagogues in Eastern and Central Europe. Sulzer took a progressive position on the renewal of vocal music in the synagogue, however he opposed the use of the German language in the Jewish Service, and his view won out. Vienna was then the music capital of the world and even chazzanim from Orthodox Eastern Europe, where Sulzer and his ilk were looked down upon, were not impervious to his influence. They came to Vienna in order to learn something of the new style.
Singing and choirs were introduced without much controversy, but when it came to the organ
, synagogues were more hesitant, even negative. Meyerbeer, (noted above) when he was asked to compose a work for the consecration of the new Jewish house of worship in Vienna, once made the following comment on music in the synagogue:
The first Jewish Synod at Leipzig, in June 1869, brought together rabbis and community leaders from all over Europe, the United States, and even the West Indies to discuss the ideas of "enlightened" and liberal Judaism. Salomon Sulzer was a deputy in the Synod; the sole representative of cantors and synagogue musicians—testifying to the high regard the body of liberal rabbis held for this cantor and their understanding that music was a critical element in the 'liberal' congregations they envisioned. In his address, Sulzer brought up the issue of the organ.
The Synod agreed; no objections were raised to its use on the Shabbat and on holidays, in turn recommending that introduction of the organ proceed. Sulzer emphasizes the solo role of the organ; its necessity over and above that of other instruments:
(1817–1880) was descended from ten generations of chazzanim. He grew up in the world of Southern Ashkenazic chazzanut, and was with musicality and intelligence. His was trained in Munich, but his city would be Paris; the major European capital perhaps best distinguished by the significant role influence plays behind the scenes when it comes to music-making.
Naumbourg arrived in Paris in 1843 and began a friendship with Jacques Fromental Halévy
, to whom he had been recommended. Naumbourg pursued the position of director of music at the synagogue in rue Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, a community that had not had chazzan since the death of Israel Lovey in 1832 and the service was in disarray. Anything he proposed however, would have to pass through government's Department of Cults and Education. He submitted an application for the post, which was well-received due in part to favorable endorsement of Halévy:
His great innovation was to include, for the first time songs for soloists and choir commissioned from professional composers. Among the hundreds for traditional ones published in the first two volumes of his Zemirot Yisrael in 1847 and the third volume published in 1865 under the subtitle Shirei Kodesh there were two or three by Charles-Valentin Alkan
né Morhange (1813–1888), one by Meyerbeer, and several by Halévy. His 1874 anthology Aggudat Shirim posthumously included three more Halévy settings.
(1821–1894) illustrates the struggle between the 'old guard' and the 'new guard'.
Eventually, the innovations of Jacob Beer in Berlin were curtailed by the government's forced closure of his synagogue. This led to a conservative reaction on the part of the Jewish Community in Berlin, and the appointment of one Asher Lion (1776–1863) as the chazzan of the Reform Temple. Lion re-introduced the old eighteenth-century chazzanut. This 'restoration' would seem to have effectively discredited Beer's 'adventurism'. Although the hackneyed style Lion proffered continued to predominate until about the middle of the century, his appointment to Berlin Synagogue would ultimately ensure the emergence of the modern cantorate.
At the age of 12, Lewandowski was sent to Berlin to study at the conservatory where he was expected to become 'the Jewish Mendelssohn
.' He became a singerl (lit."little singer"; a child who appeared as a featured soloist or in duets with the chazzan). Lewandowski had no desire to follow Lion into Jewish music until he came under the sway of Hirsch Weintraub (1817–1881) an itinerant synagogue musician. His compositions were some of the first to effectively combine the best of gentile musicianship with traditional oriental elements. The music, consisting of arrangements for choir and string quartets, had a profound Jewish feeling but was rendered in a very sophisticated style. Much of it was based on the best of Mozart and Haydn. Some of the latter's string quartets, for example, were arranged to be sung by Weintraub's choir. This impressed Lewandowski (who had previously rejected the possibility of fusing these two seemingly contrary styles) along with the rest of the Berlin audiences who attended the performances on Weintraub's tour. Lewandowski began writing in the style he would eventually master.
