Songs of Sonderling - (Modern Jewish History) by Jonathan L Friedmann & John F Guest (Hardcover)

About the Book

The story of one Los Angeles rabbi's new vision for liturgical music.

Book Synopsis

Songs of Sonderling is the story of Jacob Sonderling's unique contributions to Jewish liturgical music. Rabbi Sonderling was many things: a descendant of Chassidic rebbes, a rationalist, a Reform rabbi, a Zionist, an army chaplain, a celebrated orator, an artistic soul. From his early career at the Hamburg Temple and German Army service in World War I, to his wandering years in the Eastern United States and founding of the Society for Jewish Culture-Fairfax Temple in Los Angeles, Sonderling cultivated a unique aesthetic vision of Judaism, a "five-sense appeal."

Jonathan L. Friedmann and John F. Guest document and analyze Sonderling's experience and expression of Judaism through music. Rabbi Sonderling's vision yielded liturgical commissions from exiled Viennese Jewish composers who arrived in Los Angeles in the 1930s and 1940s. Through these musical settings, activities at the Fairfax Temple, and involvement with the Los Angeles campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Sonderling made an indelible mark on the city's Jewish community and the wider musical world.

Songs of Sonderling focuses on the commissions Sonderling made from 1938 to 1945: Ernst Toch's Cantata of the Bitter Herbs, Arnold Schoenberg's Kol Nidre, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's A Passover Psalm and Prayer, and Eric Zeisl's Requiem Ebraico. Through musical analyses and an examination of Sonderling's career in Los Angeles, Friedmann and Guest contribute to the study of Jewish liturgical music, to Jewish history in the American West, to Jewish identity in the twentieth century, and to Jewish diaspora writ large.

Review Quotes

Songs of Sonderling is a welcome addition to work on music in Los
Angeles, shedding new light on the work of prominent émigré composers Ernst
Toch, Arnold Schoenberg, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Eric Zeisl. The book also
introduces Rabbi Jacob Sonderling, an unknown figure to many as well as an
émigré himself. As a Jewish community leader in Los Angeles, Sonderling wisely
took advantage of the many outstanding composers living in Los Angeles at the
time, commissioning them to write music with a Jewish focus. Authors Jonathan L.
Friedmann and John F. Guest offer an accessible and well-organized
exploration of this activity. . . . I am confident this book
will find a home in the study of music in Los Angeles, Jewish music, and émigré
art. --Lily Hirsch, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 22:4