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A Joyful Noise: Claiming the Songs of My Fathers
A Joyful Noise Claiming the Songs of My Fathers Author:Deborah Weisgall In A Joyful Noise, Deborah Weisgall, poet, novelist, and art critic for The New York Times, tells a moving story of growing up with two remarkable men who lived life as if they were characters in an opera. Music was their passion and faith, their history and their destiny. Deborah's grandfather Abba served as the cantor in a synagogue in ... more »Baltimore; her father, Hugo, was a famous opera composer and conducted the synagogue choir. Abba had brought his family to America from Czechoslovakia in 1920. He was descended from generations of cantors, and in their local synagogue Abba and Hugo kept alive a fading musical tradition. From her seat on the edge of the choir loft, Deborah as a child longed to be entrusted with this precious music and carry it on herself. But it was impossible: she was a girl. In 1950s Baltimore, the Weisgalls live in a modest home on an ordinary suburban street, but their house is filled with art treasures from Prague, the magical city where Deborah was born. It seems to Deborah that her past is locked in Prague, a place as vivid and unreal as a fairy tale. Outside her home she navigates a world of bland, split-level contentment. But inside she moves in a world that is lush, histrionic, and dangerous, informed by her father's battle to make art in a climate of American indifference while his conscience is haunted by the brutalities of the Holocaust. A Joyful Noise recounts Deborah's turbulent coming-of-age, her search for a place within the family tradition, and finally, her triumphant discovery of a way to make the men who would exclude her - who are also the men she loves - listen to her voice. A Joyful Noise is a tender, heartbreaking, beautifully written chronicle of the power of memory, the survival of faith, and the pursuit of a grand musical heritage.« less