Listening to Klezmer Music with Schema Theory

Abstract This article explores the musical language of klezmer—Jewish instrumental music from Eastern Europe—through schema theory. The central claims are that schema theory is an effective tool for understanding klezmer and, conversely, that klezmer is an effective testing ground for schema theory. The article demonstrates this with four schemata, which recur in a corpus of 254 instrumental melodies collected and compiled by Moshe Beregovski in Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s. The article also draws from recordings made in Eastern Europe and North America from 1912 to 2016. Klezmer schemata are discussed through family resemblance structures; instances of a schema share features but there may not be a single set of defining elements. This models the variability of the musical patterns, which is crucial in oral traditions. The article notes the significance of individual schemata for modes and genres within klezmer music and traces their occurrence in selected examples of Jewish cantorial music and Greek music. Recent compositions and interviews show how schemata are incorporated into the intuitive working knowledge of an enculturated musician. The application of schema theory in klezmer may be seen as a model for its use in other heritage and world music traditions.