Adjusting Our Lives

Dr. Frank’s articles appear in this space every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

“It should not be forgotten that while the form and type of our civilization are in the main English, into that English framework have been poured millions of individuals from the most artistically gifted peoples of the western world, whose genius made up the great artistic past of Europe. Since the beginning of the century the Jews, to take a single example, have exerted an influence, out of proportion to their numbers—in music both as patrons and performers, and in pictorial arts chiefly as patrons, though more recently rather conspicuously as exhibitors as well.”

In these words, the Jewish share in American art has been underlined in the report on the social trends in the United States. This highly important investigation has been carried out by eminent social scientists entrusted with this mission by former President Hoover.

A short time ago the Jewish Statistical Bureau featured some authentic data on Jewish musicality which fully confirmed the above opinion expressed by a distinguished student of American art.

The statistical material on Jews in American music has been obtained from a #pecial study by a trained psychologist and sociologist, Dr. K. Sward, published in the “Journal of Applied Psychology.”

JEWISH CONDUCTORS AND VIRTUOSI

In the season of 1932-33, out of 1048 players in the twelve best symphony orchestras in our country, twenty-five percent were Jews. The permanent conductors of these twelve orchestras in that season, and the guest conductors of the four foremost symphony societies (New York Philharmonic, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia) during the last thirteen seasons, numbered thirty-seven. Of these, seventeen, or forty-six percent, were Jewish.

By and large, about fifty percent of the violin virtuosi and of the maestros and the first violinists of American symphony orchestras, and one-quarter to one-half of the piano virtuosi, are Jewish.

In connection with the revealing figures, these high percent 1 ages, one has to remember that the Jews constitute only three and six-tenths percent of the total American population.

JEWS AS COMPOSERS

The recently issued manual “American Composers,” compiled by the American section of the International Society for Contemporary Music, containing a record of musical works written between 1912 and 1932, has provided the investigator with an approximate index of Jewish achievements in modern original American composition. Among the 145 prominent composers listed therein, twenty-one, or fourteen and five-tenths percent, are Jews.

Again, by another criterion of statistical measurement, out of the forty-two composer – artists, who appeared as soloists with the four first-class symphonic orchestras of America, enumerated above, ten, or about twenty-four percent, were Jews.

Now, the study under discussion ascribes the fact that productivity in musical composition is less common among Jews than instrument success to the difficulty of economic survival as composer—and as Jew—plus the well-known historic dependence of composers on church and patronage.

JEWS IN AMUSEMENT MUSIC

Twenty – three amusement orchestras, principally in the city of New York, had a total of 596 players, including 212 Jews, or thirty-five and six-tenths percent.

Here again the propensity toward the string instruments is in strong evidence. Over half of the string section is manned by Jewish players, and nearly three-quarters of the violin assignments are in the hands of Jews. A prominent band leader reports, however, that a trend exists among Jewish violinists to retain themselves on various novelty instruments in view of an oversupply of violinists.

The clarinet, trombone and horn are sections strikingly “non-Jewish.” Among the players in amusement orchestras, American birth is probably much more frequent than among symphonists and virtuosi, the investigator assumes.

A BRILLIANT ADJUSTMENT

“The majority of our Jewish virtuosi,” says the author of the study, “sprang from Hungary, Poland and the Ukraine—countries richly steeped in musical culture.” Now, environment, especially in early childhood, accounts for Jewish musicality to a degree not less than that of hereditary gifts and temperament.

One-fifth of the entire Jewish population in Eastern Europe emigrated to the United States between 1882 and 1912. Musicians formed 21 percent of the Jewish immigrants in the liberal professions at the time of entry.

The association between the urbanized mode of life and musical culture is one of the chief reasons which stimulated Jewish musicality intensly. Jewish people have been town-dwellers, historically, due to the urban nature of possible Jewish employment, and later due more to custom and preference. Now, town civilization is peculiarly favorable for the development of exceptional musical talent.

Jewish musicality, thus, can be reduced to a brilliant and desirable adjustment of natural gifts to social conditions and historical forces.

PREFERENCE FOR VIOLIN

Certain social and habitual roots can also be found for Jewish fondness for the violin.

The instrument is inexpensive and had a religious precedent in Hassidic usages. Last but not least, the professional demand is great for this instrument.

However established, the Jewish preference for the violin could have perpetuated itself by tradition. So, for example, innumerable Jewish parents expose their children to the violin in the belief that the child may “have it in him.”

Finally, provided the emotional Jewish temperament be taken for granted, the greater expressiveness of the violin and opportunity for display conspire to make this instrument a Jewish favorite.

Dr. Frank’s articles appear in this space every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.