Jewish music on the march

Jewish composers have come a long way since Solomone Rossi.

When I read that Ligeti passed away, my initial reaction was so passes the greatest Jewish composer since the war. As I thought about it more, though, I realized just how much Jewish comopsers owned the 20th century, from Mahler to Golijov, the way German composers owned the previous two.

It's hard to find an important movement of 20th century composition that didn't have Jews at the forefront. The father of them all, of course, is Schoenberg. Later twelve-tone adherents include Babbit and Rochberg. The more mainstream composers include Gershwin, Bernstein, and Copland. For the minimalists and post-, Steve Reich and Philip Glass lead the way. Even the experimentalists have Zorn. Looking at the list of American Jewish composers, and thinking about the non-American ones as well, it almost seems easier to make a list of non-Jewish composers of note.

It makes sense that Jewish composers would come into their own after the 19th century, as the reform movement and secularization took hold in Germany. While there were a handfull of of Jewish composers, including those that weren't actually Jewish (Mendelssohn), it took until the end of the century for the wide-spread influence to take hold.

I can't help but wonder what Wagner would think about Jewish music now that their music is so irrevocably tied to the history of 20th century music. While I don't excuse his anti-Semitism, the most famous Jewish comopsers of his day were inferior (Meyerbeer and Offenbach). I'd like to think that were he still alive, he'd have to concede that Jews wrote music every bit as good as his own.