| The Klezmer music is the traditional Jewish music | | | | musicians and the music style. |
| originated in Eastern Europe in the last centuries. | | | | Hence, while the music itself is a few centuries |
| In fact, the term Klezmer is a yiddish word which | | | | old, the word Klezmer is a kind of neologism. In |
| is a contraction of two Hebrew words, "kli" and | | | | fact the juxtaposition of klezmer and music is a |
| "zemer". The meaning of kli is instrument, tool, | | | | tautology, a redundancy. Although the Klezmer is |
| while zemer definition is air, melody, song. | | | | a secular music, its roots are religious, liturgic. The |
| So the Klezmer is the instrument of the song, the | | | | fact is that globally and in every culture, music has |
| vessel of the voice. At the origin, the word | | | | always a religious or mystical origin. It is a way to |
| klezmer was employed to designate the itinerant | | | | accompany the rites or the ceremonies, to reach |
| Jewish musicians (the plural is "klezmorim") who | | | | a state of trance and to approach the divinity. |
| were playing at weddings and celebrations, | | | | Klezmer is not an exception, the Psalms of King |
| traveling from village to village. The Jewish folk | | | | David in the Bible are maybe the first apparition |
| music had many cultural and geographical | | | | of structured music. The Klezmer adopted also |
| influences. Although being essentially an Ashkenazi | | | | the intonation and the voicing of the cantor at the |
| music the impact of the Oriental, Greek, Turkish, | | | | synagogue. The Klezmer is not playing, but rather |
| Jewish and non Jewish communities living in the | | | | he is singing through his instrument, hence first |
| Ottoman empire was not negligible. | | | | the violin and then the clarinet were the |
| Wherever they were, The musicians picked up | | | | instruments of predilection for the Klezmer, |
| music from the people living around them, the | | | | because they are very close to the human voice. |
| Gypsies, Romanian, Ukrainian, Moldavian, Lithuanian, | | | | The art of klezmer is an art of interpretation, |
| Polish and many others. But in spite of or maybe | | | | many players can play the same tune, the same |
| thanks to all those external influences the Klezmer | | | | melody, the same nigun (nigun in Yiddish means a |
| kept his particularity, his characteristics and his | | | | wordless melody), but it will always sound |
| unmistakable sound. At the beginning of the 20th | | | | different, because each musician is expressing his |
| century, this music style was indexed as Jewish | | | | deep emotions and revealing his own soul. Giora |
| music, Yiddish folk music or even as "Bulgar", but | | | | Feidman, the great clarinet Klezmer player called |
| gradually the word Klezmer began to refer to the | | | | this "the inner voice". Maybe the Klezmer is the |
| style and the repertoire. | | | | most appropriate musical expression to show off |
| It is probably Moshe Beregowsky, a | | | | sentiments, feelings, sensibility. It can be joyful, it |
| Russian-Jewish ethnomusicologist who used for | | | | can cry, it can burst out laughing or burst into |
| the first time the term Klezmer as the music | | | | tears. |
| performed by the Klezmorim. In the seventies, | | | | But in spite of this ambivalence, there is always a |
| while the Klezmer revival occurred, the word was | | | | message of hope. |
| definitively adopted as the generic term for the | | | | |