Jane Mink Rossen – Uri Sharvit. A Fusion of Traditions: Liturgical Music in the Copenha ****************************************************************************************** * Veronika Seidlová ****************************************************************************************** Jane Mink Rossen - Uri Sharvit. A Fusion of Traditions: Liturgical Music in the Copenhagen Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2006, 156 pp + 1 accompanying CD, ISBN 87-76 Although we have no comprehensive history of Jewish liturgical music in Europe, "the prese the Danish part of this story" (p.65). This book is based on the collection of tapes which were recorded by the ethnomusicologist Rossen for the Danish Folklore Archives during services in the Copenhagen Synagogue in 196 Rossen, who has served as Assistant Professor and Research Fellow at Copenhagen University Folklore Archives and who is known for her later fieldwork in the Solomon Islands (Songs o 1987), made these recordings after coming to Denmark from New York City where she complete at Columbia University. "In 1967, I was an immigrant, a shy outsider with limited contacts Chief Rabbi of the Copenhagen Synagogue gave her permission to record during Rosh hashana Torah services, a fact worth mentioning since live recordings of Jewish services are quite religious restrictions. Further, Mink Rossen interviewed the Copenhagen Torah reader and t singers who lead the Jewish services), recorded paraliturgical songs sung in Jewish homes, out historical research. Since the author is particularly interested in integration proces in music and religious life, the first part of the book thus talks about the arrival of Je the first synagogues and schools, synagogue music in Europe and the impact of the cultural general, and finally about musical acculturation in the Copenhagen Synagogue. The first pa a history of the local cantorate and choir from 1833 to 2001. The second part of the book was written by Uri Sharvit, who is a composer and former Head Department at Bar-Ilan University and a well known expert in Jewish prayer modes (Prayer T Jewish Yemenite chants (1981), and paraliturgical Moroccan Baqqashot (Me'ir Nativ, 2003). transcribed selected Copenhagen recordings, wrote an analysis, and compared the material w manuscripts from Denmark and other countries. Danish Jewry is the oldest minority in Denmark, with an unbroken history of 400 years. "Mo escaped the Holocaust: of the 500 who were deported to Theresienstadt (Terezín), all but 5 returned" (p.9). Under the German occupation, the majority of Danish Jews escaped to Swede them came back when Denmark was liberated. An interesting piece of information for Czech r be that one cantor recorded and interviewed by Jane Mink Rossen was Eduard Fried (1911-199 Romania, who was educated before the war as a cantor in Prague. Jane Mink Rossen describes got to Copenhagen: during the war Fried was deported to Theresienstadt where the camp admi him in performances. During his imprisonment, he met Danish Jews. After liberation, he bec in the Altneu synagogue in Prague, and, in 1948, he again met somebody from the Copenhagen arranged for Fried to replace a Copenhagen cantor who had left. Although Mink Rossen does it explicitly, it must have been a great opportunity for Fried to get a job in Copenhagen to leave, since in 1948 the Communists came to power in Czechoslovakia, and because of the Semitic policy (though declared officially as anti-Zionistic") many Jews went into exile d after that year. I learned that the present cantor of the Jerusalem Synagogue in Prague, A received permission to visit his sister in Copenhagen during the iron curtain times, and b Eduard Fried. Fried's singing very much reminded him of Prague cantor Ladislav Moshe Blum. astounded by the atmosphere in the Copenhagen Synagogue where there were men still wearing talked to him warmly, remembering his suffering during the Holocaust and many other issues story is just to illustrate that there was a musical connection between Jews in Copenhagen it would be interesting to examine it. The story of Eduard Fried could be taken as an example or symbolic indication of socio-cul processes which occurred in the Copenhagen Synagogue and are described in the book - a fus and Reform religious traditions, and of Western Ashkenazi and Eastern Ashkenazi musical st former cantor of the Orthodox Altneu Synagogue in Prague appeared in Copenhagen where ther which was largely an off-shoot of 18th-century Reform developments in the synagogues of Vi characterized by choir accompaniment, conflicts whether to use an organ or not, Western ha fewer and shorter melismatic embellishments, syllabic chanting and slow motion. On the oth Eastern Ashkenazi style called the "Polnische Weise" ("Polish version") is characterized b melismatic embellishments, rapid melismatic ‘runs', intensive improvisations, inclusion of and great frequency of modal shifting from one shtayger [Jewish prayer mode] to another" ( not the only cantor there; he served along with Leopold Grabowski, who came from Germany. used during one service are heard on the accompanying CD. As Uri Sharvit puts it, "the Copenhagen community was founded in 1684 by German Jews who, brought with them their liturgical and musical traditions. However, in the following centu Eastern European Jews settled in Denmark, bringing Eastern European practices to the estab tradition. The compromises that were adopted following the Reform-Orthodox conflict and th of Eastern European cantors from 1844 onward gave rise to the special character of the lit in the Copenhagen Synagogue, namely the combination of German and Polish practices and the their musical styles" (p.70). It might be interesting to point out that a similar process also happened in Prague, namely in the Jerusalem Synagogue. Anyone who is interested in Jewish music and acculturation processes will benefit from thi study supplied with fieldwork recordings and their thorough musical transcriptions. Veronika Seidlová [ URL "LM-339.html "]