Asher Lion, meanwhile, was forced to come to terms with this sudden evolution in the taste of the Berlin community. But because Lion was virtually untrained in modern composition, he could not read choir parts. After trying different ruses to obtain some understanding of the 'new music', he attempted to cajole Weintraub's quartet to join him and thereby obtain the music. He succeeded in enlisting the tenor, but it turned out that the tenor only knew his own parts! Lion was informed by this same tenor, that Weintraub actually utilized the scores of Sulzer, which were at the time still in manuscript.
Under the assumption that a Sulzer manuscript would be impossible to obtain, he demanded just that from his synagogue committee. When they actually managed to get one and present it to him, a real crisis ensued. Sulzer wrote using a different clef for each part! Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass. In desperation Lion eventually turned to the young Lewandowski to help him decipher the notes, finally just giving him the job of directing the choir. Lion realized that Lewandowski was indispensable to him and eventually Lewandowski's position as 'Choir Master' was made permanent—the first time that this title was recognized in synagogue setting.
There were no ordained Rabbis in the United States until the 1840s when the first major wave of German Jews arrived. Of course they brought with them the reforms that had been initiated in Europe, along with the nascent musical forms. At first, the choir director and the organ had more of an influence on the services than the chazzan.
By mid-century, the situation resembled the one that prevailed in Europe. As in the services being held in Germany and France, the Hebrew texts were abbreviated, many of the prayers were in the national tongue—English. There was an organ and the traditional chanting had been replaced by congregational singing of a mixed choir. It would have been impossible for a traditionally-trained chazzan to lead a Reform service. Isaac Mayer Wise
(1819–1900) a founder of the Reform Movement in America, described the old-time chazzan as 'half priest, half beggar, half oracle, half fool, as the occasion demanded.'
The first person to re-establish a pivotal role for the chazzan was Alois Kaiser
(1840–1908) Kaiser had been a member of Sulzer's choir as a boy, had conservatory training, and had served as a Cantor in the suburbs of Vienna. Beginning in 1866 he served at the congregation Oheib Shalom in Baltimore. He introduced classical compositions and operatic arias to be used as melodies, and wrote his own compositions in a similar style.
In general, the shortened service, the choir, and the organ made a cantor unnecessary, 'but if a musical leader came along who know how to reshape and revitalize the service, the laity might be swayed by his personality'.
Note the use of the title 'Cantor'. This of course, was the title first used by Salomon Sulzer; Sulzer remained the ideal of what a Cantor ought to be. His Austrian, Hungarian, and German disciples within the American Reform ambiance created a distinctive niche for the temple cantor.
. Sulzer's works were frequently included in services conducted by American Cantors at this time, along with works of their own. The prominence that music had, and the combination of the cantor's solo work, the choral numbers, and congregational singing, made the services at Reform temples unique within the American Jewish scene.
Here is Cantor Stark's job description as it appeared in the "Bylaws of the Congregation Emanu-El"
All for $4,500 a year.
endorsed its use in 1903 "so that it may in reality become what is was intended to be, a bond of union for all congregations throughout the land."
The role of the cantor in the Reform movement had entirely changed in the hundred years since Israel Jacobson founded his school in Seesen. Though the cantor's relationship to the new synagogue had been tenuous—at times eliminated altogether—CCAR's endorsement of the Union Hymnal also endorsed the role of the modern cantor: a trained musician familiar with Jewish tradition and sensitive to the needs of his community.
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...
is seen as a result of developments that took place during the 19th Century, largely in Europe. The process continued to evolve in America following the emigration of German Reform Jews towards the end of the century.
