An overview of synagogue music reform

Rooted in the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) and Jewish emancipation, movements that had an important role in the development of modern Judaism, reform-minded Jews in central Europe began to develop ideas toward a modernized worship service in the first decades of the nineteenth century. In the course of these reforms, synagogue music underwent radical changes to make it appear more current and sophisticated to a public that was increasingly educated in Western art music, however not without the resistance of traditionalists. The ḥazzan was succeeded by what was now termed the “cantor.” With the shift in nomenclature came changes in the profession as well. The cantor possessed a thorough knowledge of liturgy like the ḥazzan, but had a more profound knowledge of music from outside the synagogue as well, and was able to write music and conduct, but his role throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would continuously change. Congregational singing in unison became a central part of Jewish worship; known in German under the umbrella term Synagogengesang (synagogue song), it emphasizes commonality and processes of exchange that are key elements of the reforms. Larger communities employed a (semi-)professional chorus (depending on the congregation, either mixed voices or male voices only, to avoid kol isha, the prohibition against women singing in the presence of men) and later sometimes hired instrumentalists as well.

Torah cantillation was only practiced in a very few Reform congregations in Germany, because the reformers believed that cantillation and biblical chant no longer had validity, as both were a “post-biblical invention.”¹ Besides, the Reform movement found cantillation to be antiquated and unattractive, and not in line with the current fashion of synagogue song. The elimination of selected elements from worship was common, indeed, as is also evident in the prayer Kol Nidre, which from the mid-nineteenth century onward was substituted by Psalm 130 or replaced with new texts that redigested its basic themes through key words and some original phrases, albeit using the traditional melody. If until the nineteenth century vocal music was mostly orally transmitted, from the early nineteenth century it began to be written down, thereby pressed into the “novel” scheme of notation and regular meter. Hence the improvisation inherent to ḥazzanut slowly vanished, replaced by rhythmically and structurally fixed melodies. Classical and Romantic styles began to infiltrate the structure and expression of synagogue music, raising questions concerning the authenticity of the new compositions. One of the most strident markers of a new musical identity, however, was the organ as accompaniment and solo instrument.

The orientation towards Western models of music had profound consequences for synagogue music, and became tied to new movements and branches of Judaism variously known also as Progressive, Reform, Liberal, or Neolog. The reform of synagogue music was a long and gradual process, bound up in complex ways with cultural, societal, and religious changes that originated in central Europe (in England it made little headway) and extended eastwards to Hungary, Bohemia, Galicia, Russia, and Poland, and spread to parts of North America, South America, and the Caribbean, and as far as South Africa.

The origins of reform in the early nineteenth century

During the first half of the nineteenth century musical reforms in Jewish worship services were limited to only a few synagogues in Germany. The banker Israel Jacobson (1769–1863), a vehement advocate of reforms who aimed at improving the social position of the Jews through education, opened schools in Seesen and Kassel in Westphalia. He also presided over the Royal Westphalian Consistory of the Israelites (1808–13), which in 1810 published an official pronouncement roughly equivalent to today's synagogue bylaws, which among other things details the role and function of music, promoting order and decorum.² For the Kassel school, Jacobson arranged well-known Protestant melodies to be sung to Hebrew texts, with the music set from right to left. The synagogue of his school for Jewish children at Seesen saw the installment of an organ in July 1810. The first reformed Jewish worship took place there with choral music following Protestant models.³ Upon moving to Berlin in 1815, Jacobson continued holding Reform services in his house with organ music and choral and congregational singing in German. These changes in synagogue music joined liturgical changes: German-language sermons filled the void of the abbreviated or omitted Torah readings. These services proved to be so popular that they continued in the much larger home of Jacob Herz Beer (1769–1825; father of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, 1791–1864).

