The earliest ensembles for dance comprised lute
and a drone bass played on a bagpipe-like instrument but later groups included
a range of medieval musical instruments. Dancing, accompanied by instrumental
music, took place during the celebrations of the Jewish festivals of Simchat Torah,
Purim and Channukah as well as at weddings. There are also descriptions of klezmorim
playing at secular events such as parades in 16th century Prague.
There
are written records mentioning musicians and their guilds in the Middle Ages,
the earliest being 1558 in Prague and 1654 in Lublin. There is mention of women
musicians at this time but they subsequently disappear as klezmorim until the
late 20th century.
The prohibition on instrumental music had relaxed somewhat
(after 1000 years) and there are various rulings on how many musicians are allowed
to perform at different functions, mainly weddings. As with many occupations,
it was a family affair so there were families and dynasties of musicians.
Professional
musicians would play for Jewish celebrations (mainly weddings) and for Christians
too - for the nobility and wealthy merchants. The guilds of the klezmorim functioned
like other guilds - they set rates for work, decided who to admit to membership
and authorise to perform and also provided a social welfare function giving support
in sickness, old age, death etc.
There are records in Minsk concerning the
complaints of a badkhn - he was the Master of Ceremonies for the wedding. The
badkhn directed the klezmorim, improvised songs and poems about the bride and
groom, the guests, the presents etc, sometimes he played violin and led the kapeyle
(band), he told jokes, did impersonations and generally entertained the wedding
party throughout the wedding proceedings. These could last up to a week. In this
particular case the local badkhn submitted a complaint about the leader of a kapeyle
who was also working as a badkhn. The complainant won the approval of the Town
Council that he should get all the work available. However the ruling was obviously
unsuccessful because four years later the klezmer (band leader) won permission
to work as a badkhn, by popular demand, he was presumably a better act.
The
klezmorim developed their own argot/slang (klezmer loshn), so for example they
could talk about the hosts or guests or details of an engagement. Their argot
shared some vocabulary with the argot of the underworld.
Political upheaval
and unrest continued in Eastern Europe with the 30 Years War (1618 - 1648) and
accompanying persecution of the Jewish communities. The Chmielnicki massacres
(1648 - 51) were particularly severe and resulted in further dispersal of Jews.
Some relocated to the Ottoman Empire and introduced Turkish musical forms into
the klezmer repertoire. The 18th century saw the collapse of the Polish Empire
and large areas absorbed into Austria, Hungary and Russia.
The Pale of Settlement
was established in 1805 in Tsarist Russia as an area within which the Ashkenazi
Jews could live (hence the term 'beyond the pale'). It spread from the Baltic
and Poland in the west across to the Ukraine in the east comprising 20% of the
total area of European Russia. By 1900 there were 5.5 million Jews living in the
Pale. This was a rural area and the Jews often lived in small towns (called shtetl
in Yiddish) where they would sometimes be a sizeable minority or even majority.
Fiddler on the Roof gives a fictionalised portrayal of life in the shtetl. Klezmorim
would be based in a particular village or town but move around to play for engagement
parties, for weddings or to perform concerts for the local nobility.
The
Klezmorim were often the only class of professional musicians other than the Rom
in these areas and there was a lot of close contact between the two groups. Jews
played with Rom and spread Rom melodies whilst the Rom musicians spread the klezmorim's
tunes. In Hungary this resulted in the preservation of klezmer tunes in the second
half of the 20th century when most of Hungary's Jewish community including their
klezmorim had been destroyed.
In this period the music was played on violin,
tsimbl (hammered dulcimer), flute, cello or bass, plectrum instruments such as
mandolin and small drums. The tsimbl was very popular but the violin became the
key lead instrument. A style of playing developed where ornaments were used to
make the violin mimic the human voice.
Later, brass instruments and louder
percussion were introduced and the clarinet became increasingly popular for it's
vocal quality and ability to come across on recordings. This was partly a result
of Jews playing in army bands and bringing their instruments home along with new
skills of reading music and writing arrangements. (Bands such as Budowitz aim
to recreate the sound of 19th century klezmer).
