This article concerns the traditional liturgical and non-liturgical music of the various Jewish communities worldwide, the contribution of Jewish performers and composers within their surrounding non-Jewish societies, and the musical culture of ancient Israel/Palestine. For a discussion of music in the modern state of Israel, see Israel.
Three Hebrew transliteration systems are employed throughout: one for the main body of the text and the bibliography; and two sub-systems to represent the distinctive pronunciations of the Jews of Yemen and Iraq. When musical examples have been reprinted from secondary sources the original transliteration has been preserved.
III. Liturgical and paraliturgical
V. Art and popular music in surrounding cultures
EDWIN SEROUSSI (I),
JOACHIM BRAUN (II),
EDWIN SEROUSSI (III, 1, 2(iv), 4, 7, 8(i–iii, v),
11(i)), ELIYAHU SCHLEIFER (III, 2(i–iii), 3), URI SHARVIT (III, 5), SARA MANASSEH,
(III, 6), THEODORE LEVIN (III, 8(iv)), TANG
YATING (III, 8(vi)), KAY KAUFMAN SHELEMAY (III,
9, 11(ii)), JEHOASH HIRSHBERG (III, 10),
PHILIP V. BOHLMAN (IV, 1(i), 2(iii)(a)), EDWIN SEROUSSI (IV, 1(ii), 2(i)(c), 2(iv), 3(i)), URI SHARVIT (IV, 2(i)(a)), SARA MANASSEH
(IV, 2(i)(b)), ISRAEL J. KATZ (IV, 2(ii)), BRET WERB (IV, 2(iii)(b)), WALTER ZEV FELDMAN
(IV, 3(ii)),
EDWIN SEROUSSI (V, 1), JEHOASH HIRSHBERG
(V, 2(i)), DON HARRÁN (V, 2(ii)), ALEXANDER
KNAPP (V, 2(iii, v–vi)), DAVID BLOCH, EMILY THWAITE, BRET WERB (V, 2(iv))
Jewish music, §I: Introduction
‘Jewish music’ as a concept emerged among Jewish scholars and musicians only in the mid-19th century with the rise of modern national consciousness among European Jews, and since then all attempts to define it have faced many difficulties. The term ‘Jewish music’ in its nation-oriented sense was first coined by German or German-trained Jewish scholars, among whom the most influential in this respect was A.Z. Idelsohn (1882–1938), whose book Jewish Music in its Historical Development (1929/R) was a landmark in its field that is still widely consulted today. Idelsohn was the first scholar to incorporate the Jewish ‘Orient’ into his research, and thus his work presents the first ecumenical, though still fragmentary, description of the variety of surviving Jewish musical cultures set within a single historical narrative. In his work Idelsohn pursued a particular ideological agenda: he adopted the idea of the underlying cultural unity of the Jewish people despite their millenary dispersion among the nations, and promoted the view that the music of the various Jewish communities in the present expresses aspects of that unity. Moreover, Idelsohn's work implied a unilinear history of Jewish music dating back to the Temple in biblical Jerusalem. This approach was perpetuated in later attempts to write a comprehensive overview of Jewish music from a historical perspective (e.g. Avenary, 1971–2/R).
Despite its problematic nature, the concept of ‘Jewish music’ in its Idelsohnian sense is a figure of speech widely employed today, being used in many different contexts of musical activity: recorded popular music, art music composition, printed anthologies, scholarly research and so on. The use of this term to refer both to the traditional music of all Jewish communities, past and present, and to new contemporary music created by Jews with ethnic or national agendas is thus convenient, as long as its historical background and ideological connotations are borne in mind.
Since the beginning of the Jewish exile two thousand years ago, following the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 ce, the Hebrew faith of biblical times, stemming from its east Mediterranean cradle and perpetuated and interpreted by the rabbis, has flourished in many corners of the world. ‘Jewish music’ as performed and studied in the present is almost wholly the product of life in exile. Information about the music of Jews in pre-exilic times is meagre. It consists mainly of references to musical activities in biblical and talmudic (Oral Law) texts, particularly the lavish musical pageantry of the Second Temple rituals in Jerusalem – a focus of interest among scholars of later periods. Archaeological findings and iconographical evidence also provide important data about the ancient music of Israel/Palestine (see below, §II).
In exile, Jewish ethnicity became inextricably linked to two fundamental elements: observance of halakhah (religious law according to rabbinical interpretation) and historical memory (ritually perpetuated in the liturgy). Emerging in a community bonded by religious faith and rabbinical authority, the music of the Jews in exile developed within the context of the performative practices of religion. At the same time its contents, uses and functions were regulated by rabbinical sanctions.
The long path of exile (Heb. galut) also imposed on the Jews the need to accommodate to the hosting non-Jewish societies. Therefore, each community engaged in a musical dialogue with its non-Jewish surroundings, and through time many different Jewish ‘musics’ emerged. Moreover, frequent displacements and discontinuities affecting individual Jewish communities exercised a major influence on the musical culture of each group. All in all, the active participation of Jews in the musical traditions of the surrounding societies poses a challenging scholarly question: where exactly are the limits between the music ‘made by Jews, for Jews, as Jews’ (to quote the legendary definition of Jewish music proposed by Curt Sachs in his address to the First World Congress of Jewish Music in Paris, 1957) and the music ‘made by Jews, as musicians, for all listeners’. A further question arises with music created by non-Jews but used by Jews within their own communities.
What is known as ‘Jewish music’ today is thus the result of complex historical processes. Being primarily an oral tradition, the lack of historical documentation about the music of Jewish communities, even in the recent past, poses major methodological challenges to research. The information available is of recent origin, and this data is certainly influenced by the profound social changes that have affected the Jews over the past two centuries, first in Europe and more latterly throughout the Islamic lands. One such process is the challenge to religious orthodoxy (either by mystical trends or by the various reformist movements); a second was the embracing of the secular nation-state concept by the Zionist movement. Against this background, any reconstruction of an authentic national music dating back to the period of mythical, ‘normal’ nationhood in biblical times on the basis of 20th-century data collected from the wide variety of contemporary Jewish communities is a futile undertaking. It is therefore necessary to consider the particularities of each of the many Jewish ‘musics’, both in the past and in the present, in their own terms. At the same time, it must be recognized that there are indeed features shared by the musical cultures of many Jewish communities. But rather than an expression of ancient nationhood, this shared heritage results from the common observance of religious law, the contacts between different communities in relatively recent times, the migration of musicians (especially synagogue cantors) from one community to another and the historical memory that has maintained a remarkable sense of Jewish identity in spite of exile and dispersal.
The scope of this article reflects the complexities of the concept of ‘Jewish music’ discussed above. It attempts to describe the uniqueness of each Jewish musical tradition according to the geographical distribution of the Jewish communities roughly from the 16th century until World War I. This distribution sets up the present-day boundaries between the Jewish ethnic groups on the basis of geographical and cultural identity. The main division is between Ashkenazi (originally from Germany and France, and who spread to eastern Europe after the 15th century), Sephardi (originally from the Iberian Peninsula, and who settled after 1492 in the Ottoman Empire, North Africa, and western Europe), ‘Oriental’ (Jews who remained in the Middle East or spread to the Arabian Peninsula, the Caucasus, Central Asia and India) and the Ethiopian Jews. The term ‘Oriental’ (Heb. ‘edot ha-mizrah) was coined by Jewish Israeli sociologists to describe all eastern Jewish communities that were not wholly influenced by Sephardi Jews who fled from Spain and settled in the eastern Mediterranean. In the present-day Israeli context, however, ‘Sephardi’ has obliterated the less politically-correct ‘Oriental’, even though the latter term still persists in Jewish and Israeli musical literature. The Ethiopian Jews are treated here as a self-contained community because of their unique liturgical order and musical traditions that have no parallel in any other Jewish community.
This rough compartmentalization has been partially perpetuated in the new lands where Jews settled after the events that so profoundly affected them in the first half of the 20th century (the fall of the Austro-Hungarian, Tsarist Russian and Ottoman Empires, the rise of Zionism, and the Holocaust). Jews migrated to all countries that offered them shelter and these waves of emigration created the map of present-day Jewry. Today Jews are distributed between Israel, the Americas, western Europe, South Africa and Australia, to which may be added the sizeable Jewish community that remained in the former Soviet Union after World War II. Some emigrants escaping from Europe reached as far as China and Japan.
The emigration patterns led to new perceptions of Jewish ethnic identity. For example, Jews from the ‘Oriental’ communities – especially those in Israel – identify themselves as ‘Sephardi’ (partially on the basis of their acceptance of Sephardi rabbinical authority), Iraqi Jews who settled in Calcutta and Bombay in the 19th century identify themselves as ‘Indian’, and North African Jews who recently emigrated to France now consider themselves as ‘French’. With the passing of time, these new identities (and thus new ‘Jewish musics’) replace the older ones. Despite the vital persistence of the basic Ashkenazi–Sephardi/Oriental paradigm, today many Jews tend to refer to themselves and their musical cultures more as American-, Russian-, British- or French Jewish, or as Israeli.
In addition to all Jewish ethnic groups, two other sects, the Samaritans and the Karaites, share with Judaism the acceptance of the Torah (Pentateuch) as divine revelation and as the source of religious practice. This article includes the music of the Karaite Jews who split from Judaism in the 8th century ce but who are conceptually closer to mainstream ‘Rabbanite’ Judaism than the Samaritans. For the music of the Samaritans, who split from Judaism in the 8th century bce, see Samaritan music.
Music in religious settings predominates throughout this entry because of the crucial role of religion in exilic Jewish culture. The division between liturgical, paraliturgical (both §III) and non-liturgical music (§IV) denotes different contexts of creativity and performance within a traditional Jewish community. While the first two categories represent the inner core of the Jewish musical culture, the third, which includes Jewish folksongs and instrumental music, is the main area of contact between traditional Jewish music and surrounding, non-Jewish music cultures.
Religious music in Judaism is bounded by religious law (halakhah). Two crucial restrictions imposed by this law are the ban on the use of musical instruments in the synagogue (more lenient approaches apply this limitation only to Sabbaths and all Holy Days) and the prohibition against men listening to the voice of a woman. The first ban, whose most widely quoted rationale is that of a sign of mourning for the destruction of Temple in Jerusalem (although alternative explanations are equally feasible), led to the predominance of vocal music in traditional Jewish contexts. The only exception to this ban is the use of the shofar (ram's horn) in the liturgy of the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), but not when it coincides with the Sabbath. The second, though not universally enforced, led to sexual segregation in religious musical performances. The repertories of Jewish men and women have generally different musical styles and languages (Hebrew for men, vernacular Jewish languages for women) and are performed in different social contexts (liturgical and paraliturgical occasions in the synagogue among men; accompanying domestic chores and celebrating events of the life cycle among women). However, this dichotomy based on gender should not be over-emphasized. Men and women were not mutually excluded from each other's contexts of performance, as is shown, for example, in the use of melodies from the women's repertory for the singing of Hebrew religious songs by men.
The Emancipation of the Jews in Europe (beginning in the second half of the 18th century in Germany) led to the contestation of the very foundations of traditional Judaism. Following the spread of rationalism and the emergence of modern nation-states (especially after the French Revolution), Jews began to read their canonic religious texts in a scientific, critical way, to adopt and imitate patterns of behaviour from the non-Jewish ‘civilized’ society, and to expose themselves to the contemporary arts and literature. New types of Jews emerged from this process: the non-observant (called ‘secular’) and the liberal (i.e. Jews proposing non-Orthodox forms of Jewish religiosity, such as the Reform, the Conservative and the Reconstructionist Jews). The challenge to orthodoxy had profound musical consequences, as the synagogues of liberal movements became arenas for unprecedented musical creativity within Jewish religious contexts. As the traditional bans on musical instruments and sexual segregation were relaxed or completely abandoned, instruments, mixed choirs and women cantors became customary.
Moving away from the religious frameworks, the distinct identity of the Jewish musician within a wider socio-cultural unit becomes problematic (see below, §V). As secularism and modernization made their inroads into Jewish communities and as the integration of the Jew as a citizen in modern nation-states became more feasible, a paradox emerged. As music developed as an art for its own sake in Western culture during the 19th century, European Jews were granted, for the first time, access to its composition and professional performance. However, the full entry of a Jew into art music in Europe demanded, in general, a high price: the dissolution of his or her Jewish identity.