Emancipation
We may attribute these events to a new dialectic obtaining between Jews who saw themselves as reformers and the views held at the time by the majority of Jews in the world. Although a modernist tendencyHaskalah
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 already present within European Jewish thought, 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 its aftermath gave free rein
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...
to those who wished to remake Judaism based on the new relationship Judaism had with Western society.
Revision of the Service
The novel experience of life "as citizens" was for Jews, as if a mirror had been cast in front of them. They appraised themselves in relation to non-Jews as they never had before and felt the need to accommodate the new situation in religious as well as in civic life....ancient Jewish ritual practicesJewish servicesJewish prayer are the prayer recitations that form part of the observance of Judaism. These prayers, often with instructions and commentary, are found in the siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book....
stood in pale contrast to the enlightened modern church. The church offered participatory rites punctuated by the singing of moving hymns by the congregation and impressive performances by professional choirs singing the glorious music of Bach and Mozart—complete with stirring instrumental accompaniments. The synagogue offered unaccompanied Eastern chants known only to a limited inner circle of chazzanim, recited in an antique, literally backward and virtually incomprehensible language. How could Judaism hope to compete on such a stage? The only possible answer was to reformulate Judaism to suit the sensibilities of the modern era.
The model for change tended to be the relatively staid Protestant service. The Orthodox service, previously marked by its fervor, slowly changed into a "modern" Synagogue ritual in an attempt to achieve the decorum that was thought to go with recognition by the state. Many aspects of the way in which prayer was rendered (and therefore the music) changed rapidly. "Unsuitable traditional singing which interrupts the prayer" was curtailed, and congregants were "reminded and ordered to follow the cantor's prayers quietly and silently"
Rather than rabbis, the first figures to make and attempt reform were laymen. They felt the severity of the social problems of the Jew more intensely than the rabbis, who lived apart from social life, secluded in the realm of study. The first successful reformer of synagogue ritual was Israel Jacobson
Israel Jacobson
Israel Jacobson was a German philanthropist and, according to Borowitz and Patz in Explaining Reform Judaism , is considered the "father" of the Reform movement in Judaism.-Origins:...
(1768–1822), a wealthy and influential merchant. His goal was to reform ritual as well as religious education of the Jews in Germany
German Reform Movement
The German Reform Movement may refer to:* German Reform movement , a 19th century Jewish philosophical and religious movement* The Protestant Reformation, a 16th century Christian movement started by the German monk, Martin Luther...
. In Seesen (in Lower Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
) in 1810, he erected the first Reform Temple on the grounds of a boys' school. Many innovations were based on the Christian model. The Temple had a bell used to announce the time of prayer. For the first time sermons were delivered in German. Jacobson was the first to introduce confirmation.
Overturning the traditional musical style
As well as taking responsibility for re-arranging the ritual, the music was also changed. Jacobson installed an organ. A children's service was set, into which he introduced hymns that used tunes from Protestant chorales. The chanting of the Pentateuch and Prophets and prayers according to traditional modes were discarded. The service was read without chant, meaning that there was no longer the need for a chazzan; at least not a chazzan who could only function in the traditional capacity.Not only were congregants quieted, but also the high and low voiced singers who used to accompany the chazzan were replaced by decorous choruses as change spread across the German lands community by community throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. Hymns in German replaced the old piyutimPiyyutA piyyut or piyut is a Jewish liturgical poem, usually designated to be sung, chanted, or recited during religious services. Piyyutim have been written since Temple times...
, [liturgical poems] which began to be curtailed or proscribed altogether.
The pioneer of Jewish musicology A. Z. 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....
(1882–1938) observes that as long as Jews lived in the belief that their stay in the Diaspora was compulsory galut (exile), as long as it was necessary to hope for a return to Palestine, they instinctively preserved the Semitic-Oriental element in themselves and in their cultural creations. Again, this self-assessment was altered by their self-appraisal as 'citizens' of a nation. The Reform usage of the term 'temple' for their places of worship (rather than '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...