After the Jewish community appealed to Emperor Friedrich Wilhelm III to close the private synagogue, on the grounds that the Reform schism was detrimental to the established rights of Judaism, the Prussian government banned the service, reasoning that prayer meetings outside of community synagogues were not allowed in accordance with existing regulations. Two years later, in December 1817, preacher Eduard Kley (1789–1867) brought the reforms from Berlin to Hamburg, where he co-founded the New Israelite Temple Association. Its synagogue, the First Temple on Brunnenstraße, was consecrated on October 18, 1818. The First Temple brought a completely new order to the worship service, including the official introduction of the sermon, German-language hymnal, and choral music provided by a boys’ choir with organ accompaniment for the first time in a synagogue open to the public (as opposed to school or private services); a loft had been specially built for the organ and choir. Cantillation practices, however, are not transmitted.

Moderate approaches: the cantor and his repertoire

Even as the First Temple on Brunnenstraße adopted the organ, early radical reforms elsewhere in Germany initially stalled due to the introduction of the instrument, which provoked controversies that will be discussed below, while other countries and communities embraced more moderate reforms. Beginning in 1819, the Viennese Jews began to demand modernization of their religious service. In addition to a preacher, a cantor, an organist, choir singers, and choirboys, the reformers wanted to build an attractive place for worship and to develop a prayer book, thus following the German radical reforms beginning in 1810. But the need both to work together with traditionalists and to deal with the opposition in the government forced the Viennese reformers to compromise on some of the earliest proposed reforms. In the end, no radical changes were introduced in Vienna, in contrast to Germany, due to protests from parts of the community. In fact, the Viennese Jewish community rejected the changes that were gaining popularity in Germany. Indeed, the most notable sign that Vienna's Jews compromised on their proposed reforms was the absence of the most radical marker of modernization, the organ. In 1821, some Jewish leaders had hinted that an organ should be used in Vienna, but resistance was fierce and the decision was not carried out. Still, in the following years, the formation of a high-quality musical program was of special concern to the community.

With the appointment of Salomon Sulzer (1804–90) as Obercantor of the newly consecrated Stadttempel in 1826, the Viennese reformers found their musical architect. Together with the preacher Isaac Noah Mannheimer (1793–1865), Sulzer developed what is commonly known as the Viennese rite. Although it differed from prevalent customs, the new service balanced traditional and modernizing elements while adhering to Jewish law. It was characterized by what the reformers viewed as greater decorum and aesthetically pleasing music. The new service included edifying sermons in German, while the Hebrew language and the traditional text of the prayers for the service were retained in a slightly abbreviated liturgy. Sulzer and Mannheimer also revised certain texts, regulated their Ashkenazic pronunciation, and adapted them to traditional prayer melodies. Sulzer preserved the custom of employing two assistants, but did not use them in the common style of the meshorerim (singers who traditionally serve to support the ḥazzan, accompanying him in parallel intervals and providing vocal interludes). He also worked with a chorus of Jewish boys and young adolescents.

Initially, Sulzer faced an almost insurmountable task. There was hardly any available liturgical repertoire that would have fit the new aesthetic and liturgical ideals. There was no immediate example on which to model his arrangements, perhaps with the exception of the work of the famous ḥazzan Israel Lovy (1773–1832) who at the time worked in Paris.⁴ Thus Sulzer had to create a suitable repertoire. He began by selecting traditional melodies of the Ashkenazic minhag (custom) and reinterpreted them by renouncing the coloraturas in the cantorial solo, and the imitation, absorption, or parody of late Baroque instrumental and operatic music, or dance melodies that had “pervaded” ḥazzanut. He adapted these melodies for solo and chorus in accordance with the harmonic rules of his time – later his application of major and minor tonality to melodies in original Jewish modes was heavily criticized.

