"‘HEBREW MELODY IN A MINOR, OP. 33’" BY JOSEPH ACHRON. THE DEHISCENCE OF TEMPORALITIES BETWEEN “{IN}-FLESH-IZATION” AND “HOLDING[S]-STILL” PHENOMENON IN MUSICALIZED MOURNFULNESS

Authors

  • Maria Roxana BISCHIN University of Bucharest. 1. Professional & multiple researcher 2. Affiliate researcher to Faculty of Philosophy and Literature from Buenos Aires [Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires]; 3. Affiliate to Revue de Musicologie, Paris, and to Cahiers de Maurice Ravel, Paris. E-mail: mariaartspy16@yahoo.com

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24193/subbmusica.2021.1.18

Keywords:

Joseph Achron; ‘Hebrew Melody’; dehiscence; mournfulness’-temporality [‘piangere’-state-of-mind]; mournfulness; inverted plenitude; incarnation; flesh; holding[s]-still; {in}-flesh-ing[s].

Abstract

Long times being left in a penumbra, the violinist Joseph Achron needs a revaluation from the part of phenomenological aesthetic and musicology fields. Following the basic theory of Maurice Merleau– Ponty’s flesh, and few perspectives from Edmund Husserl’s, we demonstrate that insisting on the idea of the inverted plenitude as dehiscence will take us to another level of the perception of the Beauty in ‘Hebrew Melody’, composed by Joseph Achron. The final part of the paper offers to the listener the real possibility to see Beauty’s ingrown/incarnation in the mournfulness “as-it-is” – in its dehiscential plenitude. The purpose of music must also be to bring us closer to the sufferer’s interior structures, but so that we can see the Beauty that lies in it. To achieve this, more ontic openings are needed, and this phenomenon well-characterized by the term dehiscential. ‘Hebrew Melody, Op. 33’– encompasses a whole world. In sound, pain can be exposed much more easily and much more cleansed of its negative aspects. Sonorous mournfulness is different from mournfulness-in-itself, but similar. At the level of human suffering, the two have the same ontic place. When they are filtered through artistic catharsis or artistic judgments, they receive a sublimated note that cuts the thresholds of the common world. The sounds that break the silence of the Being (in its successive openings), are the sounds that crumble the most, are those that scream so soft, so fragile, but scream. This is what we experience with ‘Hebrew Melody, Op.33’. The touching of the impossible things, the nostalgia for the lost memories, the desire to feel a piece of quietness, the sadness of not being happy, like a ship gone towards the blue horizon, the nothingness lived in a mourn – all these penumbrae of a sad soul which may have lost everything shape in us a beautiful Hebrew canvas, the necessity of a never-ending return to the Hebrew village, its synagogue, and life.

REZUMAT. HEBREW MELODY ÎN A MINOR, OP. 33ʼ DE JOSPEH ACHRON. DEHISCENŢA TEMPORALITĂŢILOR ÎNTRE FENOMENELE DE “{IN}-FLESH-IZATION” ŞI “HOLDING[S]-STILL” ÎN DUREREA MUZICALIZATĂ. Mult timp lăsat într-o penumbră, violonistul Joseph Achron necesita o reevaluare din punctul de vedere al esteticii fenomenologice şi al muzicologiei. Urmărind teoria de bază  a carnaţiei a lui Maurice Merleau-Ponty, dar şi câteva perspective din cercetările lui Edmund Husserl, arătăm că insistând asupra ideii de plenitudine inversată ca dehiscenţă, vom fi conduşi către un alt nivel de percepere a ideii de Frumuseţe în ʻHebrew Melodyʼ compusă de către Joseph Achron. Ultima parte a articolului, oferă posibilitatea ascultătorului de a vedea Frumuseţea crescînd/încarnându-se în durere „aşa-cum-este ea” – în toată plenitudinea dehiscenţială. Scopul muzicii ar trebui să fie şi acela de a ne aduce mai aproape de structurile interioare ale suferinţei, dar, în aşa fel încât să putem vedea Frumuseţea ce zace în aceasta. Pentru a se realiza acest lucru, mai multe deschideri ontice sunt necesare, iar acest fenomen este destul de bine caracterizat de termenul dehiscenţial. ‘Hebrew Melody, Op. 33’ cuprinde o lume întreagă. Prin sunet, durerea poate fi expusă mult mai facil şi mult mai „curăţată” de conotaţiile ei negative. Durerea sonorizată este diferită de durerea în sine, dar sunt şi similare. La nivelul suferinţei umane, ambele au acelaşi loc ontic. Atunci când ele sunt filtrare prin intermediul catharsis-ului sau a judecăţilor artistice, ele primesc o notă sublimată care taie pragurile lumii comune. Sunetele care rup tăcerea Ființei (în deschiderile sale succesive), sunt sunetele care se sfărâmă cel mai mult, sunt cele care țipă atât de blând, atât de fragil, dar, totodată exprimă ceva printr-un ţipăt. Cam aceasta este ceea ce experimentăm prin intermediul ‘Hebrew Melody, Op. 33’. Atingerea lucrurilor imposibile, nostalgia amintirilor pierdute, dorința de a simți o felie de liniște, tristețea de a nu fi fericit ca o navă plecată spre orizontul albastru, neantul trăit într-un doliu – toate aceste penumbre ale tristeţii care poate a pierdut totul,  modelează în noi o frumoasă pictură ebraică, necesitatea unei întoarceri nesfârșite la satul ebraic, la sinagoga acestuia și la viața sa.

