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Mishpacha (pdf of the article available from their website)did an interview with cantor meir Helfgot. He had some interesting things to say about the topic, some of which are not for discussion in Chazzanus II. Unfortunately, Chazzanus I is closed. So I humbly as permission from the Mods That Be to start a Chazzanus III thread.
On chazzanus concerts and shuls: “In a shul, 80 percent of the people are more interested in getting home on time than in hearing a nice piece of chazzanus. Of the remaining 20 percent, ten percent are tolerating the chazzan, but not really enjoying. you are left with ten percent who are really in tune with the chazzan. At a concert, however, 100% of the people are there to hear you; no one is looking at their watch.”
On attendance at chazzanus concerts: “It wasn’t a very chareidi crowd- though there were always notable exceptions- and many chazzanus enthusiasts weren’t religious at all”.
If chazzanus is spiritual or entertainment: “I would say that from the amud, when I am davening, it’s entirely spiritual. Often,I feel very overcome with emotion when I am leading the tefilos, and i would hope that the tzibbur feels it along with me. but on stage, it has more to do with entertainment than with teffilah.”
His wife adds, however, that “there are many people who come to the concerts who have no other connection with judaism, none at all. They tell me that this is their line to the Ribono shel olam. for them, it’s clearly spiritual.”
On the idea that so many chazzanim weren’t religious: “it’s a misconception. While it’s true that some of the famous ones, Kwartin, Moshe Oysher, and others were far from pious, there were many erliche chazzanim as well. The reason we don’t know about them is because of the cherem.”
On the cherem: “Many of the old chazzanim made a pact among themselves not to record their pieces. The reason was that there were many yidden who were forced to work on Shabbos, and these people would satiate their raging souls by listening to some pieces of chazzanus when they came home from work, thus ‘connecting’ with the spirit of the day. So the chazzanim decided amongst themselves not to record, so as to remove that temptation. That’s why many of them are forgotten. Today, most of my contemporaries are wonderful, ehrliche yidden, in addition to being gifted chazzanim”.
Favorite chazzanishe piece: “Ribono shel Olam from Kwartin.”
I disagree with Helfgott on a number of points. He ignores the fact there is really no substantive difference between davening according to the rules of nusach and “chazzanut” It’s all chazzanut, some of it more florid than others. (After all can someone clearly, based upon firm criteria define the clear difference between the commonly used terms “ba’al tefila” and “chazzan?”) I therefore submit that far more than 10% of a schul population enjoy chazzanut, since most people expect to hear nussach in some form or another. I also submit that as one moves further and further to the right on the religious spectrum, nussach is increasingly important, with a number of exceptions due to overwhelming ignorance amongst the masses of nussach. Additionally, the issue of the impiety of cantors has been exagerated. Kwartin, for example, was not completely unobservant. At least publicly he was shomer Shabbat. MK was a shomer Torah u’mitzvos, as was Yosselle, Sholom Katz, David Roitman, Berele Chagy, Jacob Rappaport, Leib Glantz and many many others. I believe that chazzanim get such a bum rap is due to the post WWII abandonment of the cantorate by Orthodoxy. Cantorial services came to be associated with non-Orthodoxy. (Parenthetically, I know nothing of the “cherem” to which Cantor Helfgott refers. Pinchas Minkowsky was against cantors making recordings as he felt doing so was degrading to chazzanut. He was strident in his attacks on Sirota in this regard. But that’s an entirely different issue.) Aditionally, there is a third classification between “spritual” and “entertainment.” We can call it traditional, culturally appealing, or aesthetically appealing. That is what chazzanut done in schul in fact is. It is the traditional way Ashkenazim davened for centuries. Some chazzanim were more elaborate in their presentations and some less so. That tradition made a significant contribution to Jewish culture, and thus maintaing chazzanut in our schuls preserves aspects of Jewish culture, and there is nothing wrong with that. And when done properly, in a thought out and organized fashion, it is aesthetically pleaseing.
EDITED
My father O”H was a chazzan, and it was of the utmost importance to him to follwo the nussach. He was very much against the trend to sing i.e., kedusha, to popular niggunim of the day, and regularly extolled the virtues of traditional chazzonus. His greatest disappointment was in seeing the traditional nussach being traded in by baalei tefila. I believe there is a place for both. Not everyone likes and appreciates a good chazzan, but those same people can enjoy a good baal tefila if he has a pleasant voice. Along with nussach the ivra must also be correct, and that, too, was a sore point with my father, who was very precise in his enunciation.
On Benjamon Muller’s website (I think it’s BenjaminMuller.net but I’m not sure) he has a list of a bunch of common mistakes in nusach made by chazzanim.
I Think the young Israel movement had alot to do with the downfall of religious cantorial music although encouraging the young people to lead is very important. This coupled with no burden 2pay another salary for a cantor are key factors why close to no synagogues have yearly cantors. p.s. there are more yearly cantors out of town why?
EDITED
I wrote an article about this in the Jewish Action (Spring, 2008). Indeed the Young Israel and the yeshiva movements had much to do with the problem, as did economics.
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