Sulzer produced a significant written repertory of liturgical music, bringing into motion a musical development with a lasting effect on synagogues worldwide. By 1838, the first part of this endeavor was nearly finished: Schir Zion I. Although it initially existed only in autograph form, various communities in Europe were well aware of the collection in its early stages, among them Berlin, Copenhagen, and Stuttgart. By September 1840, the final version of Schir Zion I appeared in print, self-published by Sulzer, and perhaps motivated by increasing demand from congregations and ḥazzanim for his scores and the competing publication of the collection assembled by cantor and teacher Maier Kohn, Vollständiger Jahrgang von Terzett- und Chorgesängen der Synagoge in München.⁵

Schir Zion I consists of 159 cantorial solos and five- to eight-part choral pieces for Sabbath, the Three Pilgrimage Festivals, the High Holidays, Purim, and Tisha B'Av, as well as miscellaneous occasions such as bar mitzvahs and weddings. Sulzer included thirty-six traditional and eighty-six newly composed melodies. While Schir Zion displays a variety of musical practices and settings, Sulzer often treats the chorus as a nucleus of the congregation and the solos as an extension of the cantor's soloistic role in the service. The solos receive harmonic accompaniment through choral setting with a vocally light texture, while the congregational responses are rendered by the chorus, an approach criticized by Mannheimer, who wished for more congregational participation in the liturgy through singing. For the remaining thirty-seven numbers, Sulzer commissioned seven different composers, most of them not Jewish, among whom were Joseph Drechsler (1782–1852), Franz Schubert (1797–1828), and Ignaz, Ritter von Seyfried (1776–1841). As most of them were not familiar with the Hebrew language, Sulzer or another member of the Jewish community must have instructed them in Hebrew text declamation, or provided them with a text that indicated metrical patterns and also included translation. Unusual as it may seem, the contributions by non-Jewish composers do not stand alone and have immediate precedence in the Vollständiger Jahrgang von Terzett- und Chorgesängen der Synagoge in München.

Schir Zion I is one of the first attempts to balance reform and tradition in an artistically motivated edition of synagogue song. Sulzer remained rooted in the past by setting texts in Hebrew only, yet he departed by destroying the free rhythmic styles of ḥazzanut, forcing it into regular meter that does not fit Hebrew prosody. He provided clean-cut melodic lines without excessive coloratura, and refrained from repeating words, thus giving the meaning of the text the highest priority. Indeed, his sensible phrasing and word stress reveals his deep knowledge of the text. Yet he broke with the past when he began to harmonize these melodies largely according to the rules of Western tonality, thus compromising the modality of traditional ḥazzanut. Many of the settings relate to the choral style of the period, strongly influenced by contemporaneous secular and ecclesiastical styles. What remained traditionally Jewish was the stylized cantorial recitative and the responsorial alternation between cantor and choir or congregation.

As Schir Zion I became a great success in Europe and beyond, Sulzer conceived a second part, which finally appeared in print in 1865. It provided pieces for all occasions including special services, and offered some organ and harp accompaniment to serve as “a mediatory mission between the past and the future.”⁶ Only in the second volume of Schir Zion did the mature Sulzer approach traditional ḥazzanut for cantor and choir on a larger scale, as seen in many of the cantorial solos, but also in certain choral settings. To date, Schir Zion has gone through several editions.⁷ Numerous selections from the monumental Schir Zion were, and still are, sung throughout the occidental Jewish world, and served as models for countless Jewish composers.

Embracing moderate reform as a bridge from the old to the new, Sulzer made further proposals of a musical, liturgical, and pedagogical nature at the 1869 First Jewish Synod in Leipzig: the main pieces of the Hebrew service shall be sung in the same melody in all synagogues; multi-part choral singing and other musical performances are recommendable, but only where sufficient forces exist; singing in unison is preferable; instrumental accompaniment of synagogue song shall be adopted everywhere; secular music shall be excluded. The Kaddish prayer shall be spoken by the mourners only once and with the addition of a sentence that remembers the deceased relative; the weekly chapters of the Torah should be divided into multiple parts to be read across various days of the week; calling the community to the Torah, which should awake the word of God, shall be abolished. Sulzer also encouraged communities to teach Jewish pupils liturgical singing and proposed the establishment of schools for the training of cantors. Sulzer's proposals met with weak response, and only some of them gained acceptance. At the Second Jewish Synod in Augsburg, in 1871, his visions regarding the education of cantors were approved.⁸

