Writing a popular book about a popular song should merit some attention, so it’s not surprising that no less than four items appeared in The New York Times about this book. It’s supposed to be a book about one song. But, of course, it isn’t really. It’s a book about acculturation, assimilation and cultural impact. For readers of the Jewish Music WebCenter, these issues raised by White Christmas, may ultimately deal out the moral: we have only ourselves to “blame” –or– “congratulate” –as the view may be.

Irving Berlin, born as Izzy Baline, was of the generation of Jewish immigrants who wanted nothing more than to be thoroughly assimilated and thoroughly American. Berlin was one of the most successful examples of this, both in his personal and professional life.…
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Yale Strom has written a book with enormous effort that supplies the reader with good access to extensive quotations by klezmer musicians, translations of previous scholarly works into English, 3 superb appendices, a bibliography, a very nice discography and an index. The purpose of the book is to give an overall history of klezmer music, with its growth in Eastern Europe and a look at the current scene and it’s meaning today.

Strom spent several years researching the material, conducting interviews of klezmer musicians in America and Europe, and having materials translated into English. Over a twenty-year period, he made some fifty trips to Eastern Europe doing ethnographic research. Details supplied by photographic plates and the extensive quotations from his interviews abound in the book.

A highlight of special note in this book is Appendix 1, “Klezmer Zikhroynes in di Yizker Bikher,” (Klezmer remembrances in the Memorial Books).…
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In a carefully chosen title, Rubin and Baron set about to teach not only Jewish music but to give the reader a handle to understand their working definition of Jewish music which is “Jewish music is music that serves Jewish purposes.” Thus Music in Jewish History and Culture is a title that tells the reader that any music “that serves Jewish purposes” in the course of time, various places and for various Jewish cultural or religious purposes might be construed as Jewish music. This is functional music. It must be at the service of those in the community for religious, spiritual, national, psychological, artistic or cultural matters. In the end, there are many Jewish musics. These are not only the product of the ages past such as cantillation, nusach or synagogue modes, but also the music of the streets of today’s youth in Israel or elsewhere.…
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Heller covers the basics. He does so in a rather quirky way with very short, self-contained chapters. On the one hand, the book presumes one can read notes and there are many musical illustrations. On the other hand, he has some basic music hints –such as an illustration on how to relate notes on the score to a picture of a piano, or what a major and minor chord sound like –examples which makes the book seem as if it’s intended for those who have a very hard time reading music and no music theory background at all. It does seem difficult to me to explain Jewish modal theory if one doesn’t have the basics of a western scale firmly mastered. Somehow I’m having a hard time understanding this book’s audience as the author envisioned it.…
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This thoroughly researched biography, commissioned by Verna Fine, widow of the composer, is a highly readable entree not only to the life and works of Irving Fine, but to the history of the Brandeis University Department of Music. Irving Fine was a highly creative and innovative composer, and became the Walter W. Naumburg Professor of Music and Chairman of the School of Creative Arts at Brandeis. His inventive leadership of a newly formed Creative Arts Department would set the tone and course of study for the next 50 years. Fine had taught theory and music history at Harvard from 1939-50, when he joined the music faculty of Brandeis in Fall, 1950, as Lecturer in Music and Composer in Residence. Fine’s intellect led him to a style of “Stravinskian neoclassicism and romatically inflected serialism” that was to catch the imagination and close friendship of the American musical luminaries of the day, including Boston Symphony conductor Serge Koussevitzky, composers Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, and his Brandeis colleagues Harold Shapero and Arthur Berger.…
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Even though Marc Blitzstein: A Bio-Bibliography is large, with more than 645 pages, this review will be brief, because it’s very easy to describe this book. This is Leonard Lehrman’s labor of love. For years he has been a fan, promoter, musicologist, arranger, adapter, reconstructor and performer of the works of Marc Blitzstein. Blitzstein is a major figure in American music and his star continues to rise. Lehrman’s devotion of years of work is clear in this major reference work. The book is extremely thorough, comprehensive and filled with extraordinary minute detail. It is a must for any music library in a college or university setting, as well as anyone who is studying or working with the music of Marc Blitzstein.

The scope is enormous. It includes a brief biography of Blitzstein, including a genealogy; chronological list of musical works with bibliographies of studies, commentaries and writings about those works; a chronological list of text to the music; an alphabetical list of works with alternate titles; general articles; and information about performances of the works.…
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We are fortunate to have a true educator involved deeply in the Jewish music. Marsha Edelman is that teacher, and she has given a book that will be appreciated for it’s straightforwardness, it’s completeness without too much detail, and for the clear explanations of a complex and involved history. Edelman has taken the subject of Jewish music history, distilled the essence in a judicious manner, and brought it out for anyone to read.

From the beginning you know this is going to be an excellent book. There is a 13-page glossary that astutely includes not only terms about Jewish culture, but musical terms that may be unfamiliar to a reader. In this way Edelman realized that some of her audience would be non-Jews who would need the Jewish vocabulary about holidays or liturgy, but there would also be a Jewish and other audience that would need musical terms to make those discussions intelligible.…
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Precision. Thoroughness. Clarity. Devotion to Torah.

These are some of the thoughts that define my reaction to this new and excellent work by Joshua Jacobson, Professor of Music at Northeastern University in Boston, and Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts. This large guide may additionally properly be called a “handbook”, a “textbook” or a “teacher’s manual ” in the pursuit of learning to chant the Jewish holy texts with understanding and correctness. Accompanying the book is a CD with demonstrations of the te’amim chanted– featuring the pleasant voice of the author. An index to the sung examples is included in an appendix at the back of the book. This work can be used as a teaching tool or resource for professional or lay cantors, and other teachers of synagogue chant.…
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For Jews, the terms “assimilating” or “assimilation” are charged. Many unpleasant associations arise with thoughts of Jews “assimilating into” or disappearing altogether into, general society; becoming like others. As Jonathan Sarna says in the introduction to his new book, American Judaism,: “Through the years, ‘assimilation’ has become so freighted with different meanings, modifiers, and cultural associations that for analytical purposes it has become virtually meaningless. In some Jewish circles, indeed, the term is regularly employed as an epithet.” But “assimilating” is a term that the dictionary states, also means, “absorbing”, or “to take in and appropriate.” It can mean a “healthy appropriation of new forms and ideas.” In this book, David Schiller bravely makes distinctions with something that “happened in a more or less remote past or that is happening now.” Using the term in the title is not only eyecatching, but essential to his thesis about the nature of Jewish art music.…
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So many Americans are just unaware of the accomplishments and achievements of Canadians. Possibly this is more ignorance than snobbery, but sometimes it seems to be a bit of both, without good reason for either. This snobbery particularly extends, it seems, in music. Our friends in Canada continually prove themselves extremely worthy, and yet notions to the otherwise persist. Fortunately, Canadians are a patient people and their accomplishments continue to shine and speak on their behalf. One such accomplished and distinguished musician is Alexander Brott. If you haven’t heard of him, then perhaps this memoir, published on the occasion of his 90th birthday, and written with the help of Betty Nygaard King, will be an antidote.

The book is an autobiographical memoir about his life as a violinist, conductor, composer, teacher and producer.…
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