It is only since the Emancipation (with the exceptional case of Italy since the 17th century) that the phenomenon of Jewish composers overtly expressing themselves as Jews within the Western art music tradition has emerged. This process occurs in contemporary societies in which the Jewish community is integrated within the nation both as a religious and as a cultural entity, the most obvious contemporary example being the USA. This article addresses the possible reflections of the Jewish self in the work of outstanding Western composers of Jewish ancestry, the responses of audience (Jewish and non-Jewish) to such reflections and the approaches of recent scholarship to this modern phenomenon. The case of the State of Israel is different; with the emergence of the Jewish nation-state in the 20th century a particular new musical culture has developed (see Israel), although the question of Jewish identity in music is nevertheless present there too. This entry also considers the involvement of Jews in the music of societies in which the social difference of the Jew was clearly demarcated. Such was the case in most Islamic countries, where Jews were able to participate in diverse spheres of musical creativity while remaining, due to the nature of the surrounding social order, within the confines of their religious community.
Jewish music, §I: Introduction
Interest in the music of the Jews (or ‘Hebrews’ as they were commonly called) formed part of scholarly inquiries into the music of the ‘peoples of antiquity’ (next to the ancient Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans) by early music historiographers (e.g. Padre G.B. Martini, Charles Burney, J.N. Forkel). The subject most frequently addressed was the speculation about the music of the Temple in Jerusalem, an interest that survived well into the 19th century. Another focus of attention was the Jewish cantillation of the Bible, a subject discussed by Renaissance Hebraists such as Johannes Reuchlin and music theorists such as Zarlino since the early 16th century (see Harrán, 1988).
Contemporary Jews and their music are rarely mentioned in music historiography before the mid-19th century (e.g. ‘Hebrew Music of the Present Day’ in Carl Engel's The Music of the Most Ancient Nations, London, 1864/R). The few early references to Jewish music usually originate in travellers’ accounts or in anti-Semitic literature. They generally refer to the ‘unpleasant’ sound of synagogue services, to the exotic features of Jewish musical performance and to the relationship between the music of the Jews and that of the surrounding cultures.
The modern, systematic study of music in Jewish communities is intimately linked to the emergence of Wissenschaft des Judenthums in Germany in the early 19th century. This school of Jewish scholars sought to study Judaism and its sacred texts with the critical tools of scientific inquiry, such as philology and comparative literature. The most illustrious representative of this school in the field of music was Eduard Birnbaum (1855–1920). He systematically collected written sources on Jewish music available in his time (manuscript and printed scores as well as literary evidence), toured communities in Europe seeking materials in libraries and private estates, and published many essays on different aspects, periods and traditions of Jewish music (see Seroussi, 1982).
Precedents of Birnbaum's research can be found in introductions to printed collections of Jewish liturgical music and in bulletins of the synagogue cantors’ associations, which began to proliferate in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire after 1840 (e.g. Die jüdische Kantor, Bromberg, 1879–98). Another example of this type of early study is the detailed essay on the music of the Sephardi liturgy by Reverend David Aharon de Sola, cantor of the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue in London, printed in The Ancient Melodies of the Liturgy of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews (London, 1857); ex.1 – a traditional Sephardi melody – shows the early style of notation, with keyboard accompaniment, used in this work. Two other important landmarks of late 19th-century Jewish music scholarship are Joseph Singer's study of the musical modes (Yiddish shteyger) of the Ashkenazi liturgy (1886) and Abraham Baer's comprehensive collection of Ashkenazi liturgical music (1887/R).
The philological approach of Birnbaum and his contemporaries in Germany, with its focus on written documents, did not address the problems arising from the essentially oral nature of Jewish music. Moreover, the musical traditions of the ‘other’ Jews (i.e. the non-Europeans) were still terra incognita. This vacuum was filled by A.Z. Idelsohn, who embarked on the study of the ‘missing links’ of Jewish music history. After he moved to Palestine in 1907, he discovered the wealth of Sephardi and Oriental Jewish traditions and engaged in their recording, transcription, analysis and comparative study (e.g. his pioneering study of the Arabic maqāmāt in the Sephardi liturgy) with the support of the Phonograph Archiv in Vienna. Idelsohn published the results of his field inquiries in Palestine in the first five volumes of his Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz (1914–32/R; henceforth referred to as HoM); the remaining five volumes, documenting the Ashkenazi traditions, were compiled after Idelsohn left Palestine for the USA in 1921. In his numerous other publications, Idelsohn treated a vast array of subjects, inspiring many modern research trends in this field (Schleifer, 1986).
Idelsohn was by no means the only scholar addressing Jewish oral traditions. Robert Lachmann (1892–1939), a leader of the Berlin school of comparative musicology, contributed a paradigmatic study with his monograph on the music of the Jews of the Island of Djerba, Tunisia (1940; repr. in the original Ger. with musical transcriptions, 1978). This was the first encompassing musical ethnography of a single Jewish community. After his emigration to Palestine in 1935, Lachmann founded the Archive of Oriental Jewish Music at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he continued to document Jewish traditions. The comparativist school continued in Palestine with the work of Lachmann's disciple and assistant, Edith Gerson-Kiwi (1908–92).
Other major projects of documentation and publication of oral traditions were carried out in Russia and later in the Soviet Union. The Jewish Folk Music Society was active in several cities between 1908 and 1918 under the leadership of Joel Engel (1868–1927), and the Jewish Historical-Ethnographical Society, established in 1908 and directed by the folklorist S. An-Ski (1863–1920), carried out extensive research into folk music, in addition to the promotion of a national school of art music based on Jewish musical themes (see below, §IV, 2(iii) (b)). The ‘ethnographic expeditions’ directed by An-Ski between 1911 and 1914 were particularly remarkable. After the final dissolution of the Jewish Historical-Ethnographical Society in 1929, its collection of recorded cylinders, as well as those of Engel and Sussman Kisselhof from Leningrad, were incorporated into the Cabinet of Music Ethnography of the Ethnographic Section of the Institute for Jewish Culture in Kiev (functioned 1928–49). The founder and director of the Cabinet, Moisey Beregovsky (1892–1961) pursued a particular ideological and methodological agenda (Slobin, 1982). Working within the Stalinist Soviet Union, Beregovsky applied a Marxist approach to the study of Ashkenazi folk music, thus rejecting Idelsohn's national ideology. The important collections of the Cabinet, considered lost after World War II, were rediscovered in the mid-1990s at the Vernadsky Central Scientific Library in Kiev (see Adler, ‘A la recherche de chants perdus’, 1995).
Other important projects of collection and study of oral sources were carried out by individual musicologists. The interest in the Judeo-Spanish folksong among non-Jewish Spanish scholars, particularly Ramón Menéndez Pidal, promoted the fieldwork project of Manuel Manrique de Lara on behalf of the Centro de Estudios Históricos in Madrid (1912; 1915). Further studies by the Spaniards Manuel Ortega and Arcadio de Larrea Palacín laid the foundations for scholarship in this field in Spain. The Turkish-born Jewish composer and ethnographer Alberto Hemsi (1892–1975) also recorded an impressive collection of Judeo-Spanish folksongs in the eastern Mediterranean (see Seroussi and others, 1995).
Another major ethnographic work was undertaken in Italy by Leo Levi (1912–82) on behalf of the Centro Nazionale di Studi di Musica Populare in Rome. Levi's collection, now located at the Discoteca di Stato and at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, as well as at the National Sound Archives in Jerusalem, is crucial for the study of many Italian Jewish musical traditions that have since disappeared.
The growing interest in Jewish oral traditions did not hinder historical studies based on written documentation. Eric Werner (1901–88) produced philological studies of writings on music in medieval Judeo-Arabic sources, and comparative studies of the Jewish and early Christian liturgy (1959–84), and of the Ashkenazi tradition (A Voice Still Heard, 1976). Israel Adler rediscovered and studied the Hebrew compositions of European art music from the 17th and 18th centuries, challenging established views concerning the nature of Jewish musical creativity and absorption of Western art music prior to the Emancipation (Adler, 1966). A synthesis between the study of oral traditions and of written sources is found in several groundbreaking studies by Hanoch Avenary (1908–94). Bathja Bayer (1928–95) developed the new field of Jewish archaeomusicology and iconography, shedding new light on the music of ancient Israel.
Since the 1970s the study of Jewish music from modern ethnomusicological perspectives has flourished in Israel, the USA and more recently in western Europe. The Jewish Music Research Centre (founded by Adler in 1965) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem provides the institutional framework for such study in Israel. In the USA, research is carried out in major universities by individual researchers, as well as in Jewish institutions of higher learning, such as the Hebrew Union College (HUC), the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS), Yeshiva University and the Yidisher visenshaftlikher institut (YIVO).
Jewish music, §I: Introduction
The major resources for the study of Jewish music are the oral traditions of the various communities worldwide. These have been documented only from the beginning of the 20th century, at first sporadically but later more systematically. Written sources relating to Jewish music are mainly of a literary nature. The primary sources – such as the Bible, the Oral Law (Mishnah and Talmud), Midrash (biblical hermeneutics), mystical treatises and rabbinical writings, particularly responsa – provide information about the uses, functions and character of Jewish music during its formative period, as well as the attitudes of religious authorities towards it (see below, §4). These sources are supplemented by secondary, circumstantial evidence such as travellers’ diaries. The substantial use of Western musical notation in Jewish music, especially in print, is a later development (after c1840) and was generally employed for the perpetuation of new compositions rather than the preservation or recording of oral traditions.
Among the rare and sporadic notations of traditional Jewish music prior to 1840 are a 12th-century, single-leaf manuscript (notated in Beneventan neumes) by Obadiah the Norman Proselyte found in the Cairo Genizah (fig.1), the notations of musical motifs of the Masoretic accents by Hebraists, such as Johannes Reuchlin's De accentibus et orthographia linguae hebraicae (Hagenau, 1518; see below, §III, 3, fig.15), the specimens notated by early musical historiographers (and subsequently reproduced until the 19th century), such as Anastasius Kircher's Musurgia universalis (Rome, 1650), and the documentation by composers interested in ‘ancient Hebrew music’ as a source of inspiration, such as Benedetto Marcello's Estro poetico-armonico (Venice, 1724–7). From the mid-18th century onwards, a few cantors in Germany began to document their new tunes in manuscript, ushering in the era of musical notation in European Jewish music (Adler, 1989). Notations of traditional Jewish music from the Middle Eastern communities date from a much later period, for example the specimens included in the scientific reports from Syria by Dom Jean Parisot (1899; 1903).
The major collections of Jewish music documentation, either oral or written, are associated with prominent scholars in the field. The Birnbaum Collection of Jewish music at the Klau Library of the HUC in Cincinnati is the largest repository of manuscripts and documents of Jewish music. The collection covers Jewish musical life in Europe, with special emphasis on Germany, during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Other major repositories of scores and written documents are the Eric Mandell Collection (Gratz College, Philadelphia), the funds of the JTS (New York) and the Jacob Michael Collection (Jewish National and University Library – JNUL – in Jerusalem). The Music Department of JNUL includes the vast Noy-Wachs collection of Yiddish and Hebrew songs (over 15,000 items), as well as the estates of many Jewish composers, scholars (including the Idelsohn Collection) and institutions (e.g. the short-lived World Center for Jewish Music; see Bohlman, 1992).
The National Sound Archives, located at JNUL, houses the largest repository of field recordings of Jewish music in the world. It incorporates the historical recordings of Idelsohn, Lachmann, Edith Gerson-Kiwi, Leo Levi, Johanna Spector and those of the younger generations of Israeli scholars. Renanot, the Institute of Jewish Music in Jerusalem (formerly Institute of Religious Music), also possesses a sizeable collection of recordings. Important assemblages of recorded Jewish music outside Israel include the Phonograph Archiv in Vienna and the private collections of American researchers, such as the Samuel Armistead, Israel Katz and Joseph Silverman Collection of Judeo-Spanish Songs, the Kay Kaufman Shelemay Collection of Ethiopian and Syrian Jewish Music, and various assemblages of klezmer and Ashkenazi liturgical music by Mark Slobin, Walter Zev Feldman, Andy Statman, Hankus Netzky, Judit Frigyesi and others. The Milken Archive of American Jewish Music is a new project dedicated to the preservation of previously unrecorded traditional and newly composed Jewish music from the USA. Another important source of sound recordings that can contribute substantially to research are the early 78 r.p.m records. This is an area, however, in which substantial research and cataloguing is still required.