') was intended to convey a renunciation of any desire to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem; one of the crucial events anticipated by those who envisioned the inevitable return of the Jews to the Levant. Since it was no longer necessary to engender this hope via stylistic elements in their music, Western European melodic and harmonic techniques could be embraced without constraint. Idelsohn explains:
[Rather than abandon Judaism altogether it was thought to] reform their Judaism, by which they meant to cut away exotic, Semitic-Oriental parts, and retain only that part of Judaism which was of a general religious and ethical nature. The idea was so to remodel Judaism that it should not be a stumbling block by reason of its OrientalismOrientalismOrientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
and MediavalismMedieval musicMedieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...
, that it should be as easy to observe as is Christianity, that, furthermore, the modern Jew should not be offended by its strangeness and should be attracted by its European exterior.
But there was a limit to the amount of change the even a liberal congregation would accept. In Berlin, Jacob Herz Beer (1769–1825) a banker and sugar manufacturer, the father of the composer 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...
(1791–1864) opened a Temple in his home according to Jacobson's program. His son (who happened to oppose the use of the organ in Jewish services—see below) arranged the music. But from the beginning, Beer was constrained to engage a chazzan in order to attract a greater audience. Back in Seer, Jacobson also acquiesced to public demand and engaged Chazzan Hirsch Goldberg (1807–1893). Together with Julius Freudenthal (1805–1874) (his famous tune to Ein Keloheinu is still sung today) they modernized Synagogue song eventually publishing a collection of solos and two-part choir arrangements.
From Chazzan to Cantor
At this point, the new Reform model retained the chazzan's title, but he was beginning to be valued less for his abilities as a soloist and more for his skill in either composing new works or arranging old melodies for the congregation to sing. The new arrangements may have required solo from the chazzan, but it was no longer requisite to sing long solos (or even have a particularly good voice!) in order to be effective. Things were becoming more 'democratic' with regard to who did the singing, but rather than threatening the role of the cantor, this trend enhanced it, because the new responsibilities of composer, arranger, and conductor required conservatory training.The first of the great Cantor-composers were Salomon Sulzer, Samuel Naumbourg, and Louis Lewandowski, who held posts in Vienna, Paris, and Berlin, respectively. They created melodies that are today considered 'traditional' in synagogues, temples, and even little shteiblachs of every variety. Their arrangements are still required study for student cantors and continue to be sung by choirs of all levels. Their profiles and achievements are well-documented elsewhere. Here we will deal with a single issue or event, seemingly unimportant in relation to the rest of their work, but having considerable impact on the Reform cantorate or music in Reform Temples.
Salomon Sulzer's advocacy of the Organ
Salomon SulzerSalomon Sulzer
Salomon Sulzer was an Austrian hazzan and composer. His family, which prior to 1813 bore the name of Levi, removed to Hohenems from Sulz in 1748. He was educated for the cantorate, studying first under the cantors of Endingen and Karlsruhe, with whom he traveled extensively, and later under...
(1808–1890) was the legendary Oberkantor ('chief cantor') of Vienna. He was the first to consciously devise this role (and the title), basing it on the example of J.S. Bach. He is revered as an innovative composer, a singer of marvelous range and expression (a tenor/baritone) and as a prominent teacher, having been a member of the Vienna Conservatory faculty. His compositions combined 'old' and 'new' by setting traditional melodies in arrangement for four-part chorus, influencing the musical style of many synagogues in Eastern and Central Europe. Sulzer took a progressive position on the renewal of vocal music in the synagogue, however he opposed the use of the German language in the Jewish Service, and his view won out. Vienna was then the music capital of the world and even chazzanim from Orthodox Eastern Europe, where Sulzer and his ilk were looked down upon, were not impervious to his influence. They came to Vienna in order to learn something of the new style.
