Volume 16, Number 2 - Cantors Assembly

6
of a moment in Jewish musical history. The results are extremely interesting and
groundbreaking and will help form the musical section of the book, as well as
providing material for future individual theoretical studies of the tradition. We
tried to pick a set of items which would display both homogeneity (as in the
“Tsur Yisroel” tune) as well as diversity (versions of "Uvchen ten pachdecha, ”
sections of the “Kedusha”) or show a breadth of choice (“your favorite ‘Lechu
Dodi’tunes”). We were very successful in this respect, although we had not quite
known what to expect. Some musicological specialists (Hanoch Avenary, Judit
Frigyesi) have looked at the material and have been delighted with the indications
that the tradition that today’s hazzanim seek to safeguard is still so alive and
still so rich in its improvisatory content. We have also asked Max Wohlberg and
other specialists, e.g., Pinchas Spiro, to examine sections of the data.
Space does not allow for a complete listing of all the types of material which
we have accumulated and which are still in progress, nor have I tried to mention
everyone who has helped out in this project (though we will acknowledge
everyone’s assistance in the book’s preface) and I have only touched upon major
avenues of research in this brief survey. Let me turn to a short description of the
projected volume, which is just beginning to be written as of this writing
(October 1986). The book is essentially in two parts. The first is a chronological,
largely documentary history of the American cantorate which is subdivided into
major periods: colonial through early nineteenth century (German wave of
immigration); late nineteenth through mid-twentieth (Eastern European wave
through World War II) and the American cantorate since World War II
(professionalization, legal status, entry of women, etc.).
The second section of the book will look closely at the job of the hazzan seen
as a timeless and spaceless, what historians call synchronic, phenomenon. Here
we can lay out the basic features of the job: dependence on lay leadership, nature
of the hazzan as sole clergy or as co-clergyman/woman with other members of a
clergy team, the hazzan as a musical/aesthetic leader only or as a multiple
functionary with other community jobs (shochet, mohel, etc.), the issue of
whether the hazzan is the guardian of the local musical minhug or its architect,
how services are constructed, what the hazzan thinks of his/her work . . . these
and other issues will be taken up in terms of looking at: 1) the workplace in
general; 2) the sanctuary as the focus of the hazzan’s contribution and relationship
to the congregants; 3) the hazzan within him/herself in terms of self-analysis,
4) the relationship of musical style to the work of the hazzan, in terms of
composed vs. improvised music, etc.