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Klezmer music in Germany Klezmer refers not only to the music traditionally played at Jewish weddings and festivals, but to an entire genre of music that is riding on a wave of popularity that first swept Germany over a decade ago. The word “klezmer” is derived from the Hebrew words “kli” (tool) and “zemer,” (song) and carried the traditional meaning “transferer of a song.” The original klezmer musicians (called klezmorim) travelled from town to town during a time when klezmer had become a disparaging term for an untrained musician. It wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that klezmer musicians in America changed the image of their music. In the latter half of the 20th century, after many klezmer musicians had emigrated from Germany to escape Nazi persecution, klezmer found widespread interest as a secular tradition outside of Jewish communities. This tradition was revived in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall and continues to grow, driving huge audiences to shows across the country and inspiring a klezmer boom that has become much more than just a short-lived fad.
The Klezmer style Klezmer is traditionally a secular music, played not in the synagogue but at the Jewish festivals of Hanukkah and Purim and at other family gatherings. Klezmer was an unwritten music, played through cantoring, the introduction of a melody by a leader and the repetition by other group members – a method that lent itself well to improvisation. Typical instrument choices in the klezmer tradition of the 16th and 17th centuries were the violin, cello, flute, and cymbals. By the early 18th century, the clarinet replaced the violin as the most important melody instrument in klezmer . The accordion, which carries one of the fondest associations with today’s klezmer, wasn’t introduced until the 1930’s. Though its improvisational quality always made klezmer a style especially open to outside influences, just within the past half century, klezmer musicians have laced their songs with the characteristics of other genres, such as blues, jazz, swing, and rock. Klezmer survived in the United States and Eastern Europe
Practically all traces of Jewish culture and the klezmer tradition disappeared from Germany after World War II – though for a while after the liberation of concentration camps, klezmer musicians travelled between refugee facilities playing songs in Yiddish, the original language of klezmer. Capitalizing on technical innovations in the burgeoning American music industry, klezmer found a medium – the record – to reach its new public. Meanwhile, in communist Eastern Europe, klezmer went underground – a move that might have led to klezmer’s status today as a hip underground style separate from most popular music. In fact, many musicians who create and perform klezmer in Germany steadfastly deny the influence of American klezmer on their music, choosing instead to see their style as a direct heir to the Eastern European klezmerim. But today, American pianist Pete Sokolow and clarinettist Sid Beckerman are seen as main figures in the German scene, though they were relatively unknown in Germany at the beginning of the revival. After the fall of the Berlin Wall
Klezmer today Like many music genres, there is no consensus as to what exactly defines klezmer. Klezmer in Germany is not just a means for Jews to connect with their communities and continue their tradition, it has become an active way for Germans to exercise their interest in Jewish culture and in the Yiddish language. With the opening of the Eastern bloc countries, a wealth of long-forgotten klezmer melodies has flooded the scene and added vibrancy and appreciation to the music both in Germany and in the United States. In fact, the market for klezmer is decidedly larger in Europe than in America, where most of the musicians are from. And yet, klezmer is a relatively untapped branch of the music industry on both continents. Just as in New York, which is home to most of the world’s klezmer bands, music stores in Germany rarely carry more than half a dozen well-known bands, and most bands rarely see a production level above 5,000 copies. The boom remains a decidedly live music tradition.
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initial klezmer boom in Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall is easy
to pinpoint. Established klezmer pioneers Giora Feidman, Helmut Eisl,
and the group Brave Old World coordinated countless workshops to help
the genre back onto its feet in Berlin. Another impulse was given by the
American group the Klezmatics, who toured extensively in Germany in the
late 1980’s and released their first CD there with the Berlin-based
label Piranha. New bands are forming constantly, with most of the musicians
coming from non-Jewish cultures. Nevertheless, the klezmer music scene
has successfully tapped into both the American klezmer tradition and that
of one of Berlin’s largest new immigrant populations.
