Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World (American Musicspheres) - Hardcover

Slobin, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019513124X ISBN 13: 9780195131246

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2000

Synopsis

"Klezmer" is a Yiddish word for professional folk instrumentalist-the flutist, fiddler, and bass player that made brides weep and guests dance at weddings throughout Jewish eastern Europe before the culture was destroyed in the Holocaust, silenced under Stalin, and lost out to assimilation in America. Klezmer music is now experiencing a tremendous new spurt of interest worldwide with both Jews and non-Jews recreating this restless volatile, and vibrant musical culture. Firmly centered in the United States, klezmer has paradoxically moved back across the Atlantic as a distinctly "American" music, played throughout central and eastern Europe, as well as in many other parts of the world.
Fiddler on the Move places klezmer music squarely within American music studies, cultural studies, and ethnomusicology. Neither a chronology nor a comprehensive survey, the book describes a variety of approaches and perspectives for coming to terms with the highly diverse array of activities found under the klezmer umbrella. Bringing to his subject the insights of an accomplished ethnomusicologist, Slobin addresses such questions as: How does klezmer overlap with, and differ from, the many other contemporary "heritage" musics based on an assumed connection with a group identity and links to a tradition? How do economics, artistic expression, and the evocation of the past interact in motivating klezmer performers and audiences? In what kinds of environment does klezmer flourish? How do stylistic features such as genre, form, and ornamentation help to define the technique, affect, and aesthetic of klezmer? Featuring a music CD with many of the archival and contemporary recordings discussed in the text, this fascinating study will interest scholars, students, musicians, and music lovers

About this title

About the Author

Mark Slobin is Professor of Music and Chair of the Department of Music at Wesleyan University. A former president of the Society of Ethnomusicology, Mark Slobin is also the author of Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West, Chosen Voices: The Story of the American Cantorate, and Tenement Songs: The Popular Music of the Jewish Immigrants.

Reviews

In an introductory disclaimer, author Slobin, a faculty member at Wesleyan University, explains that his book does not aim to be a chronology or a comprehensive survey of Klezmer. (Readers searching for those would do well to read Seth Rogovoy's recent tome, The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover's Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music from the Old World to the Jazz Age to the Downtown Avant-Garde, LJ 6/15/00.) Compared to Rogovoy's book, Slobin's is more academic in tone, somewhat drier, and not quite as current. Nonetheless, Klezmer fans will find a great deal of valuable material. Slobin focuses on several different perspectives, which make up the central four chapters: "Klezmer as a Heritage Music," "Klezmer as an Urge," "Klezmer as Community," and "Klezmer Style as a Statement." The latter section includes some systematic musicological analysesDincluding sonograms of melodic ornamentsDthat may perplex the lay reader. In general, though, the book is well researched and rich in anecdotes and makes a compelling case for the importance of Klezmer in American musical and cultural studies.DLarry Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019513124X
• ISBN 13: 9780195131246
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 168