What makes something art? Can something designed purely for function (say, a urinal) be art? Does something have to be essentially useless for it to be art?

I’m not going down that road – come to your own conclusion.

It is an interesting thing to ponder, though. There is plenty of gorgeous music written for functional use. Take William Byrd‘s Mass for Five Voices – this setting could be sung on any Sunday as a regular Christian Mass, but is so exquisite that you can just as easily find it in a secular concert hall. Meanwhile, the infamous Missa “My Little Pony” would be booed off any concert stage, yet sadly remains sung in churches. And any church music director who demands on singing Bach’s Mass in B minor will surely be fired once the priest realizes that the first of three Kyries takes over 10 minutes – but concert-lovers will drive for hours to hear a B-minor mass in a hall.

Jewish sacred music seems to be free from the function/art woes that have become a norm for Christian texts. Perhaps this is because musical instruments were not used in synagogues until relatively recently; unaccompanied choral music took a backseat to instrumental music from the baroque to the late romantic. I have had difficulty finding functional sacred Jewish music that rings as both function and art. Perhaps anti-Semitic trends have suppressed Jewish sacred music from becoming mainstream concert music in the way Mozart’s Masses have. Or, perhaps there is just less of this music than I expect. If you know of any Jewish sacred music that is both (liturgically) functional and high art, please let me know!

The only Jewish Service I’ve heard performed in a concert setting is by Ernst Bloch. If you knew nothing of Judaism at all, you would still enjoy this work as a romantic choral symphony – the work’s flavor is not unlike the Brahms Requiem. However, this service could be sung at your local synagogue, while the Brahms (in its entirety) is exclusively performed as a concert piece.

This is the final part of the service, the Aaronic blessing. You’ll hear the cantor singing the blessing and the choir responding, “Amen”.

May the Lord bless you and guard you;
May the Lord make His face shed light upon you and be gracious unto you;
May the Lord lift up His face unto you and give you peace.

The full service can be found here.

Not surprisingly, I’ve learned a lot from writing this blog. Sometimes it lets me dig a little deeper into music I know and love. Other times, like today, I discover something completely new to me. The story of Jacob Weinberg is a great testament to the power of music and the resilience of the human spirit.

Weinberg was born in the Ukraine in 1879, and educated as a lawyer in Moscow. He preferred practicing piano over practicing law, and became a musician. In the early 20th century, nationalism was a common theme in Art Music, and there was a booming interest in folk melodies. Russia had its own group of nationalistic composers, but this group would have excluded Jewish music and composers due to growing anti-Semitic feelings throughout Europe. So, Russian Jews formed their own nationalistic Art Music movement, which Weinberg helped to found. The Bolshevik Revolution resulted in the killing and imprisonment of thousands of Jews; Weinberg fled to Palestine, where he composed the first Hebrew opera. He used the earnings from this opera to move to New York, where he spent the rest of his life as a performer, composer, and teacher.

Weinberg’s String Quartet op. 55 is a perfect example of the Jewish Art Music movement – here, sacred melodies associated with Rosh Hashanah are presented in a concert form. I read here that the sacred melody is the ma’ariv, but I will admit to not knowing this tune, nor can I find it in the piece without some real time and research (which I intend to do later). If you know this melody, and can identify it, please let me know!

Fall is my favorite time of year. The cooler weather, the colorful leaves, the smell of decomposing leaves (seriously, I like that), and of course, pumpkin spiced everything (not a fan …)

Asa composer, Ottorino Respighi isn’t exactly a one-hit-wonder – instead, more of a three-hit-wonder. He wrote three orchestral suites, all based on Rome – The Pines of Rome, The Fountains of Rome, and Roman Festivals. One of the festivals that he paints with music is called “The Harvest of October.” In it you can hear horn calls, signaling a festive hunt; later, a mandolin plays a folk melody, painting peasants working to bring in the last harvest; the piece ends with the exhausted festival goers slipping off into a lovely, quiet sleep.