Cuvinte-cheie: Joseph Achron; ‘Hebrew Melody’; dehiscenţă; temporalitate-îndurerată [starea de ʻplângereʼ]; durere (îndurerare); plenitudine inversată; încarnare; flesh; holding[s]-still; {in}-flesh-ing[s].

References

Achron, Joseph. Hebrew Melody, A Minor, Op. 33, editor Leopold Auer, S. 1293, freely transcribed for Violin and Piano by Achron, Joseph, specially arranged and edited by Auer, Leopold, New York: Carl Fischer, assigned by Fischer, Carl, LLC, plate 22190-10, 1911.

Achron, Joseph. “Violin Concerto No. 1, II. Improvisations sur deux thèmes yéméniques”, length 10:34. In Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and Silverstein, Joseph conductor, Oliveira, Elmar violin, publisher European American Music/Universal-Edition, recorded January 7, 1998. In Milken Archive of Jewish Music. The American Experience, co-producers Deutschland Radio and ROC-Berlin GmbH, and Levin, Neil, http://milkenarchive.org/, consulted August 22-28, 2020.

Auer, Leopold; Achron, Joseph. Hebrew Melody: Freely transcribed for Violin and Piano by Joseph Achron; Specially Arranged and Edited for Concert Use by Leopold Auer. California, LA: Creative Media Partners, LLC, 2018, 20 p.

Bischin, Maria Roxana/ [literary pseudonym, Patricia Mar]. Din fericire, lacrimile-ţi sunt mai lungi decât părul. In WebCultura, Romanian version. Bucharest: https://webcultura.ro/din-fericire-lacrimile-ti-sunt-mai-lungi-decat-parul/, 24 August, 2020. Spanish version by Maria Roxana Bischin. In Buenos Aires Poetry. Revista & editorial de poesía. Buenos Aires. Fall September 2020.

Bloch, Ernst. Abodah [Avoda] (for violin and piano), 1929. Recorded and performed by Yehudi Menuhin (violin), Hendrick Endt (piano), 1939. Online archive: https://www.earsense.org/chamber-music/Ernest-Bloch-Abodah/?ri=91929, accessed August 26, 2020.

Cumming, Naomi Helen. The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000.

Dubal, David. Conversations with Yehudi Menuhin. New York, San Diego: Harcourt 1992.

Hassid, Josef, “Joseph Achron, ‘Hebrew Melody, Op. 33, 2EA 9051, C3219’ ”, length 4:42, in The Complete Recordings, in Neveu, Ginette, and Hassid, Josef. UK: EMI Records Ltd., 1987, & EMI Electrola GmbH (Neveu) transferred to London: Testament UK, 1992, followed by January 30, 2007. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcvxzRcBm-A, accessed August 18, 2020.

Heifetz, Jascha. “Hebrew Melody, Op. 33”, Achron, 1926. In Heifetz Collection (1925-1934) – The first Electrical Recordings. In Heifetz, Jascha (violin), Achron, Isidor (piano accompaniment), 6695-A, HMV-163 gramophone, recorded December 31, 1926. In online archive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H4opBXD_no, length 5:03, accessed August 19, 2020.

Heidegger, Martin. Sein und Zeit. 11th Edition, unchanged, German edition. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1967. Digitized edition, Germany – Tübingen, Heilbronn: Gutmann & Co., 2002: https://taradajko.org/get/books/sein_und_zeit.pdf, accessed August 28, 2020.