Singing and choirs were introduced without much controversy, but when it came to the organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
, synagogues were more hesitant, even negative. Meyerbeer, (noted above) when he was asked to compose a work for the consecration of the new Jewish house of worship in Vienna, once made the following comment on music in the synagogue:
You are not about to introduce an organ into the synagogue! That is a purely Christian instrument. What next! ...The human being in prayer should speak to his god without any intermediary. This is what the Jews have done since the destruction of the Temple; it has been the custom for two millennia. We should make no innovations. But if they are determined to have different music, it should in my opinion, be music from trombones and flutes, like those that resounded in the Temple of Solomon.
The first Jewish Synod at Leipzig, in June 1869, brought together rabbis and community leaders from all over Europe, the United States, and even the West Indies to discuss the ideas of "enlightened" and liberal Judaism. Salomon Sulzer was a deputy in the Synod; the sole representative of cantors and synagogue musicians—testifying to the high regard the body of liberal rabbis held for this cantor and their understanding that music was a critical element in the 'liberal' congregations they envisioned. In his address, Sulzer brought up the issue of the organ.
An instrumental accompaniment of the singing during the worship service [should] be introduced everywhere, in order to make it easier for the members of the congregation to take an active part in the same. ...the organ is worthy of recommendation for the required accompaniment, and there are no religious objections to its us on the Sabbath and on holidays.
The Synod agreed; no objections were raised to its use on the Shabbat and on holidays, in turn recommending that introduction of the organ proceed. Sulzer emphasizes the solo role of the organ; its necessity over and above that of other instruments:
Only the organ is capable of leading the congregations in song, regulating it, masking dissonances; and it should properly be reintroduced into the space that was denied it for all too long in public worship, to the detriment of religious edification The organ makes the priestly office of the chazzan independent of the latter's artistry, and yet saves him form the type of egotistical pseudo-artistry that falls upon the seed of the aesthetically beautiful like mildew and poisons it; it preserves him form the use of those trivial decorative vocal flourishes that provincial cantors use and abuse to appeal to the masses, or the sentimental Polish virtuosity that drives the younger generation, which is generally musically educated, to flee the house of the Lord.
Samuel Naumbourg and composers outside of the synagogue
Samuel NaumbourgSamuel Naumbourg
Samuel Naumbourg , French composer.After having held the office of chazzan and reader at Besançon and directed the choir of the synagogue at Strasburg, he was called, in 1845, to officiate in the synagogue of the Rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth at Paris, where he became professor of liturgical music at...
(1817–1880) was descended from ten generations of chazzanim. He grew up in the world of Southern Ashkenazic chazzanut, and was with musicality and intelligence. His was trained in Munich, but his city would be Paris; the major European capital perhaps best distinguished by the significant role influence plays behind the scenes when it comes to music-making.
Naumbourg arrived in Paris in 1843 and began a friendship with Jacques 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:...
, to whom he had been recommended. Naumbourg pursued the position of director of music at the synagogue in rue Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, a community that had not had chazzan since the death of Israel Lovey in 1832 and the service was in disarray. Anything he proposed however, would have to pass through government's Department of Cults and Education. He submitted an application for the post, which was well-received due in part to favorable endorsement of Halévy:
I was able to form an opinion of his musical studies, and read his compositions. I am of the opinion that he is most suitable to be called to the important position now vacant and that he is capable of elevating it to the height of its true aim. He is keen, motivated by a desire to do well, and should give the organization good musical service, talent, and commitment.On his appointment Naumbourg immediately began compiling an anthology of traditional liturgical songs.
His great innovation was to include, for the first time songs for soloists and choir commissioned from professional composers. Among the hundreds for traditional ones published in the first two volumes of his Zemirot Yisrael in 1847 and the third volume published in 1865 under the subtitle Shirei Kodesh there were two or three by 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...
né Morhange (1813–1888), one by Meyerbeer, and several by Halévy. His 1874 anthology Aggudat Shirim posthumously included three more Halévy settings.