Through his position as Obercantor, Sulzer also redefined the position of the ḥazzan, bringing concern and attention to issues of vocal technique. The new type of “ḥazzan” was schooled in traditional Jewish learning, Western music, music theory, and composition. Sulzer also introduced a declamatory style of singing, emphasizing the inner meaning of the liturgical word, in contrast to older ḥazzanut, which stressed the overall mood of the prayers or the particular liturgical occasion. It was Sulzer's style of singing that encouraged ḥazzanim from all over Europe to learn from him and ultimately disseminate his style far and wide. His students consisted of choirboys who worked closely with him and later became renowned cantors themselves, among them Alois Kaiser (1840–1908) and Moritz Goldstein (1840–1906), who later exerted significant influence on the Reform repertoires in the United States. Innumerable trained cantors came to Vienna to study with Sulzer, some at the request and expense of their own communities; the most famous of them were Moritz Deutsch of Breslau (1840–4), Louis Lewandowski (1821/23–94) and Abraham Jakob Lichtenstein of Berlin (1855), and Eduard Birnbaum of Königsberg (1874–7). Even eastern European cantors, particularly from the Odessa community, made their way to Vienna.

What is remarkable about the Sulzerian reforms is their reception and appeal. Sulzer's creative output became a model, and his compositions soon made their way across the ocean, becoming a standard part of the cantorial repertoire in many American synagogues. Even communities further east embraced some of the changes that took place in the West, most notably parts of Silesia, Cracow, Lemberg (Lviv), Königsberg (Kaliningrad), Odessa, and the St. Petersburg's Choral Synagogue. The extent to which the reforms were accepted differed from congregation to congregation. Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia, was a major link between central and eastern Europe and thus served as a meeting point between Jewish cultures, enabling the community to easily absorb changes that took place in the West. The Jewish community in Odessa, one of the largest and most flourishing in all of Russia until the Bolshevik Revolution, was equally receptive to Western Jewish culture and was home to the first liberal synagogue in the Russian Empire, the Brodsky Synagogue in Odessa, whose services had featured instrumental accompaniment since 1869. There is no doubt that Sulzer's approach to synagogue music was instrumental in creating a stylized and formal structure in these communities.

The organ and its controversies

As noted above, the reforms of the New Israelite Temple Association, and in particular the organ, set off fierce controversy within the community and beyond. The debates surrounding the introduction of the organ into the synagogue began with two responsa advocating it, Nogah ha-Ẓedek (Brightness of Righteousness, 1818) and Or Nogah (The Bright Light, 1818), and one rejecting it, Eleh Divrei ha-Berit (These are the Words of the Covenant, 1819). The Nogah ha-Ẓedek, published by the Austrian Talmudist and agent of the patrons of the First Temple Eliezer Liebermann, is a collection of the opinions of different European rabbis.⁹ Originally composed in response to inquiries by Jacob Herz Beer, the collection is controversial in many respects. For one, Liebermann exaggerated the importance of some rabbis; for another he only published those views that permitted the organ without setting too many conditions on its use.¹⁰ The advocates of the organ argued on the basis of Shulḥan Arukh (Oraḥ Ḥayyim 338:2 and 560:3) that organ playing by a non-Jew would be permitted for weddings or for the Sabbath. With regard to the general prohibition on music in the synagogue after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, they insisted that vocal music was allowed for religious purposes, and the reformers merely wished to extend this compromise to instrumental music. There was also a precedent for instrumental music in the synagogue from earlier periods, for example in Prague, Venice, Corfu, and Modena.¹¹ Finally, in Nogah ha-Ẓedek the organ is viewed as not explicitly Christian, since it is not played in all churches.

