Feuilleton: On Varshavsky’s Jewish Folk Songs
Joel Engel
1901
What do we call folk songs? Of course, these are the songs sung by the people. The songs can either come from unknown authors of the ancient, forgotten past . . . or these can be recently written songs that achieve a wide dispersion among the people, thanks to their folk character, both in terms of the music and texts. . . . What right does Warshavsky have to call his songs “folk” when they don’t fit either one of these categories? They have not come from the Jewish people . . . and they haven’t interpenetrated the folk culture (and not just because they were only recently written and published). [ . . . ] With the passage of years the people will determine what is a folk song and what is not. But to call the songs folk songs in the year of their publication—this is a deliberate forgery. [ . . . ]
Listening to Mr. Warshavsky, one might think that Jews don’t sing anything except for polkas, mazurkas and quadrilles, that all of them are in the dominant modern musical scales, major and minor, and that there is nothing distinctive or original in these songs to separate them from the contemporary repertoire of the street organ-grinder. But this would be nonsense, a colossal mistake . . . like forcing an old, distinguished Hasid in white stockings to dance a Viennese waltz or a pas d’Espagne.
Credits
Joel Engel, “Feuilleton: On M. M. Warshavsky’s Jewish Folk Songs,” Khronika voskhoda, Mar. 8, 1901.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.
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