Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World (review)

Fiddler on the Move: Exploring the Klezmer World. By Mark Slobin. (American Musicspheres.) Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. [154 p. + 1 CD. ISBN 0-19-513124-X. $35.]

This is a beautifully written book on a timely topic by a well-informed author. The first offering in Oxford's American Musicspheres series, of which Slobin is general editor, Fiddler on the Move examines the current revival of klezmer, Yiddish (mostly) instrumental music.

Only 154 pages (plus compact disc), Fiddler on the Move is not a comprehensive survey of klezmer. Three recent books fill that role: Rita Ottens and Joel Rubin's Klezmer-Muzik (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1999), Seth Rogovoy's The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover's Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music, from the Old World to the Jazz Age to the Downtown Avant-Garde (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2000), and Henry Sapoznik's Klezmer! Jewish Music from Old World to Our World (New York: Schirmer Books, 1999). Slobin investigates klezmer's social meaning and function, using the methodologies of anthropology and critical theory as well as transcription and analysis. Klezmer becomes a case study of a minority music that is both an application and an extension of ideas Slobin introduced in Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West (Hannover, N.H.: Wesleyan University Press, University Press of New England, 1993; 2d ed., 2000). He demonstrates that klezmer is simultaneously similar to other Western micromusics in the ways it is made and displayed, and unique both historically and in its current revival. Its uniqueness is rooted in the lives of Jews, whose peoplehood defies easy categorization in such customary guises as culture, faith, nation, or ethnicity.

There are six chapters. The introductory "Under the Klezmer Umbrella" provides basic klezmer history and a status report on the revival. In chapter 2, "Klezmer as a Heritage Music," Slobin characterizes heritage music as new rather than old, built of and for remembrance; despite its Eastern European roots, klezmer has its epicenter of activity in the United States. The many categories of heritage include national, exotic, and diasporic. Klezmer straddles all, falling easily into none.

Chapter 3, "Klezmer as an Urge," explores the revival's most critical issue--its motivations. Surely klezmer's rhythms are exciting, its melodies catchy, its tonality just exotic enough to intrigue, and its aura of tradition both comfortable and restorative. But so are many Jewish musics, including those from Israel, whose Zionist implications are empowering to most Jews. Ashkenazic culture, with echoes of the Holocaust, stirs painful memories. Gentile participation in klezmer, especially in Europe, raises additional issues. Slobin answers the complex question, Why the revival? by concluding that one urge does not fit all.

The motivations to embrace klezmer become more apparent in chapter 4, "Klezmer as Community." Klezmer is heard among groups ranging from the ultra-Orthodox, to gay and lesbian Jews, to gentile Europeans with quite varying relationships to Ashkenazic Jewry, and from Germans to Poles to Italians. Slobin thoroughly interrogates the ways in which connections are made to and through klezmer, from simple pleasure in its energy, to building Jewish community, to selling Holocaust tourism.

For non-ethnomusicologists, "Klezmer Style as Statement" will likely be the most interesting chapter. It is the only one with printed music examples, and many of the works discussed can be heard on the compact disc. Slobin focuses on "ornamentation," in particular the uniquely Ashkenazic krekhts. Using klezmer and other sources (including Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach), Slobin makes a convincing case that elements commonly characterized as embellishments are frequently important structural signposts that might better be called "diacritical marks."

The summary chapter, "The Fiddler's Farewell," considers klezmer as a purveyor of identity. Slobin assesses the impact of klezmer on and beyond contemporary Jewry, concluding that the music's modest though successful role in encouraging a sense of "belonging" (p. 136) will sustain its place in the near future.

There are a handful of typographical errors, and...