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The Jew Who Fooled the World – The Real Story of Guzikov, The Wood and Straw Man
Lecture #40 in Joshua Horowitz’s series, The Promiscuous World of Jewish Music
The Jew Who Fooled the World – The Real Story of Guzikov, The Wood and Straw Man, With Joshua Horowitz
Monday, March 15, 11am Pacific Daylight Time/2pm New York/ 6pm London/ 7pm Paris/ 8pm Tel Aviv. Note that the U.S. is on Daylight Saving Time March 15, but London, Paris, and Tel Aviv are not yet. Confirm the time yourself!Length: 1 – 2 hours
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Zoom Meeting ID: 967 8901 9038
Password: 156230
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Okay, so there was this guy named Guzikov, hailed by almost every musicologist as the “first klezmer to make it big” in Europe playing his primitive xylophone. Why was Fanny Mendelssohn skeptical about him? Could he really not read music? Did he actually die with his instrument in his hands? And by the way, how in heaven’s name could a Hasidic Jew in the 1830s rub elbows with the nobility and become rich and famous when composers like Mendelssohn had to convert to Protestantism to gain the same entry? Wait, and did he even PLAY klezmer music? Ever?
Scrap everything you’ve read about this guy, sit back and watch the weirdest dog and pony show of the year. Josh will reveal the shocking 19th century “myth lab” that has duped every musicologist since Fetís. You’ll even get to hear precise replicas of some of the two dozen discovered pieces he played – not the stuff you’ve been sold on, but the real deal. Bring empty vials so we can fill them up with musicological snake oil then smoke that dab till we’re high as an Absinthian in a Bloch-Bauer Salon.
This project has been made possible in part by a grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, in partnership with the Walter &Elise Haas Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Grants for the Arts, and The California Endowment.