Alon Schab
Bar-Ilan University
November 1, 2023
Marryott Music Building conference room
Mason Gross School of the Arts, 81 George St., New Brunswick
Salomon Sulzer is among the most influential figures in the history of Jewish Music. It is with Sulzer’s first publication, Schir Zion I (ca.1840) that Jewish hazanic traditions became largely dependent on notation and, more specifically, on printed music. Earlier manuscripts and a handful of prints provide very little concrete evidence regarding pre-Sulzerian traditions. The reconstruction of lost aural traditions like that of the meshorerim (in which young Sulzer himself was trained) summons the scholar to foray into the realms of conjecture. In my lecture, I will examine the possibilities of identifying traces of the meshorerim tradition in early manuscripts from Sulzer’s circle (predating Schir Zion). I will show how later traditions further distort some of these faded traces.
