…composer Max Bruch, whose cello work Kol Nidrei features Jewish melodies, was not Jewish?
Bruch, a German Protestant, took inspiration while serving as conductor of Berlin’s Stern’scher Gesangverein, a choir whose Jewish members also supplied material he incorporated into his three Hebrew songs, Hebräische Gesänge, published in 1888. Kol nidrei , written in 1881, incorporates two melodies associated with Yom Kippur, and the cello is intended to depict the voice of a Jewish cantor.
Context provided by Annette Oppermann,”The other type of sources: Letters about Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei” and Christopher Fifield, “Bruch, Max.” Grove Music Online. 2001.
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