How Louis Lewandowski got hired
The story of the rise of Louis LewandowskiLouis Lewandowski
Louis Lewandowski was a German composer of synagogal music.Lewandowski was born at Wreschen, province of Posen, Prussia . At the age of twelve he went to Berlin to study piano and voice, and became solo soprano in the synagogue. Afterward he studied for three years under A. B...
(1821–1894) illustrates the struggle between the 'old guard' and the 'new guard'.
Eventually, the innovations of Jacob Beer in Berlin were curtailed by the government's forced closure of his synagogue. This led to a conservative reaction on the part of the Jewish Community in Berlin, and the appointment of one Asher Lion (1776–1863) as the chazzan of the Reform Temple. Lion re-introduced the old eighteenth-century chazzanut. This 'restoration' would seem to have effectively discredited Beer's 'adventurism'. Although the hackneyed style Lion proffered continued to predominate until about the middle of the century, his appointment to Berlin Synagogue would ultimately ensure the emergence of the modern cantorate.
At the age of 12, Lewandowski was sent to Berlin to study at the conservatory where he was expected to become 'the Jewish 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...
.' He became a singerl (lit."little singer"; a child who appeared as a featured soloist or in duets with the chazzan). Lewandowski had no desire to follow Lion into Jewish music until he came under the sway of Hirsch Weintraub (1817–1881) an itinerant synagogue musician. His compositions were some of the first to effectively combine the best of gentile musicianship with traditional oriental elements. The music, consisting of arrangements for choir and string quartets, had a profound Jewish feeling but was rendered in a very sophisticated style. Much of it was based on the best of Mozart and Haydn. Some of the latter's string quartets, for example, were arranged to be sung by Weintraub's choir. This impressed Lewandowski (who had previously rejected the possibility of fusing these two seemingly contrary styles) along with the rest of the Berlin audiences who attended the performances on Weintraub's tour. Lewandowski began writing in the style he would eventually master.
Asher Lion, meanwhile, was forced to come to terms with this sudden evolution in the taste of the Berlin community. But because Lion was virtually untrained in modern composition, he could not read choir parts. After trying different ruses to obtain some understanding of the 'new music', he attempted to cajole Weintraub's quartet to join him and thereby obtain the music. He succeeded in enlisting the tenor, but it turned out that the tenor only knew his own parts! Lion was informed by this same tenor, that Weintraub actually utilized the scores of Sulzer, which were at the time still in manuscript.
Under the assumption that a Sulzer manuscript would be impossible to obtain, he demanded just that from his synagogue committee. When they actually managed to get one and present it to him, a real crisis ensued. Sulzer wrote using a different clef for each part! Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass. In desperation Lion eventually turned to the young Lewandowski to help him decipher the notes, finally just giving him the job of directing the choir. Lion realized that Lewandowski was indispensable to him and eventually Lewandowski's position as 'Choir Master' was made permanent—the first time that this title was recognized in synagogue setting.
America
Until the 19th Century the roles of the chazzanim in America were similar to the ones they played in the old world during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; they served as shochtim, mohelim, and as religious schoolteachers. Their primary duties were not musical, although they presided at marriages and burials and chanted the service.There were no ordained Rabbis in the United States until the 1840s when the first major wave of German Jews arrived. Of course they brought with them the reforms that had been initiated in Europe, along with the nascent musical forms. At first, the choir director and the organ had more of an influence on the services than the chazzan.
By mid-century, the situation resembled the one that prevailed in Europe. As in the services being held in Germany and France, the Hebrew texts were abbreviated, many of the prayers were in the national tongue—English. There was an organ and the traditional chanting had been replaced by congregational singing of a mixed choir. It would have been impossible for a traditionally-trained chazzan to lead a Reform service. Isaac Mayer Wise
Isaac Mayer Wise
Isaac Mayer Wise , was an American Reform rabbi, editor, and author.-Early life:...
(1819–1900) a founder of the Reform Movement in America, described the old-time chazzan as 'half priest, half beggar, half oracle, half fool, as the occasion demanded.'
