Ancient Poetry, Modern Music, and the Wechselgesang der Mirjam und Debora: The Meanings of Song in the Itzig Circle

Cypes considers one work with the ex libris of Zippora Wulff which survives in the collection of the Sing-Akademie: the Wechselgesaug der Mirjam und Deboran by Justin Heinnch Knecht (published ca. 1781), a cantata set to poetry drawn from Friednch Gottlieb Klopstock's epic Der Messias. In light of the fact that this excerpt from Klopstock's Messias had already been held up by both Jewish and non-Jewish critics for its encapsulation of the spirit of the poetry of the Hebrew Bible, he argues that its appearance in the collection of a woman of the Jewish Enlightenment is no mere coincidence. Klopstock's dialogue between Miriam and Deborah had been set previously by Georg Philipp Telemann and, although Telemann's setting remained unpublished, it was well known in Berlin Germany.