A.Z. Idelsohn: A Pioneer in Jewish Ethnomusicology

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the study and research of Jewish music was motivated by the belief that the music of biblical times survived in the living traditions of Jewish communities. It was also believed that with the dispersion of the Jewish people after the destruction of the Second Temple, Jewish music underwent a process of diversification and there remained only the variants without the central Theme. Restoring it to its former glory became the task which started the modern search after the true and most ancient sources of Jewish music.

The beginnings of the new research in this field take us back to the first two decades of our century, with the opening of the first Phonogram-Archives (in 1900) in Vienna and Berlin, under the guidance of such personalities as Carl Stumpf and Erich M. von Hornbostel, Curt Sachs, Robert Lachmann, Otto Abraham and others. Encouraged by the new possibilities of the Edison Phonograph with its mechanical recordings which provided the true image of any musical source, the real search started for the detection of the earliest 'beginnings' of music, with its many shades and functions in 'low' human societies at their sacred services and rituals. A new approach concerning the early phases of liturgical music in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism helped to discover the living Orient with its many Afro-Asiatic communities and ethnic groups.