Following the Nogah ha-Ẓedek Liebermann wrote Or Nogah, in which he gives a lengthy and learned exposition of his own views in favor of changes, claiming that organ playing had been the Jewish custom in the Temple prior to the Christian adoption of the organ. In refutation of this book, the Hamburg rabbinate published the views of twenty-two prominent central European rabbis, Eleh Divrei ha-Berit. The collection also contained a declaration by the Hungarian rabbi and pioneer of religious reform, Aaron Chorin, revoking his former opinion published in Nogah ha-Ẓedek. The rabbis argued that playing a musical instrument is prohibited on Sabbaths and holy days, if only because it might need to be adjusted or repaired, which would constitute forbidden work (shevut). Other concerns raised in Eleh Divrei ha-Berit were the general prohibition of any music in the synagogue as a sign of mourning for the destruction of the Second Temple, and the prohibition against imitating the worship of other religions. The opponents of the organ saw in its introduction a Christianization of the service and, with that, a loss of Jewish tradition and identity.

It was probably because of these early debates that few other Jewish congregations in the subsequent three decades followed the Hamburg model. One exception could be found in the United States, in the originally Sephardic congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1824, some members of this congregation formed the Reform Society of Israelites to promote a shorter service, use of the vernacular, and choir and organ to beautify the service. But the older members of the congregation objected to the reforms. When, in 1841, the congregation – at this point no longer Sephardic in orientation – acquired an instrument (the first synagogue in the United States to do so) and used it at all liturgical celebrations, a dispute arose, and in 1844 the matter ended up in court. The decision ruled against the minority, who appealed the case; and the higher court affirmed the decision in 1846. The court held that being unable to decide the merits of this religious controversy, it must rely upon the judgment of the majority of the congregation. This affair led to the permanent breakup of the congregation.¹²

This example of an American congregation adopting the organ and other aspects of Reform was a rare case at this time. In other instances, efforts toward musical reform were only indirectly adopted at first. For example, at the Berlin synagogue on Heidereutergasse in 1837, violins were played at one service, and meshorerim imitated an orchestra. In this synagogue the installation of an organ was already being planned.¹³ Concrete plans only materialized several decades later, however, when the congregation expanded to the Neue Synagoge on Oranienburger Straße.

During the early 1840s, when the Bingen Jewish community announced its intention to acquire an organ, it triggered broader and more formal discussions at the Second Rabbinical Conference held in Frankfurt am Main, July 15–28, 1845, concerning whether the organ could be permitted in Jewish worship services and who should play it.¹⁴ These questions were once again debated under familiar banners of whether the organ was to be regarded as a neutral or a specifically Christian instrument, and whether it should be disallowed on the basis of the traditional mourning for the loss of the Second Temple.¹⁵ The discussion closed with the statement that the organ was a foreign element in the Jewish liturgy and thus not quite recommended. The conference nevertheless consented to its use on the grounds that it was needed to encourage the mood of devotion. It also established a new order of service in which the organ was to be integrated.

The unanimous decision at the Second Rabbinical Conference to permit organ playing in Jewish worship services – not only on weekdays but also on the Sabbath and holy days – did little to stop further debates. For example, later in 1845, a group of rabbis from Upper Silesia sent an address opposing the organ to Zacharias Frankel (1801–71), the chief rabbi at Dresden, who had seceded from the conference on the grounds that its reforms were too radical. Despite the continuing controversy, a number of Jewish congregations began to acquire a pipe or reed organ, among the earliest being in Koblenz and Heidelberg in 1845, Berlin in 1846 and 1848, Hildesheim in 1850, Mainz in 1853, the Berlin Reform Congregation in 1854, Mannheim and Alzey in 1855, and Leipzig in 1856.

The introduction of the organ in synagogues was debated in other European countries as well. In France, the Consistoire Centrale, in a ruling of May 1846, assented to the use of the organ in synagogues in the celebration of all “religious” and “national” occasions. Thereafter, the synagogues of Besançon, Lille, Lyons, Marseilles, Nancy, and Strasbourg acquired instruments. Austria-Hungary (with the exception of Vienna, at first), Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Sweden all followed, as did England and Switzerland. Though not every congregation used the organ on the Sabbath, it was at least played for weddings and other special occasions.

