Te’kiah would correspond to “assemble,” Sh’vorim to “advance,” T’ruah (described as “like raindrops”) to “pursue” and Te’kiah G’dolah as “regroup.” (It should be noted, though, that Plutarch, traveling in the Nile delta, sarcastically described hearing a debased version of these calls used for traffic control that sounded to him “like donkeys.”) It is possible that the patterns of shofar calls are derived from military trumpet calls, which are described in several ancient texts, including one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In synagogues, there are two divergent traditions of shofar calls: the Ashkenazi (German), which is dramatic and outward, and the Sephardi (Spanish-Portuguese), which is more tremulous and inward. Now there are many, and currently we’re seeing a renaissance of interest in the musical possibilities of this extraordinary and evocative instrument from composers as diverse as Alvin Curran (shofar and electronics) to John Zorn (“downtown” shofar) and John Duffy (shofar on the “Heritage” soundtrack). Surprisingly, the Edwardian English composer Sir Edward Elgar - yes, the one famous for the “Pomp and Circumstance March” that everyone knows from graduation ceremonies - was inspired by the mystical vision of the shofar sounding to announce the daybreak over the temple in Jerusalem in his oratorio “The Apostles.”Īlthough there were many composers who imitated the sound or the idea of the shofar in their music, there were very few who had included actual shofars in their compositions when I started to do so almost two decades ago. It’s not just Jewish composers who’ve been inspired by the sound of the shofar. But perhaps Maria was secretly a Marrano? Even though the ethnic elements of the plot were changed, the original inspiration in the music remains embedded throughout. It was this interfaith conflict that informed the thematic development of the score. In the earliest version, the musical was called “East Side Story” and the female lead was not the Puerto Rican immigrant Maria, but rather a Jewish girl who falls in love with an Italian Catholic boy in Greenwich Village. And this theme is the musical kernel from which Bernstein derived most of the music in this score. Without doubt the most famous music inspired by the call of the shofar is Leonard Bernstein’s masterpiece, “West Side Story.” The very first notes of the introduction are nothing but a full-throated orchestral evocation of the sound of the shofar. Other composers have been more literal in invoking the shofar. Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, the sweetly singing tuba mirum of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Requiem,” which seems to have been equally inspired by the call of the wood thrush. Composers throughout history have vied to conjure the magic of the biblical shofar, but most have done so fancifully, perhaps the most spectacular being by the 19th-century atheist and genius Hector Berlioz, who dreamed up four spatially separated brass bands for the unforgettably rousing Dies Irae of his “Requiem Mass” to illustrate what the shofars at the end of the world would sound like. Whether it is at the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses, Gabriel blowing the last trumpet, the raising of the dead or the tuba mirum (wondrous trumpet) of the Catholic mass - all are referring to the shofar. Almost every time the Jewish or Christian Bibles mention a trumpet or horn, it means the shofar. To adapt the famous categorization of Claude Levi-Strauss, if such wind instruments as clarinets and cornets are “cooked,” the shofar is definitely “raw.” The question arises: Why has this wild horn, the only biblical instrument still in use, come to represent so much to Jews, especially in the holiday season we are entering?Īccording to tradition, the shofar is the closest thing to the voice of God. Originally published in the Forward September 6, 2002.
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