Basic bibliographical tools are Sendrey (1951/R) followed by Weisser (1969), Heskes (1985; incl. a comprehensive bibliography of bibliographies), Seroussi (1993) and Adler (The Study of Jewish Music, 1995). (Updates are found in the journal Musica judaica.) The systematic compilation of texts concerning Jewish music and scores was initiated by Birnbaum and Idelsohn and continued with the work of Avenary. Catalogues of Hebrew writings concerning music and of notated sources of Jewish music up to 1840 have been published by Adler in RISM (1975; 1989), providing a fundamental resource for the study of Jewish music history. Shlomo Hofman contributed compilations of passages about music and musical instruments in the Bible (1965, 2/1974) and in the Mishnah and the Talmud (1989), while Shiloah and Tenne (1977) have done the same for the major work of Jewish mysticism, the Sefer ha-zohar (Book of Splendour).
Jewish music, §I: Introduction
In addition to the Jewish musical repertories discussed in this entry, a considerable body of writings about music emerged within traditional Judaism. The contents and natures of these writings vary considerably, for example talmudic arguments, biblical hermeneutics, rabbinical responsa and mystical treatises. The dates of their composition range from the talmudic (2nd to 5th centuries ce) and geonic periods (6th to 11th centuries) to the Middle Ages and the modern era, and they were written in by authors living in the Christian and Islamic worlds. Some writings include legislative rulings on musical matters, and the ethics and aesthetics of music. Others reflect the impact of philosophy and secular education on medieval Jews, such as the hokhmat ha-musiqah (‘theory of music’), which was part of the quadrivium in the Christian universities.
Legislative rulings concern the desirable manner of performance, the necessary qualities of the performers and the content of music in traditional Jewish society. Two key legislatures have been mentioned above: the rejection of the female voice, based on Rav's dictum that ‘the voice of a woman is indecent’ (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 24a); and the ban on instrumental music (Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 48a etc.). Rabbinical opinions on music content and performance, however, do not present a unified position. For example, the talmudic statement that the duty to ‘gladden the groom and bride’ with music (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 6b) softens the predominant opposition to all forms of instrumental music. This ambivalence towards music is also found in the influential writings by the Spanish rabbi Maimonides (1135–1204). In his famous responsum on the performance of Arabic songs with instrumental accompaniment (probably addressed to the Jewish community of Aleppo; Cohen, 1935) Maimonides synthesized previous rabbinical opinions and presented a harsh position against all music not totally at the service of religious worship. On the other hand, writing as a physician, he recommended listening to instrumental music for its healing powers. The lineage of the commentaries and rulings on these and other musical subjects, particularly the perennial issue of the use of melodies from the surrounding cultures in the synagogue, has continued until the present day. One of the latest statements on this issue is a responsum published in 1954 by Rabbi Obadiah Yossef, former chief Sephardi rabbi of Israel, favouring the use of melodies of Arabic songs in the synagogue.
Jewish mystical treatises, particularly since the 13th century, deal with the ethical, magical and theurgic powers of music (Idel, 1997). These powers enhance the religious experience of the mystic. For example, the unravelling, through singing and concentration, of the concealed ‘intentions’ (kavvanot) of the regular prayers (e.g. by expanding key words with melody) may accelerate the union between man and his creator or between the world and its creator.
The variety of Jewish writings about music and of the positions expressed in them proves that there is no unified ideology of music in Judaism. Two main ideas, however, appear to dominate many traditional writings about music. First, the original purpose of music in religious life is the authentic expression of human feelings by each individual. This approach disregards the idea of a transcendental musical beauty, whether an echo or imitation of a heavenly model or the inspiration of an individual genius. Second, the power of the human voice overrules that of instrumental music. It is not a coincidence that the beautification of the synagogue services with music ‘for its own sake’ and the use of instrumental music are the hallmarks of the process of Jewish Emancipation in the modern era.
3. Israel and Judah in the Iron Age (c1000–586 bce).
4. The Persian and Hellenistic/Roman periods (586 bce–70 ce).
Jewish music, §II: Ancient Israel/Palestine
Ancient Israel/Palestine is here defined as roughly the territory now covered by modern Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and the southern part of coastal Syria (fig.2). Inhabited by many different peoples and cultures throughout the period under consideration, from the Neolithic era until Roman times, the music history of the region shows a great diversity of traditions. Although the strong influences of Egypt and Mesopotamia are evident, so, too, is the development of a distinct musical culture particular to the area.
The major source of information about the music of ancient Israel/Palestine is archaeological – examples of musical instruments and iconographical evidence depicting musical scenes. However, literary texts (notably the Old Testament and the writings of such Roman authors as Josephus) also shed some light on to the subject for the later period in particular. The Bible contains a substantial number of references to various kinds of musical instruments, many of which have been identified with surviving examples, and often provides valuable information on the social and religious contexts in which they were performed; for further discussion of the individual instruments, see Biblical instruments. (The abbreviation IAA is used for the Israel Antiquities Authority.)
Jewish music, §II: Ancient Israel/Palestine
The earliest known evidence of acoustical activity in ancient Israel/Palestine are archaeological finds dating from the time of the Neolithic Revolution (Natufian culture and Early Neolithic period, 12th–8th millennia bce) – stringed rattles and bullroarers, which served as adornments, cult objects, and tools as well as sound-producing instruments (Braun, ‘Musical Instruments’, 1997, fig.1). Only in the 4th millennium bce, with the Early Bronze Age, did a change (that can be defined as an Acoustical-Organological Revolution) occur and a new generation of musical instruments appear, including the hourglass drum and the triangular frame harp (Braun, 1999, Abb.II/2).
The musical tradition of the people known as the Canaanites developed during the Bronze Age (c3500–1200 bce) within a rapidly growing urban society. Although it flourished at the crossroads of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures, it nevertheless evolved its own unique characteristics and itself exerted an influence on the musical practices of the wider area (Caubet, 1994; Braun, 1999, chap.iii). With the exception of a few surviving cuneiform texts from Ugarit (14th–13th centuries bce; now Ras Shamra, Syria) concerning the musical instruments of the Levant (knr: ‘lyre’; msltm: ‘cymbals’; and tf: ‘drum’; see Caubet, 1987), the source material for this period is entirely archaeological.
The range of instruments known in Canaan included all categories commonly used in the ancient Middle and Near East, although each type possessed a distinct character particular to the indigenous people of the region in its structure, function or manner of performance. It can be seen in the unique terracotta sculpture from Gilat of the late 4th millennium bce (fig.3; Alon, 1976), which depicts a woman holding an hourglass drum under her arm, and a contemporary stone sketch from Megiddo of the triangular harp (Braun, forthcoming), the earliest-known document of its kind. The first-known unambiguous depiction of the lyre, called in the Near East by words deriving from the root knr – the kinnor of the Bible, is a wall painting from the Beni-Hasan tomb in Egypt (c1900 bce; fig.4). The instrument is shown being played in a horizontal position by a Canaanite/Semitic musician as he walks. A different manner of performance is seen on an ivory plaque engraving from Megiddo (13th century bce; see Biblical instruments, fig.3), the lyre being held under the arm in an attitude favouring solo virtuoso performance. A clay plaque from Tel Dan (15th century bce) shows the lute played in a context combining popular forms of music, dance and theatre (Biran, 1986; Braun, MGG2, ‘Biblische Musikinstrumente’, Abb.3). The double reedpipe is depicted for the first time in the late Canaanite period (15th–14th centuries bce) as a solo accompaniment for an erotic dance (ibid., Abb.4).
The small round frame drum (probably the biblical tof) appears in Canaan as early as the first centuries of the 2nd millennium bce on a rock sketch in the Negev desert; it accompanies a men's round dance, a tradition that persisted in the Middle East for millennia, along with nude female dancers playing the lyre (fig.5; Anati, 1963). Some 20 pairs of bronze cymbals (probably the biblical mesiltayim; see Biblical instruments, fig.6) from the 15th–11th centuries bce have been found along the entire Levantine coast from Ashqelon to Ugarit. Other idiophones were also widely spread, especially primitive pottery rattles of a form particular to the region; such instruments (probably the biblical mena‘ane‘im) seem to have been the indigenous mass rhythm-instrument, with extant examples dating from the Early Bronze Age to the Babylonian/Persian period (see Biblical instruments, fig.5).
Specially trained musicians and singers performed sacred music for such Canaanite gods as Anat (e.g. Kerker, one of the singers who performed in honour of the Egyptian god Amun; see Loud, 1939, no.381). The local aristocracy was celebrated and entertained by professional performers, and educated young men and women in singing and instrumental music for this very purpose (Pritchard, 1950, no.487). Ugaritic texts mention singing (sr) – by both men and women – and music-making by and for Baal and other gods (Caubet, 1987, p.734; Seidel, 1989, p.37). Of especial importance is the unique cuneiform text of a Hurrian cult song from Ugarit; since its publication in 1970 it has been a focus of Assyriological-musicological discussion (Güterbock, 1970; Wulstan, 1971; Kilmer, 1974, and 1976; see also Mesopotamia, fig.7). Duchesne-Guillemin (1984) proposed an interpretation of this text that suggests parallels in traditional Jewish psalmody and Syro-Chaldaean Christian chant.
The Canaanite instrumentarium and performance style suggest that the music was of a lively, sometimes orgiastic character, a hypothesis supported by the group of five musicians depicted on a pottery cult stand from Ashdod (fig.6; Dothan, 1970): two with double pipes and the others each with cymbals, drum and lyre. This type of ensemble, formerly known as the ‘Phoenician Orchestra’, may represent an early form of the Cybele cult and is recognized as part of a local musical tradition shared by the Canaanites, Philistines, Phoenicians and Judaeans. Cheironomy was also probably practised in Canaan; there are documentary records of its unbroken existence in Egypt from at least 2400 bce onwards, it is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud (Berakhot 62a) and still lives on today in several East African Jewish communities (see Cheironomy, §4). While earlier, often obsolete traditions continued to exist in Bronze Age Canaan, the city cultures developed a rich musical tradition of a rather homogeneous and, for that time, particularly advanced style.
Jewish music, §II: Ancient Israel/Palestine
The late Bronze Age and early Iron Age saw significant changes in the social and political history of the region. Immigrant peoples began to settle the area and the Canaanite city-states gave way to the formation of other territorial units based on various ethnic and national identities (Weippert, 1988, p.352), a process that also led to the collapse of Canaanite urban culture. In particular, the ‘Sea Peoples’ (Phoenicians and Philistines) established their lands along the coast and the Israelite tribes united under the leadership of Saul (fl 1020–1010) and his successors David (fl 1010–961) and Solomon (c961–922) to form the kingdom of Israel. After the latter's death, however, the united kingdom was divided between Israel in the north and Judah to the south; both eventually fell to Assyrian/Babylonian expansion, Israel in 722/1 and Judah in 586, when the First Temple (built by Solomon) was destroyed and the Babylonian exile began.
Such social and political changes inevitably affected the cultural practices of the region. The musical tradition that emerged in Iron Age Israel/Palestine developed from a mixture of the Canaanite inheritance, the practices of the immigrant peoples and an extremely heterogeneous local cultural tradition that resulted from, and was shaped by, internal long-term socio-economic transformation (McGovern, 1987, p.270; Finkelstein, 1988, and 1995).
The musical culture of Canaan, like its mythology, ‘both where the Old Testament incorporates it and where the Old Testament reacts against it … continues to exert its impact upon us through the Bible’ (Gordon, 1961, p.215). Not only do the Ugaritic texts appear to be related to the later Old Testament writings (Caquot, 1974, pp.156, 162; Pardee, 1988, pp.80, 125), but there is also evidence of elements of the Canaanite musical tradition in the Old Testament. A comparison of two parallel verses (2 Samuel vi.5 and its later revised version 1 Chronicles xiii.8) confirms the existence of such continuity, but also shows that the old Canaanite tradition was later superseded. The first text mentions an ensemble playing loud orgiastic music, mainly on idiophones and membranophones – ‘asei beroshim, kinnorot, nevalim, tupim, mena‘ane‘im and selselim (see Biblical instruments, §3); the second, as a result of textual editing or changes in the musical ritual itself, lists a proper liturgical performance by shirim (‘songs’, from shr) and instrumentalists playing kinnorot, nebalim, tupim, mesiltayim and hasoserot.
As with the Bronze Age, the primary sources of information for Israel/Palestine in the Iron Age are archaeological. Evidence exists for the long-term continuation of some musical traditions, as well as for distinct changes that occurred directly after the establishment of the united monarchy of Israel or during the period of the divided kingdom. Instruments of widespread and mass distribution such as pottery rattles (probably mena‘ane‘im) continued in use and were only completely replaced by iron bells (pa‘amonim) in the Persian era some 500 years later (see Biblical instruments, fig.7). The drum (tof), like the rattle, was also widely used, and to some extent even became a fetish object (about 60 terracotta figures of women with a drum have been found all over the region and are dated to the 9th–6th centuries bce; see Biblical instruments, fig.10). On the other hand, idiophones such as cymbals – the instrument of the more prosperous social classes – disappeared completely and only reappeared in the Hellenistic II/Early Roman period.
