Between Tradition and Modernity: The High Holy Days Melodies of Minhag Ashkenaz According to Ḥazzan Maier Levi of Esslingen. Geoffrey Goldberg. Jerusalem: Jewish Music Research Centre – Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 2019.

Reviewed by Marsha Bryan Edelman

Ethnomusicologist Abraham Zvi Idelsohn (1882-1938) put the study of Jewish music on the scholarly map with the publication of his 10-volume Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental Melodies (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel et al., 1914–32). Long considered an authoritative resource, Idelsohn’s work has come under some scrutiny by more recent research and by the discovery of additional materials that complement, and occasionally contradict, Idelsohn’s conclusions. The Yuval Music Series, launched by the Jewish Music Research Centre at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1989, has endeavored to provide a sequel to Idelsohn’s research. Geoffrey Goldberg’s Between Tradition and Modernity: The High Holy Day Melodies of Minhag Ashkenaz according to Hazzan Maier Levi of Esslingen is Volume 12 in the Yuval Series, and a most worthy contribution.

Maier Levi (1813 – 1874) is not a well-known name in the history of cantorial music, nor was Esslingen a major center of Jewish life. What makes the present work so valuable is that Levi served as a teacher of hazzanut and prepared his compendium as a study tool for his students at the Esslingen Teachers Seminary from which Levi had also graduated, although at the time, training in hazzanut was very limited; Levi enhanced his own cantorial knowledge through private study with other local hazzanim. In addition to providing details about Levi’s life and career, Goldberg also recounts the history of the types of training available to nineteenth-century hazzanim in Germany (only some of which Levi himself experienced). The key takeaway from this historical background is that Levi lived and taught at a pivotal moment brought about through the Emancipation of German Jewry (1848) and the aesthetic revisionism of the emerging Reform movement (1819). His compendium, completed over the course of many years (1845-late 1860s) thus reflects the changing musical styles Levi and his students would have experienced, and his notations reflect the evolution from “old-world,” often highly embellished tunes, to the more “modern” and unadorned chants in vogue during his later years.

While Levi apparently recorded tunes for the entire liturgical calendar, many of the manuscripts have been lost over the years. The vast majority of what remains is devoted to the High Holy Day chants of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as sung by the Jews of South Germany. Goldberg includes a lengthy exposition on the distinction between this tradition, that of North Germany and especially the Eastern European traditions that eventually mingled with those of Esslingen (and that are more familiar to most contemporary American congregations.) Indeed, Goldberg has included nearly 100 pages of introductory information that not only provide a context for Levi’s work, but offer a useful history of Levi’s era as well as an overview of the various elements that make up traditional Jewish music. 

Once readers arrive at the meat of the volume, they will find faithful recreations of Levi’s original notations in an order that more or less follows the sequence of the liturgy. Goldberg begins with the Kol Nidre service, but combines the Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah Ma’ariv services (as they are, indeed, quite similar); he then continues with the morning services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur before moving on to the Rosh Hashanah Minhah service and concluding with Ne’ilah of Yom Kippur. (It is somewhat frustrating that there is no indication in the Table of Contents where each of these sections begin.) It is not clear why Goldberg omitted some of the chants Levi included in his original compendium; they are obviously not lost, because Goldberg refers to several of them in his introductory notes.

Goldberg reports that Levi’s compendium included occasional notes to his students on liturgical performance practice (e.g. regarding the interaction of the hazzan and the kohanim during the chanting of the priestly blessing). Goldberg himself has gone one step further, including notes for each selection on the origins and meanings of the texts being set, as well as any special practices regarding their recitation. Some of these are quite lengthy, and in some cases, involve extended overviews of the textual genre and their musical treatments (Selihot, penitential prayers inserted into the Yom Kippur evening service;  Le-dor va-dor and Tefillah melody types contained in the Shaharit Amidah; Qedusha for Musaf of Rosh Hashanah).

To achieve a genuine understanding of this material, one needs to appreciate the complex relationship between the liturgy and the musical practices that govern it, and Goldberg’s knowledge of both is encyclopedic. Ordained as both a rabbi (Leo Baeck College, London) and a cantor (Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York), he completed his Ph.D. in Musicology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The present volume is an expansion of Goldberg’s doctoral studies, some 20 years in the making, and results from his painstaking cataloguing of Maier Levi’s manuscripts, disbursed among libraries in Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Frankfurt-am-Main.   

In some regards, however, one might complain that Goldberg has gone too far. Each rendition of Levi’s notation is followed by a summary of its musical content, with observations regarding range, key reciting tones in use, and the manner of text setting (syllabic vs. melismatic). One would assume that most readers making use of these volumes would be more than capable of making these observations themselves, based on the music in front of them; at the same time, though, Goldberg includes references to guide the reader to other settings of the same texts, even though the typical reader would have great difficulty accessing most of these.

One can quibble about other minor flaws in this volume. Goldberg understandably uses many of the German terms that Levi employed, but some receive no translation, while others are translated only once, relying on the reader to recall their meaning when encountering them later in the volume. The book does include long lists of the abbreviations Goldberg fashions to reference the many sources to which he refers, but a glossary would have been a welcome addition. More careful editing would also have caught frequent typographical errors (ranging from missed italicization and repeated words to passages with awkward phrasing and overly-long sentences) but these are ultimately inconsequential.

There are ironic parallels between Maier Levi’s time and our own. In the nineteenth century, congregations came to demand cantors who were trained in formal seminaries who would perform their music in a straightforward manner, distinct from the hazzanim of the past who would offer traditional chants with the time-honored embellishments that they learned in private study with their mentors.  Twenty-first century worshipers are just as likely to eschew traditional melodies altogether, favoring congregational tunes that they can sing, with limited input from a cantorial soloist. Goldberg’s comprehensive efforts shine light on the challenges of standing “Between Tradition and Modernity” and preserve a vital link to our historical past. It will be of special relevance to musicologists, cantors, and students of liturgy, but will also interest the many general readers curious about the evolution of Jewish music. 

Dr. Marsha Bryan Edelman holds degrees in general and Jewish music from Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.  Professor Emeritas of Music and Education at Gratz College, near Philadelphia, she is currently Administrator and Director of Education for the Zamir Choral Foundation.  She also teaches in the H.L. Miller Cantorial School at the Jewish Theological Seminary and serves as Editor of the Cantors Assembly’s Journal of Synagogue Music.