New debates began in 1861 with the plan for the construction of an organ in the Neue Synagoge on Oranienburger Straße in Berlin. The arguments in this case are representative of discussions of the issue in individual communities. The congregation's board of directors collected various responses to the permissibility of the organ. Two responsa by local rabbis, Elkan Rosenstein and Michael Sachs, rejected and condemned the introduction of the organ. The Berlin congregation then solicited the advice of a larger committee that included the music directors Julius Stern and Louis Lewandowski, and five well-known rabbis who were all in favor of the organ.

Lewandowski's statement takes musical aspects into consideration for the first time, rather than depending on the premise of halakha (Jewish law). In his response, Gutachten betr. den Antrag wegen Bewilligung der Geldmittel zur Herstellung eines Orgelwerkes in der Neuen Synagoge (1862), Lewandowski states that there is no greater appropriate support for the newly introduced congregational and choral singing, because only the organ is in a position to “control and to lead large masses in large spaces.” Lewandowski's unambiguously positive attitude toward the organ as a synagogue instrument, and his strategically cunning arguments, may have had a strong influence on the decision to introduce it to the Berlin congregation.

The introduction of the organ in the Neue Synagoge at Oranienburger Straße in 1866 was the harbinger of a moment of change that became truly evident in June and July 1869, at the First Jewish Synod in Leipzig, headed by philosopher Moritz Lazarus and Rabbi Abraham Geiger. For the first time rabbis from all over Europe, the United States, and even the West Indies assembled to discuss the views and opinions of an “enlightened” liberal Judaism. The sole representative of the cantors and synagogue musicians in the synod was Sulzer, Obercantor at the Stadttempel in Vienna's Seitenstettengasse. According to the official report of the deliberations, in a well-received speech he argued in favor of the introduction of the organ.¹⁶ The synod accepted Sulzer's conclusions, and at the Second Jewish Synod in Augsburg, 1871, the decision was broadened with the addition that even Jews were permitted to play the organ on Sabbath and holy days. Sulzer's stance seems surprising considering his role in developing the so-called Viennese rite, a moderate revision of the liturgy and traditional synagogue music. The most notable sign that Vienna's Jews eschewed drastic reforms in their quest for modernity was the absence of an organ in their new synagogue. Although the Viennese Jews rejected the ideological changes that were gaining popularity in German-Jewish communities, the question of Reform was nevertheless constantly being renewed. Though blocked at first, the organ eventually made its way into Vienna's Turkish Temple¹⁷ and some Ashkenazic temples while the controversy continued.

Further repertoires

Sulzer's Schir Zion inspired other cantor-composers to enlarge and expand the repertoire for liberal or reformed synagogues. In 1843, the Synagogue de Nazareth in Paris hired Samuel Naumbourg (1817–80) in order to reorganize the worship service, which was in disarray after the death of Israel Lovy in 1832.¹⁸ Upon his appointment Naumbourg immediately began compiling an anthology of traditional liturgical songs. He also commissioned songs for soloists and mixed chorus from professional composers. Among the hundreds of settings published in the first two volumes of his Zemirot Yisrael of 1847 and the third volume published in 1865 under the subtitle Shirei Kodesh, there were two or three by Charles-Valentin Alkan, né Morhange, one by Meyerbeer, and several by Fromental Halévy (1799–1866). His 1874 anthology Aggudat Shirim posthumously included three more Halévy settings.¹⁹

When Sulzer's style no longer fit the ideals of the Berlin community, Louis Lewandowski, one of the first to serve a synagogue as music director, conceived new liturgical pieces. While Sulzer's Schir Zion, for example, reflected his own liturgical practice by linking choral music with virtuoso cantorial solos, Lewandowski limited himself to much simpler means, at least initially. In Kol Rinnah u-T'fillah of 1871, which predominantly features the cantorial recitatives Sulzer had neglected, Lewandowski based his compositions on the liturgical tradition of the Old Synagogue, specifically the eastern European melodies he learned from Berlin's cantor Abraham Lichtenstein. The choir parts were all written for two voices, and the ambitus, or vocal range, was relatively narrow. Thus smaller congregations could easily use his work as well. The artistic conditions at the Neue Synagoge on Berlin's Oranienburger Straße inspired Lewandowski to create an entirely new service with organ accompaniment in two parts, Toda W'simrah (1876/82), a collection of the entire liturgical cycle for four-part mixed choir, solo cantor, and organ ad libitum. In Toda W'simrah, Lewandowski reproduced the traditional melodies in a more classical form and gave greater attention to organ music.