The lyre (fig.7) seems to have been used particularly by priests and remained the most frequently played instrument. Its form was gradually simplified – a development associated with the decrease in the number of strings and thus with a change in musical style (compare Biblical instruments, fig.3 from the 12th century bce with fig.8 below showing Judaean lyres of the early 8th century bce). The lute, for which, remarkably, no adequate name has been found in the Bible, disappeared entirely and did not return to use until Hellenistic times (Braun, ‘The Lute and Organ’, 1997). Likewise the harp was absent from musical life: the fact that after the single stone sketch of a harp from the late 4th millennium bce no other evidence of this instrument has been discovered before the Hellenistic period should put an end to the legend of King David's Harp. The double reedpipe, however, continued to dominate musical life (see Biblical instruments, fig.1), and a new form of this instrument, a zurna-type aerophone with conical pipes, appeared for the first time around the 7th century bce (fig.9; Beit-Arieh, 1996).
All the changes mentioned above indicate that during this period instrumental music and probably the musical style itself became simplified and restricted in many respects. This development that probably reflects the general impoverishment of the population on the one hand, and the cultural and religious seclusion policy of the Israelite theocracy on the other (Isaiah v.11–12 and xxiii.16; Amos vi.5–6). As before, in the Iron Age the local women musicians were highly esteemed throughout the Middle and Near East: Judaean female singers and lyre players were the most valuable tribute paid by King Hezekiah of Judah (c727–698 bce) to the Assyrian King Sennacherib (c701 bce; see above, fig.8; Pritchard, 1955, p.487).
During the time of the divided kingdom the musical practices of the Philistines and Phoenicians were especially influential; in fact most of the archaeological evidence dating from this period stems from these cultures. Some 20 items of Philistine origin may be considered, among them the pottery stand from Ashdod mentioned above (see above, fig.6; see 1 Samuel x.5–6; Dothan, 1970) and the stand from Tel Qasila (IAA 74.449) depicting men performing a round dance – a tradition still preserved today in the dabkah-dance (Mazar, 1980, p.89). While the Philistine musical finds seem to be of an élitist type, those from Phoenicia have a mass-produced character (mainly terracotta figurines of female double-pipe and drum players; see Biblical instruments, fig.1 and fig.10).
The tiny Edomite Kingdom (8th–6th centuries bce), which lay to the south-east of Judah, seems to have possessed a unique style in both the visual arts and music. Several terracotta figurines provide the best evidence of this little-studied, but important musical culture: one, probably of a deity, shows a typical Israelite rattle on top of the figurine's head (IAA 87.117); and another depicts a musician playing the double-zurna (see above, fig.9) – a new instrument type for this era. The dispersal pattern of the musical instruments in the territory of Israel and Judah shows that, despite the growing artistic self-identification of the different national and ethnic peoples, the musical instrumentarium remained basically homogeneous, although the music itself probably varied from group to group.
While information on the nature and structure of the musical instruments of the Israelites is scarce, evidence concerning the social contexts of music-making is found in the Old Testament. The text describes the supernatural force of the sound of the shofar (Exodus xix.13, 16 and 19; Joshua vi.4–9), the therapeutic powers of the kinnor (1 Samuel xvi.16), the apotropaic and prophylactic functions of the pa‘amonim (Exodus xxviii.33–4) and the use of music as a means of stimulating prophecy and ecstatic states (1 Samuel x.5; 2 Kings iii.15). It also speaks of the two silver trumpets that the Lord commanded Moses to make in the desert (Numbers x.1–10). The role of music in the central rite of worship in the Temple – the burnt offering ‘according to the commandment of David’ during the reign of King Hezekiah (late 8th century bce) – is described in particular detail (see esp. 2 Chronicles xxix.25–6). Surprisingly, this information is given only by later chroniclers (1 Chronicles xxiii.30–32 and 2 Chronicles xxix.20–30), and is absent from the books written before the Babylonian exile (2 Samuel xxiv.20–25 and 1 Kings viii.62–4).
According to the Old Testament, music was a customary feature of secular daily life, as for example at a farewell ceremony (Genesis xxxi.27), a procession during a holy war (2 Chronicles xx.28), an act of paraliturgical festive worship (Isaiah xxx.29) or in hymns (Isaiah xxv.1), as a song sung for the digging of a well (Numbers xxi.17–18), a lament for the dead (2 Samuel i.17–27), as a signal of communication (Isaiah xviii.3) and the attribute of drunkards, sinners and harlots (Isaiah v.11–12; xiv.11; xxiii.15–16). Singing and various song forms – such as those of thanksgiving and praise (Isaiah xii.5–6; xxxviii.9), the song and dance of victory performed by women (1 Samuel xviii.6–7), jubilation songs (Isaiah xxvi.1), glorification hymns, laments, and processional and grape-harvesting songs – were a significant part of musical life (cf also the Song of the Sea; Exodus xv.1–18). In one case a post-biblical text describes not only the performance of professional singing, but also mentions the name of the singer – Hugras ben Levi (Mishnah, Yoma iii.11).
In the present state of research, however, it remains difficult to draw any firm conclusions about the structure of the music itself. Some indirect indications may be deduced from the structure of biblical poetical texts, as, for instance, the refrain form (2 Samuel i.19, 25 and 27), or the principle of parallelismus membrorum (2 Samuel i.20). The latter, which consists of the repetition of a poetic idea twice or more times in varied forms within a single verse, may suggest parallel, slightly varied musical structures. In some passages evidence of antiphonal (1 Samuel xviii.6–7) or responsorial (Ezra iii.10–11) singing may also be detected. The main problem, however, with a historiographical interpretation of the Bible remains the striking apparent contradictions of text and archaeological evidence. For example, the Old Testament refers to the use of the hasoserah at the time of Moses (probably the first half of the 2nd millennium bce; Numbers x.2) and at the coronation of King Joash (late 9th century bce; 2 Kings xi.14), but no archaeological evidence has been found for the trumpet in the region of ancient Israel/Palestine before the Hellenistic era (see below). Similarly, while the Bible describes cymbals as a central part of the musical liturgy at the Temple (Ezra iii.10; Nehemiah xii.27 etc.), no examples or depictions of such instruments have been discovered in the region that date from the Iron Age and Babylonian/Persian period (586–3rd century bce).
Jewish music, §II: Ancient Israel/Palestine
A particularly large discrepancy exists between the material facts, as derived from archaeological and documentary sources, and the biblical texts describing musical activities of the Babylonian/Persian period (up to the 3rd century bce). The Old Testament paints a glowing picture of musical revival after the edict of Cyrus (538 bce) and the building of the Second Temple (completed 515) under Darius I. The second chapter of Ezra (written 4th–3rd centuries bce) describes the return from the Babylonian exile of 4289 priests (kohanim), 74 Levites (leviyim), 128 musicians and singers (meshorerim) and over 200 male and female singers (meshorerim and meshorerot) of lower status. Similar descriptions are found in Nehemiah vii. Glorious orchestras and choirs accompanied the building of the Temple and city walls (Ezra iii.10–11; Nehemiah xii.27, 35–6). The post-biblical Jewish literature (Mishnah, ‘Arakhin ii.3 and 5; Sukkah v.4) projects backwards, adding details regarding the numbers of particular musical instruments in the Second Temple ensemble, possibly using the Babylonian court orchestra as a model for these descriptions (Avenary and Bayer, 1971–2, col.560).
It has been claimed, particularly on the basis of passages in Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, that the evidence concerning the Temple music of this period is reliable and precise, and that it provides sufficient grounds for conclusions to be drawn concerning the style of the music, the numbers of instruments and the types of ensembles on which it was played (McKinnon, 1979–80; Werner, 1989; Seidel, 1989). The archaeological findings, however, present a very different picture. Excavations have so far produced few finds for this period, only one of which – a drawing of a female round-dance (MacAlister, 1912, iii, pls.177/6 and 10) – can be considered to have musical interest. A similar lack of musical information is apparent in the non-biblical literary sources (papyri from Elephantine and Samaria in Egypt). In the present state of research, therefore, the nature of the musical liturgy at the Temple during this period remains an open question and the possibility that the authors of the biblical texts may have glorified the past must be considered.
The evidence dating from the Hellenistic/Roman period (from the 3rd century bce) is of a different nature. It corresponds to the general culture of Near Eastern Hellenism and the Roman periphery, which both gained from the Graeco-Roman metropolitan culture and enriched it, especially in the field of music. Sources confirm a break in the development of the musical tradition of ancient Israel/Palestine and the emergence of a rich syncretic musical culture. The active cultural exchange typical of this period, the establishment of a number of mini-states (e.g. Nabataea, Idumaea) and the development of socio-cultural entities (e.g. the Samaritans) within the territory of Israel/Palestine generated the introduction of new instruments, musical forms and styles (Braun, 1999, Abb. V/3, 5 and 6). Bells, rattles and cymbals became widely distributed, both in their old shapes and in new forms (e.g. as forked cymbals in both the Samaritan (Braun, 1999, Abb.V/6-10) and Dionysian cults (fig.10). Certain customs mentioned in the Old Testament and rooted in earlier Middle Eastern traditions, such as the fastening of little bells to the robes of priests, have been confirmed by archaeological evidence (Weiss and Netzer, 1996, p.20); the beating of bells in the form of castanets appears for the first time in Gaza (Hickmann, ‘Cymbals et crotales’, 1949). The use of the arghūl (a double clarinet with pipes of different lengths) is first attested in Nabataean culture (Braun, 1993).
The most important changes, however, occurred in the chordophones and aerophones. The lute was revived and became an overtly pagan instrument, particularly in the Dionysian cult (fig.11; Braun, ‘The Lute and Organ’, 1997); the harp also reappeared as part of Idumaean musical culture (fig.12; Peters and Thiersch, 1905, p.46). The lyre, however, lost its dominant role in music practice, although to a certain extent it retained its symbolic prominence, for example on the depictions of two types of lyre on the coins minted during the Bar-Kokhba revolt (132–5 ce, see Biblical instruments, fig.4) and on the city coins of Caesarea Panaeas (169–220 ce); these instruments are now recognized as the biblical kinnor and nebel (Bayer, 1968, pp.130–1). New wind instruments, such as the double aulos, appeared in a technically perfect form, suitable for sophisticated virtuoso performance (fig.13): the new way of making this instrument (from bone bound with copper or another metal; Braun, 1999, p.165) is deplored in the Babylonian Talmud (‘Arakhin x.2) as an obstacle to producing the sound traditionally regarded as desirable – a typical example of the clash between new techniques of instrument construction and traditional aesthetics. In the case of the aulos, the social distinction that emerged between professional virtuosos and semi-professional or amateur musicians is particularly clear from a comparison of archaeological finds of wind instruments (compare IAA 35.3548 and IAA 81.1839).
The first Jewish musician known by name was a ‘klezmer’ of the Hellenistic period, Yakobius ben Yakobius, who is mentioned in a list of sheep and goat owners in the city of Samaria (north Egypt) as being an aulos player (144–55 ce; Tcherikover, 1957, p.171). The earliest known evidence for the use of the transverse flute in the Near East also dates from this period (e.g. the depictions on the city coins of Caesarea Panaeas, 169–220 ce; Meshorer, 1984–5). There is good reason to claim that in the liturgical music of the local Samaritan community the organ, a recently invented instrument, was used: the depiction of a portable pneumatic table organ with seven pipes, always accompanied by two pairs of forked cymbals, is seen on small terracotta oil lamps (Braun, 1999, Abb.V/4-14a).
The shofar first appears in iconography in the 2nd and 3rd centuries ce and features as part of a clearly symbolic group of Jewish cult objects (see Biblical instruments, fig.8). To date, the character of the Temple hasoserah has not been established for certain, although the instrument is generally understood to have been a form of metal trumpet: the wind instrument depicted on the Bar-Kokhba coins is, however, better interpreted as a type of oboe (Braun, 1999, Abb.V/7-3h), and the two trumpets on the relief of the Arch of Titus, which shows the treasures looted from the Temple by the Romans, are more probably Roman tubae (Pfanner, 1983; Yarden, 1991). The only depiction of the Roman tuba in ancient Israel/Palestine appears in an Idumaean context (see Biblical instruments, fig.2). The most convincing evidence of the use of a trumpet-like instrument at the Temple, which could be a trumpet or a shofar, is the text engraved on a 1st-century stone found near the Temple wall (le-beit ha-teqi‘ah … : ‘to the house of blowing … ’; IAA 78.1415).
