Home › Forums › Music › English Music › Reply To: English Music
Uncle Moishy borrows secular tunes very heavily for his music. Admirable yet annoying, LOL.
Charliehall above mentions “Va, pensiero” from the opera “Nabucco” (or Nebchadnezzar) by Verdi. The opera is set in 587 BCE. This chorus is also called The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, and is one of the most beautiful and best-known melodies in all opera.
There were other operas written based on Torah events, mostly by Italian composers in the early to mid-19th century. Unfortunately, opera as an art form is problematic for those who hold by the standards of tsnius and kol isha.
Havesomeseichel, to me it is not enough to ‘just’ listen to instrumental classical music. Many classical composers in Europe were employed by the church, so I won’t listen to anything that was intended for that audience even if it is not immediately obvious. The list of what I consider acceptable has narrowed greatly since my pre-BT days, but I would wither to give up listening to music completely (I have spoken to my Rav about this).
To answer the original question, I cringe when I walk into any store, whether Jewish-owned or not, and hear things that do not fit into anyone’s vision of frumkeit. There’s really no excuse in this day and age for a frum-owned business not to make parve whatever music is playing. There are many options, whether the clientele are exclusively frum or not.