Of the communities farther east, the Brodsky Synagogue is noteworthy due to its unique position as a satellite, musical and otherwise, of German-Jewish culture. There, David Nowakowsky (1848–1921) served from 1869 on as choral director and assistant to ḥazzan Nissan Blumenthal. Nowakowsky composed a considerable amount of music during his tenure, with an especially productive period around 1891, after Blumenthal's retirement. His successor Pinchas Minkowsky was more supportive of Nowakowsky's emerging style and included the repertoire in the religious service. Nowakowsky's output was vast; among his over 1200 works are oratorios, sacred chamber music, and choral works with instrumental accompaniment. Nowakowsky employed a variety of vocal combinations (with choral textures of five to eight voices predominating) and experimented with techniques of counterpoint and fugue. Only two volumes of his liturgical compositions were published during his lifetime, Schlussgebet für Jom-Kippur für Cantor Solo und gemischten Chor (1895) and Gebete und Gesänge zum Eingang des Sabbath für Cantor Solo und Chor, mit und ohne Orgelbegleitung (1901). For solo organ, Nowakowsky composed approximately 100 pieces of three basic types: music for the Jewish service, music for concert settings, and compositional exercises.²⁰

In the US, Alois Kaiser joined forces with two fellow immigrant cantors, Moritz Goldstein and Samuel Welsch (1835–1901), to compile, arrange, and edit a four-volume anthology of music for the American Synagogue, Zimrat Yah – Liturgic Songs, Consisting of Hebrew, English and German Psalms and Hymns, Systematically Arranged for the Jewish Rite with Organ Accompaniment (1873–86). Zimrat Yah contains compositions by all three compiler-editors, as well as a number of individual works from Sulzer, Naumbourg, and others – though often rearranged or re-adapted and given organ accompaniments where none existed in the original. Kaiser, who, beginning in 1866, served the congregation Oheib Shalom in Baltimore as cantor, established a solid role for the ḥazzan and served as president of the Society of American Cantors, which he founded in 1895. Commissioned by the Central Conference of American Rabbis (the rabbinical arm of the official Reform movement), Kaiser also created and edited a new unified hymnal, published in 1897, with adaptations from non-Jewish secular classical pieces by French, German, and English composers; some traditional tunes; and Kaiser's own contributions.²¹ The Union Hymnal went through several subsequent editions that reflect the changing aesthetics and tastes of American Reform; the third edition of 1932 by Abraham W. Binder (1895–1967), music director at the Stephen S. Wise Free Synagogue in New York, leaned more toward traditional tunes.

Processes of change in synagogue music occurred throughout early modernity, particularly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but never in ways as radical, visible, and lasting as in the nineteenth century. Several stages of reform took place simultaneously in different communities, ranging from extreme acculturation to assimilatory tendencies that preserved some traditions. Although the organ's use was not widespread and was embraced by some congregations that did not consider themselves reformed, it nonetheless became a symbol for the schism between Orthodox and Reform. Choral music of different styles and arrangements, however, became an integral part of many synagogues’ music.

By the early twentieth century the reform of synagogue music faced new challenges. If early reforms broke with older traditions by combining or replacing them with new and “foreign” elements, synagogue music in the subsequent century became increasingly pluralistic. While some communities adhered to the nineteenth-century repertoires, others embraced processes of a dissimilative nature by retrieving older traditions and integrating them into contemporary musical forms. The reasons that reformed music lost some importance in central Europe after 1945 are historic. In the US, however, social movements and folk music influenced Jewish liturgical music to grow in new directions, especially during the 1960s. An informal congregationally active mode of worship became popular, influenced to some extent by the worship style of Jewish summer camps with sing-alongs accompanied by guitar, in order to provide an ever-stronger sense of community.