Along with the further fragmentation of local musical cultures and emergence of new practices, syncretic tendencies developed under the impact of Roman political power: the same instruments and musics may have been used in very different social contexts for the performance of music that might be inspired by an opposing ethos (e.g. the halil as an instrument both of lamentation and drunkards, Isaiah v.11–12 and Jeremiah xlviii.36; Avenary, 1979, pp.10–22). There is a striking musical and ceremonial similarity between the bridal processions of the Jewish and Nabataean communities of the period (1 Maccabees ix.39; Mishnah, Sotah ix.14; Babylonian Talmud, Ketubbot ii.17). Such ceremonies also share features of the triumphal processions of the Dionysus cult: Plutarch (Quaestiones convivales, vi.2) and Tacitus (Historiae, v:5) describe similar Jewish and Dionysian musical ceremonies. ‘Syncretism, or shituf, as the rabbis called this recognition of plural divine control of the cosmos, was widespread’ (Bickermann, 1988, p.252). It is obvious, however, that the frequent desecrations of the Temple during this time (e.g. 167 bce) interrupted and disturbed the continuity of this musical tradition.
Certain aspects of Hellenistic and Roman cultural life were adopted in the province of Judaea. Gymnasia, competitive games and theatres were established in the major centres – Jerusalem, Tiberias and Caesarea – and had a syncretic influence on the music culture, particularly during the reign of Herod the Great (37 bce–4 ce; see Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, xv.8.1). In Jerusalem, Gaza, Ashqelon and Sepphoris large private residences, some of which were owned by Jewish families, were richly decorated with mosaic floors and wall paintings that often depicted musical scenes (see above, fig.13). These syncretic tendencies of the local music cultures were in sharp contrast to orthodoxy of the Jewish religion. A striking example is the emphatic repetition of the same verse in Daniel iii.5, 7, 10 and 15, in which foreign music and instruments announce the worship of the golden image in Babylon. Although the events described in the passage date from the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the text itself was probably written between 167 and 164 bce and reflects conditions in the Hellenistic/Roman period.
According to post-biblical sources (3rd and 4th centuries ce) the Temple liturgy of the Herodian/Early Roman period (40 bce–70 ce) was highly formalized, especially as regards the singing of psalms (Mishnah, Tamid vii.4; see also Mishnah, ‘Arakhin ii), particularly the hallel (Psalms cxiii–cxviii). It is also assumed that the synagogue (beit ha-keneset: ‘house of assembly’) first became formalized in the Late Hellenistic period, initially as a secular and somewhat later as a religious institution. This certainly may imply some continuity of musical liturgy from the Temple to the synagogue.
The abrupt change occurred following the catastrophic year 70 ce, when the Roman army under Titus completely destroyed the Temple, thus initiating a new epoch for the Jewish people. Religious, spiritual and liturgical life had to be reorganized, and music was inevitably affected. The sacrifice was abolished and prayer took its place. The playing of musical instruments was also avoided, although this more probably resulted from the influence of overzealous rabbis than because of a formal prohibition (McKinnon, 1979–80), and liturgical music became a purely vocal art. Singing and instrumental music performed by professionals, a part of the Temple liturgy according to biblical and post-biblical sources, gave way to mass participation by the lay congregation (and, naturally, psalmody disappeared from the synagogue until the 7th century at the earliest; McKinnon, 1986). If any form of continuity existed between the two institutions shortly before the destruction of the Temple, it was probably lost in the early centuries of synagogue worship. The only possible trace of Temple music that survives in Jewish worship today is a ‘text-modelled orality’ (Randhofer, 1998, p.77), that is, the formal organization of a liturgical text serving as the basis of the musical structures; the most obvious example of this in Jewish music is in psalmody, but other liturgical genres also show evidence of this practice and, according to Gerson-Kiwi (1961), this form of musical structure is of a ‘Pan-Asiatic type’. As for Jewish secular music, it embarked upon its world-wide journey of acculturation, assimilation and integration with the musical cultures of other peoples, but without losing its unique national identity.
See also Psalm, §I and Early Christian Church, music of the.
2. Synagogue music and its development.
9. Ethiopia (Beta Israel/Falasha).
11. 20th-century developments.
Jewish music, §III: Liturgical and paraliturgical
Religious gatherings are the main social context for the practice of traditional Jewish music. These occasions can be divided into two principal types: liturgical services, which are sanctioned by halakhah and therefore normative according to religious legislation; and paraliturgical events, which share some characteristics of the liturgical services but are optional. The Jewish liturgy has undergone many transformations through the ages, particularly in the past two centuries with the advent of the reformist movements. This introduction refers to traditional (i.e. Orthodox) liturgical and paraliturgical practices. Customs departing from orthodoxy, especially in Europe, are discussed later (see below, §III, 3(iv)).
Jewish liturgical services consist of the public performance of a prescribed order of texts of different types and origins. Services usually take place in a synagogue (although they can also occur in other locations, such as a private home or hall, and even in open spaces out of doors) at fixed hours of the day. The texts are performed using different patterns of sound organization, ranging from plain recitation to highly developed melodies. Services take place three times daily, morning (shaharit), afternoon (minhah) and evening (‘arvit or ma‘ariv), but four times on Sabbaths, Festivals and Holy Days – musaf being added between the morning and afternoon services – and five times on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) when the closing ne‘ilah service is celebrated. Liturgical components are also part of life-cycle ceremonies: circumcisions (eight days after birth); bar-mitzvahs; weddings; and mourning vigils.
Liturgical services consist of five basic sections: pesuqei de-zimra (‘verses of singing’, called zemirot in the Sephardi tradition), consisting mostly of psalms and other biblical texts; shema‘ yisrael and its benedictions (‘Hear, O Israel’, Deuteronomy vi.5–9 and xi.13–23, Numbers xv.37–41: the main statement of the Jewish monotheistic credo); ‘amidah (‘standing’); seder tahanunim (‘order of supplications’); and the reading of the Torah. Most of these sections are separated by the qaddish (sanctification of God's name), a prayer in Aramaic and Hebrew. Not every service includes all these sections, for example the shema‘ yisrael is not performed at the afternoon service and the Torah is read only on Holy Days, Sabbaths, Mondays and Thursdays. On the other hand, substantial and unique sections are added to the liturgy of the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), for example the selihot, a set of penitential prayers and poems (piyyutim) performed after the ‘amidah. The term selihot also refers to an independent nightly service celebrated by Sephardi Jews during the month preceeding Rosh Hashanah and until Yom Kippur, and by the Ashkenazim starting the week before Rosh Hashanah
The core of all synagogue services is the series of berakhot (‘blessings’) generally known as the ‘amidah (‘standing’: because the congregation stands while reciting it) but called tefillah (‘prayer’) in the Talmud and also termed shemoneh ‘esreh (‘eighteen’) – a reference to the original number of blessings in the daily service (today there are 19). The ‘amidah is recited silently by each individual and is repeated aloud by the leader of the prayer. The repetition of the ‘amidah includes two important textual additions of musical significance, the qeddushah (‘sanctification’) and birkat kohanim (‘priestly blessing’).
The Torah (i.e. the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses) is divided into 54 portions (parashiyot), which are read, directly from the Scrolls deposited in the Holy Ark, in sequence on each Sabbath in an annual cycle beginning with Simhat Torah (around the end of October). The Holy Ark is placed in the direction of Jerusalem. The Scrolls are taken out of the Ark for reading also on Mondays, Thursdays and Holy Days. The reading forms a special ceremony within the morning service that includes prayers before and after the opening of the Ark, a festive procession with the Scrolls, the elevation of the Scroll to be seen by the whole congregation, benedictions of the individuals who are honoured with the office of reading a part of the weekly portion (sometimes this role is acquired in a public auction held before the Torah service) and the procession for the return of the Scrolls to the Ark. Readings of other biblical texts, mostly from the Books of the Prophets, are appended to the reading of the Torah and are known as haftarah (see below, §III, 2(ii)).
Piyyutim (Hebrew liturgical poems) are a post-talmudic addition to the liturgy. These poems were composed at least as early as the 5th and 6th centuries ce for the purpose of embellishing the services. Only a fraction of the thousands of piyyutim composed throughout the ages has remained in the normative liturgy. Paraliturgical devotions and life-cycle events continued, however, to nurture the creation of new Hebrew religious poetry (also called pizmonim) until the early 20th century.
The performance of a traditional service is extremely flexible. The beginning is marked by the gradual flow of individuals into the synagogue, not by a single, solemn opening act. This informality derives from the idea that the introductory sections (pesuqei de-zimra), although normative, are not considered the core of the service. The formal beginning of the morning and evening liturgies is marked by the call barekhu et adonai ha-mevorakh (‘Bless the Lord, the blessed One’), chanted immediately after the pesuqei de-zimra by the individual conducting the prayer.
In the synagogue it is the duty of each Jew to perform the order of prayers by himself. The entire performance is vocal and only men participate actively. The duty of prayer, in its liturgical sense, is not obligatory for women, who sit in a separate gallery. The congregation sits during most of the service, and stands only for the performance of certain sections.
Depending on the tradition of each community, the services are led by one individual who stands on a podium (bimah) located in the front (Ashkenazi usage), the centre (Sephardi) or back (Italian) of the synagogue facing the Holy Ark. In talmudic times (3rd–5th centuries ce), as in most communities to this day, the services were conducted by a precentor called sheliah ha-sibbur (‘envoy of the congregation’), often abbreviated to sha``s. A beautiful voice was not a necessary requirement (although it was desirable) to fulfil this function, at least until the geonic period (9th century). In Muslim Spain, from the 11th century onwards, the ‘musical’ skills of the sha``s (rather than his piety alone) became a consideration for his election. The duty of the sha``s is to lead the public sections of the prayers by reciting them aloud (especially the ‘amidah) on behalf of the congregation who generally follows (silently or whispering in parallel to the sha``s) and interacts with him by answering with short responses, such as ‘amen’. Within the same synagogue, the role of sha``s may rotate among several individuals.
The office of the hazzan (synagogue cantor), that is, a musically gifted, permanent and appointed sha``s, developed particularly after the 15th century in ashkenaz (‘Germany’, see below, §III, 3(iii–iv)), Italy and throughout the Sephardi diaspora. For example, in the Portuguese Jewish communities of western Europe (17th–19th centuries) the cantor ranked second to the rabbi in the community hierarchy, his election was a matter of public concern and his duties were detailed in the community's statutes. The cantor sometimes fulfilled other duties, such as teacher of children, sexton, scribe and ritual slaughterer. Generally the cantors’ lore was transmitted orally from one generation to the next and no formal training developed. Only in 19th-century Germany did the education of cantors in professional musical skills (e.g. reading musical notation and choir conducting) become the concern of gentile authorities, who intervened by setting, for example, curricula and standards for the training and duties of cantors. The professionalization of the synagogue cantors in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the second half of the 19th century led to the establishment of cantors' associations, which protected the rights of their members, established patterns for professional training and published musical scores and journals. The formalized teaching of cantors spread to the Sephardi world in the early 20th century. A special course for Sephardi cantors functioned at the rabbinical academy on the Island of Rhodes between the World Wars. In past decades, schools of cantors offering formal degrees, and courses in, for example, solfeggio and voice training have become the norm in the USA and Israel.
The tradition of new cantors arising from within the synagogue congregation, however, has not disappeared entirely. Moreover, some Jewish communities frown upon the very idea that the cantor's role is primarily a musical function, preferring their services to be led by a pious sha``s. This is particularly noticeable in several hasidic communities where a ba‘al tefillah (‘master of prayer’, i.e. a deeply inspired sha``s) is favoured over the hazzan.
Established traditions govern the degree of musicality of each service, determining the tempo of recitation of the introductory psalms, the amount, proportion of elaboration and speed of the recitation of the prayers, the length of the qeddushah melody, the selection of metric melodies for prose or for poetic texts, the inclusion of an adopted new melody or of a musical composition, and so on. Such traditions, however, may be altered through an elaborate process of negotiation between the cantors, the authorities of the congregation and the congregation itself, or by an outburst of creativity from an individual. No single formula explains the complex set of social rules determining what a traditional Jewish service will sound like. While, superficially, every service is a new, unique performance that creates different musical moments at every performance, at a deeper structural level all services for the same occasion share remarkable similarities in the roles of the performers, in the musical repertory, tempo, duration and so on. Musicality in the synagogue is largely controlled by unwritten local rules.