Husserl, Edmund. Logical Investigations, volume 1. Translated after German first ed. 1900/1901, second ed. 1913, M. Niemeyer (ed.), Halle, by John Niemeyer Findlay. In collection ‘International Library of Philosophy’, London, New York, Canada (simultaneously published): Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2001.

Ihde, Don. Chapter 5 “The Shapes of the Sound”, 57-72. In Listening and Voice. Phenomenologies of the Sound, second ed., after first ed. 1934. New York: State University of New York Press, Albany, 2007.

Menuhi, Yehudi. “The Best Advice I Ever Had”. In Reader’s Digest 63, no.380. Pleasantville, New York, USA, (December 1953): 31-33.

Moddel, Philip. Joseph Achron. Tel Aviv: Israeli Music Publications, 1966.

Moran, Dermot. “Introduction”. In Edmund Husserl (ed.), Logical Investigations, volume 1. Translated from German by J. N. Findlay. London, New York, Canada (simultaneously published): Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group 2001, XXI-LXXIII.

Olevsky, Dimitry. Joseph Achron-Hebrew Melody. In Dimitry Olevsky violin, Harout Senekeremian piano, video edited by David Sukonick, Boloproductions.com (323)356-4439. In recital August 16, 2014. In online archive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_25L40lT1ss, length 6:29, accessed August 23, 2020.

Olkowski, Dorothea, “Time/Temporality”, DOI: 10.2307/j.ctvmx3j22.51. In Gail Weiss, Ann. W. Murphy, Gayle Salamon (eds.), 50 Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology. Illinois: Northwestern University Press (2020): 321-328. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctvmx3j22.

Ponty, Maurice Merleau. (1) Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Donald A. Landes, & Taylor Craman Foreword. New York: Routledge (simultaneously published in USA and Canada), 2012, 2014. (2) (a) Phenomenology of Perception. Translated from French by Collin Smith. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958. PDF: https://voidnetwork.gr/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Phenomenology-of-Perception-by-Maurice-Merleau-Ponty.pdf. (b) Phenomenology of Perception. Translated from French by Collin Smith. First ed. in English 1962, ebook published March 25, 1982, DOI: https://DOI.org/10.4324/9780203981139. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (Taylor & Francis Group), 1958, 1982.

(3) Phénoménologie de la perception. First and original edition in French. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1945.

Robinson, Jenefer. “Can Music function as a Metaphor of Emotional Life?”. Revue français d’études américaine, Aspects de l’esthétique américaine no. 86. Paris: Éditions Belin (October 2000): 77-89. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20874725. DOI:https://www.jstor.org/stable/20874725.

Rodemeyer, Lanei M. “Understanding the Present:Urimpression vs. living Present”, 23-46. In Intersubjective Temporality: It’s about Time. Series Phaenomenologica (vol. 176). New York, Netherlands: Springer Science + Business Media B. V., 2006. DOI: 10.1007/1-4020-4214-0.

Sendrey, Alfred. Bibliography of Jewish Music. New York, Michigan: Columbia University Press, University of Michigan, first edition1951 (404 pages), reprinted to Kraus Reprint Company,1969.

Shaham, Hagai (violin); Erez, Arnon (piano). Joseph Achron – Complete Suites for Violin and Piano. 2 CDs. London: Hyperíon, 2012.

*** The Score. A Music Magazine, William Glock editor, issues 22-28. Kraus Reprint: London, February 1958.

Toadvine, Ted. “Nature as Gestalt and Melody”. In Merleau Ponty’s Philosophy of Nature, 21-49. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2009.

Digital archives:

*** Joseph Achron Society, http://www.josephachron.org/, consulted August 2-24, 2020.

*** Milken Archive of Jewish Music. The American Experience, http://milkenarchive.org/, consulted August 22-28, 2020.

Downloads

Published

2021-06-30

How to Cite

BISCHIN, M. R. (2021). "‘HEBREW MELODY IN A MINOR, OP. 33’" BY JOSEPH ACHRON. THE DEHISCENCE OF TEMPORALITIES BETWEEN “{IN}-FLESH-IZATION” AND “HOLDING[S]-STILL” PHENOMENON IN MUSICALIZED MOURNFULNESS. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Musica, 66(1), 285–302. https://doi.org/10.24193/subbmusica.2021.1.18

Issue

Section

Articles