On the composing of "Stories Heard and Retold" (EMF,
1998):
Bob Gluck, 11/16/97
Music is an astonishing thing. We all live, work and play in rich sound environments, be they the woods of my Berkshires backyard, the streets of Manhattan, or the sanctuaries and stairways of synagogues. The structuring and presentation of sound results in what we call music. Music has a magical quality. It can communicate ideas, feelings and impulses beyond words. Music can help us remember moments in our lives for which there are no words. It can help us structure and express ideas that words can only begin to touch.
For me, it was natural that religious music, and especially Jewish music could be a vehicle for the expression of the most transcendent ideas and experiences. My earliest musical memories are set in Jewish settings: listening to the rustling of prayerbook pages while an old-time cantor sung in my Grandfather's synagogue; hearing the juxtaposition (sequentially or simultaneously, I don't remember) of opera and Yiddish songs in his living room. My musical training took place within western classical tradition. Unfortunately, the two worlds clashed; my music teachers questioned the value of Jewish music, and my Jewish teachers taught that Judaism and art were antithetical. I began to lose my connection to Jewish musical culture.
I became capitvated by New Music and rock music. My own yearnings were expressed in works such as Takemitsu's "Dorian Horizon" and Stockhausen's "Hymnen," in Jimi Hendrix's electric guitar, the music of John Cage, Stravinsky, Frank Zappa and King Crimson. I found a new way to connect with a sense of divinity, and through music, to evoke the mysterious and wondrous. I found a new expressive voice in electronic music composition during college.
The writings of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan helped bridge my two worlds and reshaped my life. Kaplan considered art and music as central driving forces of Jewish civilization. He wrote: "The art of a civilization is its individual interpretation of the world in color, sound and image," and elsewhere, "We can no more think of [Jewish] religion apart from [art and music] than we can think of the soul or personality of any human being without reference to his (sic) appearance, voice, acts and words." Adding, "All the components of [Jewish] civilization, namely language, literature, social norms, folkways and the arts, have always entered into every texture of the Jewish religion," Kaplan concluded, "We should be interested in giving an artistic form to every aspect of Jewish life." I entered rabbinical college in the Reconstructionist movement, which Kaplan founded, became a rabbi, and returned to composing in electronic media.
Through my compositions, I aim to bring together what I love about Jewish culture with the aesthetics of contemporary music. I imagine joining the musical sensibilities of Pierre Henry and Edgard Varese with the resonances of the sounds, melodies, and experiences of Jewish life. I picture a meeting place between the great cantorial traditions, candid camera-like snapshots of subtle moments of daily, including ritual, life and what I have learned from the evolving new musical traditions. Charles Ives and John Cage taught me that these can musically coexist and even dialog in the same place and time. I feel ever enriched and captivated by this union and consider myself privileged to live in a world where such cross-pollination is possible, offering a new Jewish music.
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