Throughout history, the music of the Jewish liturgy has undergone constant changes because it is an open system. A main trend in this process of change in the continuous ‘musicalization’, this is, the expansion of the truly ‘musical’ sections. This has occurred in several layers: the development of prayer recitation through modal improvisation; the addition of poetical sections (piyyutim) with metric melodies; the use of metric melodies for sections in prose; and the overlap of the musical style for one section of the liturgy into the performance of another, such as the application of a piyyut melody to a qaddish in order to invest this text (which is repeated several times in all services) with additional temporal significance. Changes in the liturgical music repertory are also a reflection of developments in Jewish social life, particularly the relationship between Jews and the surrounding non-Jewish culture, and the tension between mystical and non-mystical approaches within Judaism. Major shifts occurred in Europe after the Emancipation, when the concept of music in its Western sense (e.g. preconcieved, notated compositions, choral arrangements and instrumental music) began to permeate the synagogue. Since then, synagogue music has changed, sometimes dramatically, in both traditional and liberal communities.
The normative liturgy is a particularly structured form of expressing religiosity. The predictability and routine of the public worship, added to the tendency of the rabbis not to allow elaborated musical performances, led to the development of additional, private devotions, and eventually to the emergence of non-normative, paraliturgical customs. Examples of such devotions are the ritual chanting of the entire Book of Psalms or of sections of the Sefer ha-zohar (Book of Splendour; one of the principal texts of Jewish mysticism) in a variety of social contexts.
Mysticism was a major influence in the evolution of paraliturgical devotions. In the 16th century the mystical circles of Safed (now Zefat, Israel) were particularly active in developing new rituals (many rooted in medieval practices) in which singing was a crucial component. One such ritual is qabbalat shabbat (‘welcoming of the Sabbath’), which includes the famous poem Lekha dodi liqrat kallah by Rabbi Salomon Alkabetz (c1505–84). This text, which rapidly spread to all corners of the Diaspora, has become the hallmark of the ceremony (see below, §2(iv), ex.8 for a Sephardi setting). Qabbalat shabbat also includes passages from the Song of Songs, Psalms and Mishnah. Other kabbalistic rituals from Safed, based on similar selections of texts and on new religious poetry, took the form of nightly vigils called tiqqun hasot (‘institution of midnight [prayer]’; dedicated to the acceleration of redemption) and baqqashot (‘petitions’; see below, §4(ii)).
Hasidism, the grass-roots mystical branch of east European Jewry following the leadership and teachings of Rabbi Israel ben Eliezor, called Ba‘al Shem Tov (1688–1760), also expresses its religious fervour in new rituals. Music, in the form of textless vocal compositions called nigunim, plays a vital role in the new rites of hasidism, such as the tish (Yiddish: ‘table’) – the festive, public meal of the rebbe (Yiddish: ‘rabbi’) in the presence of all his flock, which occurs at the start of Sabbaths, Holy Days and other special occasions – and the hitva‘adut, a gathering for the purpose of reinforcing the faith of the hasidim (see below, §III, 3(iii)).
Hasidic and Sephardi communities both share the faith in the commemoration of great rabbis and saints. The pilgrimage to the rabbis’ tombs known as the hillulah, a custom related to the more mystical trends of Judaism, is usually accompanied by singing and instrumental music.
Jewish music, §III: Liturgical and paraliturgical
(iii) Modal improvisation of prayers.
Jewish music, §III, 2: Synagogue music and its development.
Jewish tradition recognizes King David as the author of the Book of Psalms. Indeed, more than half the psalms are attributed to him by their title or associated with some event in his life. But even those attributed to other persons, such as Moses (Psalm xc) or Asaph (Psalms l and lxxiii–lxxxiii) and those that later Jewish tradition ascribed to Adam, Abraham and Melchisedech (Psalms cii, lxxxix and cx respectively) were also said to have come through the mouth of David (e.g. Midrash, Shir ha-shirim rabbah, iv) and were inspired by God. Tradition attributes even the post-exilic Psalm cxxxiii to David, who through prophecy envisioned the captive Levites by the rivers of Babylon.
King David's authorship and authority endowed the Psalms with special sanctity. Belief in their divine inspiration made their recitation an important means of praising God and at the same time receiving His blessing, as well as divine national and private salvation. Chanting or singing psalms was the focus of daily worship in the Temple, and it later became part of the synagogue liturgy. There, the psalms serve as opening and closing prayers in various services, especially in the daily morning service. Special selections are sung during the Holy Days; thus, the hallel praise (Psalms cxiii–cxviii) is chanted at the Three Pilgrimage Festivals (Pesah, Shavu‘ot, Sukkot), Hanukkah and New Moons.
The Psalms express a broad spectrum of human emotions, and so they became the most important source of paraliturgical devotions, both public and private. Many communities chant the entire book in public (usually on Sabbath afternoons), devoted Jews, especially the elderly, do the same every day or over a week, in small groups or privately. Jewish tradition attributes considerable healing power to various psalms and many are believed to ward off evil powers and calamity. The devotional routine recitation of individual psalms and the entire book for healing are performed to a uniform chant. Special psalms with distinct chants, however, are recited publicly or privately at times of distress.
Despite its centrality in Jewish worship, the musical structure of Hebrew psalmody has not yet been sufficiently researched. Unlike the Christian tradition of Gregorian chant, no specific regulations and no uniform chants accompany psalmodic practices in the synagogue. On the contrary, Jewish psalmody is relatively free and varied. Furthermore, an overwhelming number of psalmodic chants and a great variety of chant-related traditions and functions exist in Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora and still await research. An important attempt to tackle the difficult problems of Jewish psalmody is Flender's study of some Middle Eastern and North African communities (1992).
The basis of psalmody in both synagogue and Church is the dichotomic structure of its verses. Most psalm verses are constructed of two parallel hemistiches (parallelismus membrorum) and, frequently, each hemistich is further divided into two segments (‘the continuous dichotomy’: Wickes, 1881/R, pp.38–53). But recent research has shown that a great number of verses are actually tripartite (Flender, 1992). Jewish psalmodies preserve this basic verse structure. Yet while the point of the half-verse is carefully marked by a half-cadence formula and a caesura, the end of a verse may sometimes be connected to the beginning of the next (Lachmann, 1940; repr. in the original Ger., 1978, pp.95, 108–10) and the cadential formula delayed to the first pausal point of the following verse. Unlike the usual Gregorian psalmody, where one recitation note (tonus currens, tenor, tuba) is used for both hemistiches, Jewish psalmodies tend to use additional recitation notes, the one for the second half-verse may be higher or lower than that used for the first. When it is lower, the psalmody resembles the Gregorian tonus peregrinus (Herzog and Hajdu, 1968). An initium formula may be missing, or it may begin each verse; sometimes it precedes the second recitation note as well. Jewish chants tend to vary the melodic patterns of the psalmody and to embellish the recitation – hovering around a note rather than mechanically repeating it – and to adorn the cadential points with melismas (see also Avenary, 1953).
Some
of these features are illustrated in Flender's transcription of a Moroccan
rendition of Psalm xix (Jerusalem: National Sound Archives Y 1692; ex.2). In most verses, the
recitation tone for the first hemistich is G and for the second one F
. The musical dichotomy follows
the textual one: half-verses end on F and full verses on G. But the cadential formula is
postponed to the beginning of the following verse if the latter is of a
tripartite division.
The performing practice of the psalms is closely connected to their liturgical or paraliturgical functions and is influenced by old local traditions. Idelsohn (1929/R, pp.20–21) summarized three responsorial ‘forms in which the Psalms and prayers were rendered’ in the Temple: (a) the leader intoned half-verses and the congregation always repeated the first half-verse of the psalm as a refrain; (b) the congregation repeated each half-verse after the leader; and (c) the leader and congregation alternated full verses. This practice was modified in the synagogue, where psalms can be heard in antiphonal, responsorial and choral (i.e. congregational) renditions. Antiphonal alternations of verse between two individuals or two groups are rare; but can be found among some North African communities (e.g. in Algiers). More common are responsorial practices, a great variety of which exist. Thus, for instance, the Kurdish Jews chant Psalm xcii alternating full verses between precentor and congregation, but the shift always occurs at the half-verse (Flender 1992, p.125). The Yemenite Jews preserve an ancient Temple tradition of chanting the hallel in which the congregation responds with the word halleluyah after each half-verse by the precentor, and repeats the first half-verse of each psalm as a refrain (see below, §III, 5). Ashkenazi Jews chant Psalm cxxx and similar rogation psalms so that each verse is sung by the precentor and is then repeated using the same chant by the congregation. Choral chanting by the entire congregation is the rule for those psalms that are part of the daily liturgy. In Sephardi and Middle Eastern communities these are chanted without a precentor. Among the Ashkenazim, the psalms are chanted individually by the congregants with the precentor singing the last verses of each psalm, thus directing the pace of the service.
This form of psalmody is by no means the only way of singing psalms among Jews. Important or favourite psalms are sung to special melodies during the liturgy or in paraliturgical functions. Thus, for instance, during the Sabbath service Psalm xxix is sung to a particular tune or composition when it accompanies the procession of the Torah Scroll. Psalms are sometimes chanted in long melismatic cantorial recitatives. In east European Ashkenazi communities the first penitential selihot service begins with a cantorial rendition of the last verses of Psalm cxlv, and in Syrian communities various psalms serve as opening solo recitatives (Arabic muwwāl) which are sung according to the Arabic maqāmāt improvisations (see Mode, §V, 2). On the other hand, chant formulae resembling psalmodies are used for various other poetic or even prose texts. Finally, it seems quite clear that the cantillation system of Hebrew scripture, namely the public reading of the Pentateuch, the Prophets and books of the Hagiographa is based on psalmodic concepts.
Jewish music, §III, 2: Synagogue music and its development.
(b) The Tiberian system of te‘amim.
(d) Theoretical discussions of the Tiberian systems.
Jewish music, §III, 2(ii): Synagogue music and its development: Biblical cantillation
Jewish lore and religious laws place special emphasis on the chanting of Scripture. Early rabbinical sources regard chanting as a primary means of comprehension and retention of all sacred texts, especially the Bible. The Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 32a) quotes Rabbi Yohanan's dictum: ‘Whosoever reads Scripture without a melody or studies law without a tune, of him [the prophet] says: “Moreover I gave them statutes that were no good …”’ (Ezekiel xx.25). Chanting biblical and post-biblical passages is an important foundation of Jewish culture and is done in private study and at public ceremonies. Traditionally, even sermons were delivered in chant and this is still the practice in some Jewish communities. Special emphasis, however, is laid on the ceremonial chanting of Scripture as a liturgical ritual.
Jewish liturgical regulations require that various portions of the Bible be read ceremoniously in public services. The entire Pentateuch (Torah) is read in a yearly cycle during the Sabbath morning services. Short sections of the weekly portions are read on Sabbath afternoons and at the morning service on Mondays and Thursdays. Special selections are used on Holy Days, New Moon and fast days. Chapters from the Prophets (called haftarah) follow the Pentateuch reading on Sabbaths, Holy Days and fast days. Particular books are read on Holy and commemorative days: Esther is read at Purim; Lamentations on Tish‘ah be-av (9th Av, commemorating the destruction of the Temple); and in some communities the Song of Songs, Ruth and Ecclesiastes are read at Pesah (Passover), Shavu‘ot (Pentecost) and Sukkot (Tabernacles) respectively.
The liturgical reading of Scripture is performed in chant and is usually executed by a professional or semi-professional reader called ba‘al qeriah or ba‘al qore (in the Yemenite tradition the Pentateuch and in many other communities the portions from the Prophets are chanted by laymen).
While the duty of reading Scripture with exact pronunciation and proper chant was emphasized from an early period, the original text of the Hebrew Bible itself gave no indications of either. It consisted of paragraphs containing words made up of groups of regular consonants. No vowels, special consonants or sentence divisions were indicated in the ancient books and these are still missing in the Scrolls of the Torah, the Books of the Prophets and Hagiographa used for the ceremonious reading in the synagogue.
Jewish music, §III, 2(ii): Synagogue music and its development: Biblical cantillation
Vowel markings and sentence divisions first appear in Babylonian and Palestinian manuscripts of the early 9th century ce. However, since the notation of these sources shows a certain consistency, it is assumed that their methods developed about two centuries earlier (Dotan, 1971–2) and that the inception of the notation might have coincided with the initial use of codices side by side with the Scrolls. The attempts to furnish the text with reading signs culminated in the comprehensive system developed by the Masoretic School of Tiberias during the late 9th century and early 10th. Their achievements are exemplified in the excellent codices of Aleppo (c920 ce, JNUL) and Leningrad (B 19a, c1009 ce), on which modern editions of the Hebrew Bible are based.