The first person to re-establish a pivotal role for the chazzan was Alois Kaiser
Alois Kaiser
Alois Kaiser American chazzan and composer, and considered to be the founder of American cantorate....
(1840–1908) Kaiser had been a member of Sulzer's choir as a boy, had conservatory training, and had served as a Cantor in the suburbs of Vienna. Beginning in 1866 he served at the congregation Oheib Shalom in Baltimore. He introduced classical compositions and operatic arias to be used as melodies, and wrote his own compositions in a similar style.
In general, the shortened service, the choir, and the organ made a cantor unnecessary, 'but if a musical leader came along who know how to reshape and revitalize the service, the laity might be swayed by his personality'.
In 1894, Temple Sinai of New Orleans hired the Hungarian-born Cantor Julius Braunfeld.... Cincinnati's K.K. B'nai Yeshurun, which had abolished the traditional office of 'Reader'... ...decided to reverse itself by seeking to employ not an old style chazzan but a contemporary Reform style cantor.
Note the use of the title 'Cantor'. This of course, was the title first used by Salomon Sulzer; Sulzer remained the ideal of what a Cantor ought to be. His Austrian, Hungarian, and German disciples within the American Reform ambiance created a distinctive niche for the temple cantor.
Edward Stark
Cantor Edward Stark (1856–1913) was one of these disciples. Stark served San Francisco's Emanu-El form 1893 through the following two decades. Stark's father, Cantor Joseph Stark (?–?), had trained in Vienna with Sulzer and transmitted the legacy to his son. On the West Coast, Edward Stark (1856–1913) proceeded in much the same way. He and his congregations expected excellent performances from the non-Jewish singers hired for the choir. He supplemented his own work with the new compositions of Sulzer. Like the European synagogue masters, he adapted music of Haydn, Gounod, Schubert, and Mendelssohn, as well as anthems form the Protestant traditionHymnology
Hymnology is the scholarly study of religious song, or the hymn, in its many aspects, with particular focus on choral and congregational song. It may be more or less clearly distinguished from hymnody, the creation and practice of such song...
. Sulzer's works were frequently included in services conducted by American Cantors at this time, along with works of their own. The prominence that music had, and the combination of the cantor's solo work, the choral numbers, and congregational singing, made the services at Reform temples unique within the American Jewish scene.
Here is Cantor Stark's job description as it appeared in the "Bylaws of the Congregation Emanu-El"
Article II. Duties of the Cantor. Section I. The Cantor shall be present on all occasions of divine service at the proper time. Section 2. He shall attend all funerals and read the service at the house of mourning at the request of the family. Section 3. He shall be assigned a class in the Religious School as teacher, by the Superintendent and School Committee. Section 4. He shall be director of the choir and perform such other duties that the Board of directors may prescribe.
All for $4,500 a year.
A Hymnal
The creation of the Society of American Cantors in 1897 was partly in order to facilitate the composition of a hymnal for the UAHC (Union of American Hebrew Congregations). The first Union Hymnal (1897) they created featured abundant hymns, English translations of Hebrew prayers, adaptations of Protestant "favorites", and rearrangements of European classical music used as settings. The Central Conference of American RabbisCentral Conference of American Rabbis
The Central Conference of American Rabbis , founded in 1889 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the principal organization of Reform rabbis in the United States and Canada, the CCAR is the largest and oldest rabbinical organization in the world....
endorsed its use in 1903 "so that it may in reality become what is was intended to be, a bond of union for all congregations throughout the land."
The role of the cantor in the Reform movement had entirely changed in the hundred years since Israel Jacobson founded his school in Seesen. Though the cantor's relationship to the new synagogue had been tenuous—at times eliminated altogether—CCAR's endorsement of the Union Hymnal also endorsed the role of the modern cantor: a trained musician familiar with Jewish tradition and sensitive to the needs of his community.