Jewish Historicism and the Music Collection of Sara Levy (1761–1854)

• In Event: Affect, Performance, and Jewish Thought

Abstract

Women’s engagement with the texts of the Jewish Enlightenment was limited. Because the works of the MASKILIM do not provide a complete picture of women’s intellectual or cultural priorities, the history of thought among enlightened Jewish women around 1800 must be sought in other genres and sites of expression.

Among the women who shaped modern Jewish thought was Sara Levy, daughter of the Prussian HOFJUDE Daniel Itzig. Levy studied music with Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, son of Johann Sebastian Bach, and was widely recognized in Berlin as an accomplished harpsichordist. She also assembled a massive collection of musical scores. While this collection reflects some progressive inclinations, Levy’s primary interest was clearly in music of the past. At a time when few musicians played works from previous generations, her historicism was noteworthy. I argue that Levy’s collection should be read as an effort to document musical history and to assert her own place in it. Although the music she owned was by written Christian composers, the assembly of her collection takes on new meaning in light of the historicist turn that, as Shmuel Feiner has shown, characterized the Jewish Enlightenment.

Given Levy’s strong engagement with Judaism, documented by Natalie Naimark-Goldberg, one might expect to find evidence in her collection of “Jewish music.” But, as Moses Mendelssohn lamented, “all of this wondrous science…has been lost from us.” While Mendelssohn wrote about musical aesthetics in general, his focus with respect to Jewish music was on its role in biblical psalmody. Drawing on non-Jewish sources, including some from the Bach circle, Joel Brill built on Mendelssohn’s work by writing a history of music of the ancient Israelites.

Levy was likely aware of these discussions of ancient music history, but her collection reflects different priorities. It demonstrates her interest not in ancient music, but in music of the recent past. In assembling and playing from her collection, Levy reframed this music as a component of Jewish history, engaging, as Naphtali Herz Wessely had proposed, with MUSIKA, distinct from biblical SHIRA. Levy’s collection forged a common musical history accessible to both Christians and Jews.

Author

• Rebecca Cypess, Rutgers University