The Tiberian scholars utilized an ingenious mixture of dots and little geometrical figures above and below the words to help the reader pronounce the text properly, to divide it according to the traditional interpretation and to chant following the accepted melodic patterns (fig.14). This was achieved by combining two concurrent systems. One, called niqqud, indicated the vowels and special consonants, while the other, called te‘amim, had a threefold task: to mark the proper accentuation of the words; to show the traditional divisions of the verses; and to indicate appropriate chant patterns. The best recent exposition of the Tiberian system and its grammatical and syntactical aspects is by Breuer (2/1989–90).
The Tiberian method uses a uniform niqqud system for all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, but it differentiates two systems of te‘amim. One, ta‘amei kaf-alef sefarim, is used for the 21 books of prose and prophecy, and the other, ta‘amei emet, is for the so-called books of poetry, namely Psalms, Proverbs and the poetic parts of Job. The systems consist of graphical signs that are similar in form, but which differ considerably in their interpretation. They are classified as either disjunctives, or ‘lords’ (mafsiqim), and conjunctives, or ‘servants’ (mehabberim). The disjunctives mark the end of the verses and divide each verse into phrases and sub-phrases, thereby expressing the syntactic hierarchy within the verse. It is therefore customary to rank these signs according to regal hierarchy. The conjunctives, on the other hand, help to unite words into phrases or sub-phrases, and they always lead towards a disjunctive. The cantillation signs and hierarchy of the 21 books are indicated in Table 1.
The names of the te‘amim signs derive from their function (sof-pasuq: ‘end of verse’), graphical shape (darga: ‘stair’; seġol from seġolta: ‘bunch of grapes’) musical pattern (tevir: perhaps ‘broken motif’), or cheironomical motion (tipha: ‘hand-breadth’). The system contains three additional signs: (1) meteġ (‘curb’, ‘bit’), a short vertical line under an unstressed syllable signalling a secondary accentuation of a word; (2) paseq (‘cut’), a long vertical line after a word with a conjunctive sign, indicating a rhetorical stop after the word; and (3) maqqaf (‘hyphen’) connecting one word to the next.
The great number of cantillation signs when fewer would suffice for punctuation clearly suggests that they served as musical markings. Jewish tradition treats them as symbols of motifs and not as indications of individual pitches as in modern Western notation. The length of a motif varies from a single note to a long melisma. Usually the accented syllable of the word is chanted with the main note or notes of the motif, and the unaccented syllables receive the preceding auxiliary note or two (Rosowsky, 1957). When time is pressing and the chanting fast, readers tend to ignore the minor disjunctives, unless an embellished motif is indicated.
Different musical interpretations of the te‘amim developed in various regions of the Diaspora. (Ex.3 gives east European Ashkenazi and Western Sephardi tables of motifs.) While some communities attempt to find a musical equivalent for each sign, others highlight the main disjunctive and gloss over the secondary ones. It is quite possible that the latter follow the older Babylonian system.
Currently eight main musical traditions of cantillation exist:
1. The Middle East: Iran, Bukhara, Kurdistan, Georgia, and the northern parts of Iraq. This is an old tradition, perhaps based partially on the Babylonian system of te‘amim. Reading in simple psalmodic patterns was common in the rural communities (ex.4; see also below, §III, 6, ex.21, and §III, 7(iv), ex.26).
2. Southern Arabian Peninsula: Yemenite and Hadramawt. This ancient tradition is based on an old system of te‘amim. It recognizes only four main patterns: (a) molikh (‘mover’) used for the conjunctives and some minor disjunctives; (b) mafsiq (‘pausal’) for most third degree disjunctives; (c) ma‘amid for most second degree disjunctives; and (d) the patterns of etnahta and sof-pasuq. The Yemenite Jews recognize only two styles of cantillation: the simple and the ornate (ex.5; see also below, §III, 5, ex.20; Sharvit, 1982).
3. The Near East: Turkey, Syria, central Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt. Known as the ‘Eastern Sephardi tradition’, it has become the dominant style among the non-Ashkenazi communities of Israel. The readers of the Pentateuch strive to give musical meaning to each sign, but some of the signs are ignored in reading the Prophets and other books. The musical motifs are influenced by the Arabic maqām (see Mode, §V, 2). The Pentateuch is chanted mainly in patterns that can be related to maqām siga.
4. North Africa: Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. This seems to combine the old Sephardi tradition of pre-exilic times (i.e. before 1492) with North African pentatonic patterns. The African influence is especially marked in Atlas Mountain communities far from the Mediterranean shores.
5. Italy. The ancient tradition of the Italian Jews may still be heard in Rome and in the Roman Jewish community of Jerusalem. Cheironomy is still used by some readers.
6. The Sephardi and Portugese communities of Europe. It is not clear to what degree the so-called Western Sephardim of today preserve features of the original Sephardi cantillation melodies of Spain. Part of their current tradition is related to the Moroccan system.
7. West European Ashkenazim: German-speaking countries, France, some communities in the Netherlands, and England. The tradition, which developed in medieval times, was first recorded in Hebrew grammar books by non-Jewish authors during the 16th century such as Johannes Reuchlin's De accentibus et orthographia linguae Hebraicae (Hagenau, 1518; see below, §III, 3, fig.15).
8. East European Ashkenazim. The tradition, which developed out of the Western Ashkenazi cantillation, has become the dominant style in Ashkenazi communities worldwide.
Within each of the above regions are distinguished diverse sub-traditions according to the geographical distribution of the various communities. Furthermore, each tradition has different melodic patterns for various divisions of the Bible or for the different liturgical occasions in which the reading is performed. The east European Ashkenazi tradition, for example, consists of six musical systems: (1) the Pentateuch, regular chant; (2) the Pentateuch, High Holy Day chant; (3) the Prophets; (4) the Book of Esther; (5) the Book of Lamentations; and (6) Song of Songs, Ruth and Ecclesiastes.
Jewish music, §III, 2(ii): Synagogue music and its development: Biblical cantillation
The system of ta‘amei emet for the Psalms, Ecclesiastes and the poetical parts of Job is more complicated than that for the other 21 books of the Hebrew Bible, because it endeavours to represent various subtle bi- and tripartite verse structures. Here too, the signs are divided into disjunctives (mafsiqim) and conjunctives (mehabberim), but the choice of the disjunctive depends on the length of the verse and on other disjunctives that precede or follow it. Furthermore, identical signs can indicate different degrees of closure, and, depending on the context and location, some signs can serve either as dividers of the verse or, vice versa, as connectors of words within phrases. Finally, the exact hierarchy of the disjunctives is disputed among scholars. Table 2 is a much-simplified classification of the system.
The seemingly unnecessary complexity of this system and the redundancy of many of its signs should indicate that it was meant to describe or prescribe detailed musical patterns for chanting the texts. But, unlike the signs of the 21 books, which have similar musical interpretations in various Jewish traditions, the signs for Psalms, Job and Ecclesiastes have no single systematic musical interpretation in any Jewish tradition. The traditional chants of Job and Ecclesiastes, which have survived in only a few communities, and the various chants of the Psalter in all Jewish communities, all follow general psalmodic patterns that seem to ignore the detailed Tiberian system. Therefore, scholars such as Dotan (in his Prolegomenon to Wickes, 1881; repr. 1970) and Herzog (1971–2/R, p.1332) have expressed serious doubt about the relationship of the te‘amim to current Jewish psalmody. Avenary (1963, p.22) maintained that ‘the [Tiberian] accentuation of the Psalter … has never been realized musically’. More recently, Flender (1992) has shown some correspondence between a few Tiberian signs and the psalmodic patterns of some Jewish communities from the Near East and Morocco. Flender confirmed that the main melodic divisions of the psalmodies he examined correspond to the first- and second-class disjunctives. He also demonstrated that the rules governing the overflow of the melodic formulae into a new verse depend on the tripartite nature of the new verse, which is invariably marked by the disjunctives ‘oleh veyored or revi‘a (see above, ex.2). Finally, he showed that in some psalmodies certain melodic patterns appear consistently with combinations of the signs zinnor-galgal-‘oleh veyored. Future research may show whether Flender's analysis could be fruitfully explored with reference to other signs and different communities, or whether the limits have been reached in exploring a long-lost tradition of chanting the Psalms according to the Tiberian system.
Jewish music, §III, 2(ii): Synagogue music and its development: Biblical cantillation
In his review of Jewish biblical cantillation, Avenary (1963, pp.22–30) describes a conflict between two contradictory chant styles: the ‘melodic punctuation style’; and the ‘group style’. The former, ‘an immediate outcome of Biblical verse construction’, follows the natural punctuation of the biblical verses and supports it by initial motifs, recitation notes (tonus currens, tenor, tuba), resting and final motifs. The latter furnishes each verse with disjunctive and conjunctive te‘amim that are ‘grouped together in units according to need’. Since the groups of graphical signs ‘evoke corresponding tone-groups’, therefore ‘the verse sounds like a chain of melodic phrases’. The Tiberian system is the epitome of the ‘group style’, which is learned and analytical. Despite its normative status (Bibles with Tiberian accents are used in all Jewish communities) the system was never universally accepted. It ‘reached full development with the Ashkenazim of Europe and in the ancient Jewish centres of Iraq’, but the Jews of Iran, western North Africa and Yemen preferred the melodic punctuation style even for the cantillation of the Pentateuch, and the Sephardim realized the Tiberian system only with ‘a certain reluctancy’.
While Avenary's view is of great value, an alternative interpretation of the formation of the Tiberian te‘amim can be suggested. That this system, like its predecessors, divides most of the biblical verses, even the prose ones, into two segments should indicate that it is ultimately rooted in psalmodic chant. The Tiberian scholars enriched the psalmodic patterns with detailed groupings of conjunctives and disjunctives, which meant that they were able to subdivide the half-verses according to syntax and to adorn the psalmodic patterns with a mosaic of melodic motifs. The Tiberian system was thus an ingenious combination of psalmody and centonization, but it proved too complex for some communities, who preferred to stick to the older psalmodic patterns, whereas for others it served as a challenge and they modified their chants for reading Scripture accordingly. Yet even for the latter, the Tiberian system of the books of Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Job was still too learned and it conflicted with the need to chant the Psalter in the most heartfelt form, therefore it largely failed.
There are good reasons to believe that the two Tiberian systems of the te‘amim originally represented a living tradition of chanting the Hebrew Bible. But the diversity of the Jewish traditions of cantillation makes it difficult, some would say impossible, to reconstruct the original chants. Nevertheless, from the Renaissance to this day scholars have been fascinated by the challenge and suggested various solutions (see Weil, 1995, pp.1–7).
The most important modern attempt was made by A.Z. Idelsohn (HoM, i, 1914/R, pp.18–23; ii, 1922/R, pp.5–32; his theory is summarized in 1929/R, pp.35–71). Through an ingenious process of melodic analysis and a brilliant comparative study of various Jewish musical cultures, he endeavoured to show that the cantillation systems in distant countries share similar motifs. These melodic patterns, some of which he presented in comparative tables, must have originated in ancient pre-exilic times and they formed the basis for the modes that have shaped synagogue music. Idelsohn did not attempt a detailed reconstruction of the music of the Tiberian systems, but he maintained that it was founded on the basis of the ancient motifs. Idelsohn's theory has been criticized for overemphasizing the common features of the motifs and ignoring the important modal and other structural factors that tie the motifs to their local musical cultures (Shiloah, 1992, p.108). It was also pointed out (Weil, 1995, p.5) that the motifs known today have only reached the present having ‘undergone complex evolutionary phases’, including degeneration, acculturation and so on, and that therefore they cannot testify to the original patterns.
A different approach was taken by Haïk-Vantoura (1978). She acknowledged the impossibility of reconstructing the original Tiberian chants out of the current traditions of the various Jewish communities. Therefore she attempted to reconstruct them on the basis of the graphical shapes and positioning of the te‘amim. For her, the signs under the letter represent notes in a scale and those above indicate ornamentation. Using this method, she constructed melodies that she claimed were implicit in the te‘amim and go back to biblical times. She stated that the proof of her theory was her ability to construct aesthetically pleasing melodies for biblical verses. This and other features of her theory, however, have been severely criticized for ignoring the grammatical nature of the signs and for the distance of her scale and melodies from any Middle Eastern musical tradition (see Ringer, 1977; Weil, 1995, p.6).
