What's your favorite tune for maoz tzur?
Tonight I sang O say can you see, and it turned out great. I also tried the Hatikva and it works well too. I like to sing a different song for every verse to make it sound interesting.
What's your favorite tune?
Ps. The popular tune for Maoz tzur is an old German folk song from the 1600's and also used in church choirs.
The popular tune was used for Maoz Tzur before it was ever coopted by any church.
The old popular one is very hard on the voice. Maybe its just me but every time I sing it I get out of breath and feel a bit strained.
Farrocks
Really? Where'd you hear or see that?
We use two different tunes. My wife grew up with one tune whereas I inherited a different tune from yeshiva.
As a result, we switch off -- one night her tune, one night mine.
The Wolf
Wolf
Its good to see that chivalry isn't dead :-)
Ah freilichen chanukah!
The popular song, which I don't sing, matches the style of music from the era that Maoz Tzur was composed.
Moreover, the tune fits exactly with the rhyming pattern, and its parenthetical rhyme. AB,ABBB,CC,B.
I don't have any evidence, but I think Farrocks is wrong. It certainly sounds like a church tune. Somebody should ask Velvel Pasternak.
A rav once told me that a great deal of Nusach haTefila was copied from Church tunes, but that some was derived from the shirei haLeviim.
How would such a musical heritage be kept in tact over so many years? And how do we account for the fact that different communities have vastly different nusachot?
Yehuda, it is silly to judge a style based on your small surroundings. What do they sing in your church? I never heard anything past the bells. Anyone familiar with old German songs can recognize the style.
From Wikipedia:
The most popular melody for the Hanukkah hymn has been identified by Birnbaum as an adaptation from the old German folk-song "So weiss ich eins, dass mich erfreut, das pluemlein auff preiter heyde," given in Böhme's "Altdeutsches Liederbuch" (No. 635); it was widely spread among German Jews as early as 1450. By an interesting coincidence, this folk-melody was also the first utilized by Luther for his German chorales. He set it to his "Nun freut euch lieben Christen gmein". It is the tune for a translation by F. E. Cox of the hymn "Sei lob und ehr dem höchsten gut," by J. J. Schütz (1640–1730). As such it is called "Erk" (after the German hymnologist), and, with harmonies by Bach, appears as No. 283 of "Hymns, Ancient and Modern" (London, 1875). The earliest transcription of the Jewish form of the tune is by Isaac Nathan, who set it (clumsily) to the poem "On Jordan's Banks" in Byron's "Hebrew Melodies" (London, 1815). Later transcriptions have been numerous, and the air finds a place in every collection of Jewish melodies. It was modified to the form now favoured by British Jews by Julian Lazarus Mombach, to whom is due the modulation to the dominant in the repetition of the first strain.
Rebdoniel, a lot of the common Nusach comes from the maharil, who was a Chazzan.
The Maharil certainly is the av ha chazzanut.
But it's interesting that much of nusach and Church plainchant shares the same musical identity- both follow pentatonic schemes.
who can say who copied who.
uneeq - I sing the regular tune but changing it is a cute idea.
Torah613: Thanks. Tonight I tried Im Eshkochaich by Yaakov Shwekey. It works perfect. I think Racheim works too, but it can sound too depressing for Hanukka.
uneeq - LOL, does this drive your family crazy?
Why do you spell Hanukka like that?
What do you mean? I spelled hanukka the same way you did!?
I'm not sure if it drives my wife crazy, though it definitely drove me crazy.
Whatever, I totally lost the thread of this conversation.
so with the german tune uninversally spread among ashkenazim, are we all descendant/ branched from the Yekkes?
Twisted: so with the german tune uninversally spread among ashkenazim, are we all descendant/ branched from the Yekkes?
Yes, in the same way that we all are descendants of the Sephardic R' Shlomo Alkabetz from Tzfat.
You must log in to post.
RSS