The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Music

The term 'Jewish music' has conveyed complex and diverse meanings for people around the world across hundreds of years. This accessible and comprehensive Companion is a key resource for students, scholars, and everyone with an interest in the global history of Jewish music. Leading international experts introduce the broad range of genres found in Jewish music from the biblical era to the present day, including classical, religious, folk, popular, and dance music. Presenting a range of fresh perspectives on the subject, the chapters explore Jewish liturgy, Klezmer, music in Israel, the music of Yiddish theatre and cinema, and classical music from the Jewish Enlightenment through to the postmodern era. Additional contributions set Jewish music in context and offer an overview of the broader issues that arise in its study, such as questions of Diaspora, ontology, economics, and the history of sound technologies.

Introduction Joshua S. Walden; Part I. Conceptions of Jewish Music: 1. Ontologies of Jewish music Philip V. Bohlman; 2. Jewish music and Diaspora Edwin Seroussi; 3. The institutions of Jewish musical meaning Judah M. Cohen; 4. Jewish music and media of sound reproduction Joshua S. Walden; Part II. Jewish Music in Religious, Folk, and Popular Contexts: 5. The music of Israel during the Iron Age Theodore W. Burgh; 6. Jewish liturgical music Mark Kligman; 7. The traditional performance of Sephardic songs, then and now Susana Weich-Shahak; 8. Klezmer music – a historical overview to the present Joel Rubin; Part III. Periods, Places, and Genres of Jewish Music Composition: 9. Art music and Jewish culture before the Jewish Enlightenment: negotiating identities in Late Renaissance Italy Joshua R. Jacobson; 10. A new song: Jewish musicians in European music, 1730–1850 David Conway; 11. From biblical antiquarianism to revolutionary modernism: Jewish art music, 1850–1925 James Loeffler; 12. The reform of synagogue music in the nineteenth century Tina Frühauf; 13. Under pressure: Jewish art music, 1925–1945 Lily E. Hirsch; 14. Music in the Yiddish theater and cinema, 1880–1950 Mark Slobin; 15. Art music in the Yishuv and in Israel Jehoash Hirshberg; 16. Cavernous impossibilities: Jewish art music after 1945 Amy Lynn Wlodarski.

Joshua S. Walden is a member of the faculty of musicology at the Peabody Conservatory, Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Sounding Authentic: The Rural Miniature and Musical Modernism (2014), and editor of Representation in Western Music (Cambridge, 2013). He has published articles on subjects including Jewish music, film music, eighteenth-century music, and intersections between music and the visual arts, in journals including the Journal of the American Musicological Society, the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, the Journal of the Society for American Music, and Musical Quarterly.