Thursday, July 06, 2006

Dirge and dance

Longer posts are in the works and coming at some point. In the meantime, I sent in my workshop description for the Institute:

"Baruch El Elyon" is a Shabbat song written in 13th-century Germany, whose seven verses are densely packed with biblical references from Genesis to Job. It can be sung to a complex five-part Chasidic melody that inspires strong reactions, both positive and negative. We will study the sources, structure, and meaning of the text, and learn the melody. In doing so, we'll think about how Shabbat has been understood from the Torah to the 13th century to the present, and prepare to sing this song on Shabbat!

9 comments:

  1. I can't wait to be as annoyed by this workshop as I am by that song! Love,

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  2. Only Harvard people.

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  3. Only Harvard people what?

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  4. I've never met a non-Harvard person who would go out of their way to sing this melody. Our "strong reactions" tend to skew the other way.

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  5. UMDers like it too. except for those that complain "no, not the dirge!", of course

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  6. this sounds very positive and productive. :)

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  7. some people in Upstate New York are also fans of the dirge ;-)

    and isn't part of the tune from Les Miserables or something? ;-)

    (shabbat shalom from [yeru]shalayim!)

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  8. The dirge is a tune from the Modzhitz dynasty, the Hasidic group most renowned for its negina. I have heard Hasidim of various stripes (Ger, Belz, and Vizhnitz) all sing it at Seuda Shlishit. While I didn't ask, I am fairly confident that none of them went to Harvard.

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  9. One difference between how I heard the meloday sung at Harvard and at a Hassidic shalosh-seudos is the tempo. The Hasidim sing the "dance" part very slow. It's quite beautiful. In general, I'm a lonely fan of slow, even"sad" nigunim.

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