The latest attempt is that of Weil (1995). He attacked the problem from many angles including the grammatical intricacies of the te‘amim, their complex order, and the rabbinical and traditional interpretations of their musical values. He began by constructing a melodic theory based on current ethnomusicological concepts and expressed in chain-contours of descending scales and sequences. He then tried to show that such chains could be indicated by the graphical as well as grammatical structure of the te‘amim. Finally he analysed cantillation chants of various Jewish traditions showing their relationships to the chain-contours. This was the basis for an as yet unrealized attempt to create a complex model that would ultimately present the melodic structure of the Tiberian system.
Jewish music, §III, 2: Synagogue music and its development.
In his efforts to show that Jewish music in all countries is Semitic in character, Idelsohn (1929/R, p.26) pointed out modal improvisation as one of the characteristics that tie all Jewish musical traditions to their origins in the Middle East. Modal improvisation in liturgical music is probably as old as the synagogue itself and is indeed common to all the Jewish traditions. During the first five centuries ce the words of the prayers, as well as their music, were improvised (Elbogen, 1993, p.4; Idelsohn, 1929/R, pp.102–5). However, with the emergence of uniform texts and after the canonization of the prayers in the 10th century (Hoffman, 1979, pp.160–71), improvisation became the preserve of music alone.
The first records of improvised chants are found in central European cantorial manuscripts of the 18th century (Adler, 1989), although references to the practice are found much earlier. Much of the evidence concerning cantorial improvisations in past centuries comes from the complaints of rabbis against various cantorial abuses. A particularly common complaint was that cantors use improvisation for self-glorification and vocal ostentation. Others castigate the cantors for ignoring or contradicting the structure and meaning of the texts, and for their long vocalises that make it ‘impossible to maintain true devotion’ (Werner, 1976, pp.112–14). An example is the description by the Spanish poet Judah al-Harizi (c1170–1235) of a cantor he heard in Baghdad (Shiloah, 1992, pp.68–9):
‘… and when he finished his hymns he … stood there proudly, gesticulating, moving his shoulders. And raised his right foot and put it down again. And moved backward a bit and opened the hidden vaults of his wisdom. And brought forth its treasures and began to recite poems and songs, all of them tattered, halt and blind, following round-about paths, without rhythm or meter, without form or content.’
The passage concludes with the congregation fleeing the synagogue because of the utter boredom caused by the cantor's ‘endless canticles’.
Despite the harsh criticism, modal improvisation was and still is one of the most important elements of traditional synagogue chant, perhaps because it answers some basic psychological and aesthetic needs in Jewish culture (Yasser, 1966). But the nature of Jewish chants makes it difficult to distinguish between common melismatic embellishments, cantilena passages that are transmitted orally and bona fide improvisations.
In its simplest form, Jewish modal improvisation is an amplification of the element of variation that exists in all the traditional chants. Most chants are centonized melodies – mosaics constructed out of opening patterns, partial cadences, pre-concluding and cadential formulae. Yet the patterns and cadences never exist in a fixed melodic form, but are manifest in myriad variations. Because chants were transmitted orally, each community, synagogue and precentor sang them differently, and no two performances would be the same (Frigyesi, 1982–3). This constant variety agrees with the nature and aesthetic of Middle Eastern oral culture. In Jewish practice, however, it also relieves the tedium of repeating the mandatory liturgical texts and helps uplift the spirit of prayer. Therefore, when festivity is sought, the cantor is expected to expand the variations artistically by embellishing the traditional patterns. He is even allowed to deviate for a while from the these patterns and insert some melodic innovations, on condition that he return to the traditional chant at the end of the prayer. Frequently the artistic and creative cantor may find his inventiveness constrained by the simple chant patterns and would like to soar above them. In such cases he would turn to the general modality considered by his community to be appropriate for that particular prayer, day and service. He would then exploit the many possibilities of the mode and frequently modulate to related scales. The modes may be those that are an integral part of the Jewish musical tradition of the community, or they may be foreign. In east European Ashkenazi synagogues professional cantors combine the traditional adonai malakh shteyger (see below, §III, 3(iii)) with its European counterpart, the major mode; in the ‘Oriental’ communities, the Arabic maqāmāt are the main vehicle for improvisation (see Mode, §V, 2).
In certain communities the cantor is tolerated or even adored if he introduces foreign tunes into his improvisation. Thus, again in an Ashkenazi synagogue, a cantor may quote part of an aria in minor tonality from Massenet's Werther while improvising in the cantorial maġen avot shteyger (similar traits are cited in Wohlberg, 1982, p.162), whereas in the Jerusalem-Sephardi community, the cantor may quote a song by the Egyptian popular composer Abdul Wahab.
Modal improvisations, which are based on embellishments, are intended to enhance the beauty of the liturgical text and to glorify it. An excerpt from Shiloah's transcription of the qeddushah (sanctification) prayer by a cantor from Ioánnina (Yanina tradition), Greece (1992, p.97; given here as ex.6) shows to what extremes a cantor can go in order to adorn the first word of a revered prayer.
Old Ashkenazi prayer books provide devotional texts that are meant to be uttered silently by the congregation while the cantor embellishes certain prayers, such as the initial call barekhu et adonai ha-mevorakh!
Improvisations serve to elucidate the prayers by underlining important words with emotionally charged motifs and through various means of tone painting, such as madrigalisms. However, the music often takes precedence over the text: words are repeated, phrases and even words are broken in order to allow the development of a beautiful musical idea.
Embellishment and improvisation add festivity to the prayers and so increase in proportion to the solemnity of the service or of the particular prayer. The sanctity of certain texts, however, precludes ornamentation. As a rule, God's name is never embellished, let alone repeated for musical purposes, and certain important prayers, such as the shema‘ and, in some communities, the first benediction of the ‘amidah, are never modally improvised.
Improvisation is seldom used for the regular public reading of Scripture, but it is expected for special texts. Thus, in some Turkish and Middle Eastern communities of the Eastern Sephardi tradition, the Ten Commandments are honoured with an embellished reading, and the most gifted readers render each Commandment in a different maqām, choosing each to suit its contents (Shiloah, 1992, p.248, n.4). Improvisation is most commonly used in singing the piyyutim (liturgical poems) added to the mandatory prayers on special Sabbaths, Festivals and Holy Days. In the Moroccan and Middle Eastern communities the most important opportunities for improvisation are the baqqashot gatherings on Sabbaths in winter before dawn (see below, §III, 4(iii–iv)). During these ceremonies, congregational piyyutim are prefaced with cantorial recitatives in the Arabic style of muwwāl. Cantors are expected to develop a maqām, to modulate to related modes and to return to the original one, thus leading towards the ensuing congregational song. Similar recitatives, with instrumental accompaniment, are sung in the same communities at various family festivities. Among the Yemenite Jews, the main avenue of improvisation is the shir (Arabic nashid), the opening song followed by the shir (rhythmical song with drumming and dance) and hallel (a closing benediction) which are the essentials for celebrations in the home (Adaqi and Sharvit, 1981, p.xxxii; Bahat, 1995, p.xlv; see below, §IV, 2(i) (a)).
In some communities, especially in Morocco, additional, nonsensical syllables, such as a-ha-na-na or ne-ne-ne are pronounced with short melismas and long vocalises (ex.7). Gerson-Kiwi (1967) believed that the extraneous syllables are inspired by mystical or kabbalistic concepts. However, it seems more plausible that they are a simple means of supporting the vocalises. They may also serve as vocal substitutions for the missing instrumental passages, or they are used as fillers to fit the music into the structure of the Moroccan-Andalusian songs. Among the east European Ashkenazim, it is common to insert syllables such as oi-yo-yoi, or oi-vei into cantorial improvisations, in order to express deep grief and to invoke God's compassion (Vinaver, 1995, no.19). Imitation of musical instruments was part of the cantorial improvisation style and mannerisms in the Ashkenazi communities during the 18th century and the early 19th. Some cantors accompanied their improvisations with facial grimaces and body movements.
The cyclical nature of synagogue music causes the cantor to repeat his renditions of the prayers week after week. As years pass, cantors develop personal patterns of improvisation within the communal tradition. These patterns tend to stabilize with experience, and the most successful become fixed and frozen, thus developing into compositions that are repeated from memory (Idelsohn, 1929/R, pp.296–7; Frigyesi, 1982–3). During the 18th century west European cantors began to write down such compositions for their own use and for their close cantorial friends or relatives (Idelsohn, HoM, vi, 1932/R). Such procedures generated the ‘cantorial fantasia’ (see below, §III, 3(iii)). From the mid-19th century onwards, many cantors learnt their recitatives from cantorial manuals, thus the fixed improvisation of one cantor became the standard chant for the next generation.
Jewish music, §III, 2: Synagogue music and its development.
Piyyutim (Heb. from Gk. poiēsis) are Hebrew liturgical poems used to embellish obligatory prayers and other paraliturgical or religious events, communal and private. In its widest sense the genre encompasses the totality of the Hebrew poetry composed in various forms from the post-biblical period until the early 20th century.
The piyyut first appeared in the land of Israel during the Byzantine period (5th–6th centuries ce) and was initially intended to replace or substitute the set versions of prayers in order to ensure variety, especially on Sabbaths and Festivals. After the 9th century, by which time the set of prayers had become fixed, piyyutim were interspersed at certain key points of the liturgical order. Following the Arab conquest of Palestine in 636 ce, the centres of classical piyyut composition moved east, to the major Jewish centres in Mesopotamia, and west, through Byzantine southern Italy in the 9th century to centres in northern Italy, ashkenaz (‘Germany’), France and Byzantine Greece – where the central European school of Hebrew sacred poetry developed impressively in the 10th and 11th centuries. The direct continuation of the Eastern school was found in Spain, where from the beginning of the 10th century several generations of outstanding poets (e.g. Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Moshe and Abraham Ibn Ezra, and Yehuda Halevy) flourished in what is known as the ‘Golden Age’ of Hebrew poetry.
Piyyut creativity declined after the 13th century in most locations, especially when the order of prayers, including post-biblical poetical accretions, was canonized and the inclusion of new texts became unfeasible. However, an impressive output of ‘modern’ religious poetry in Hebrew (from the 15th century onwards) continued in central Europe, North Africa and the Middle East until the early 20th century. Ex.8, a famous piyyut sung throughout the Diaspora on the qabbalat shabbat ceremony (‘welcoming of the Sabbath’), was written by the kabbalist and mystical poet Rabbi Salomon Alkabetz (c1505–84). The ‘modern’ piyyut is considered by critics as having less prestige and artistic inspiration than the classical compositions of the earlier period, with exceptions such as the works of Israel Najara (c1555–1625), who lived in Safed (now Zefat, Israel) and Damascus.
Modern poetry was rarely introduced into the normative liturgy after its canonization (with some exceptions, e.g. in Morocco) and therefore is sung only at paraliturgical events (such as the baqqashot sung before dawn on Sabbath mornings in winter, or the zemirot sung at the Sabbath table after the grace) and community occasions (e.g. weddings or bar-mitzvahs). One of the widespread genres of the modern piyyut is the pizmon. This ancient term (transferred to Hebrew from Greek via Aramaic), which originally referred to the refrain of a piyyut, became the generic name for religious songs with or without refrain sung by Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jews.
The genres and forms of the piyyut vary widely according to where and when they were composed. While the early piyyut bears a relationship to biblical poetry and language (e.g. the old selihot – penitential poems added to the High Holy Day liturgy), the medieval Hebrew poetry from Spain is closely related to classical Arabic poems in terms of structure (strophic forms and rhyme patterns with or without refrain, particularly of the muwashshah type), metre (quantitative rather than syllabic or phonetic) and even subject matter. This influence from the surrounding culture on Hebrew sacred song is also evident in other locations, for example the Italian Hebrew compositions from the medieval and Renaissance periods (e.g. the adoption of the sonnet form) or in the Turkish piyyut after the 17th century (the adoption of terrenüm – sections of nonsense syllables).
Music and musical performance have been crucial factors in the development of Hebrew liturgical poetry from its earliest periods. Fleischer (1974) proposed that the use of choirs in the early synagogue was related to the introduction of refrains in Hebrew poetry. Avenary (1971–2/R) suggested that the use of the stanza form became highly important in determining musical structure and that the introduction of a clear beat and musical metre to synagogue song may have resulted from the adoption of Arabic poetic models in medieval Spain. Moreover, the term hazzan used today for ‘synagogue cantor’, appears in the early medieval literature as ‘singer of piyyutim’. Thus musical, as well as poetic, skills seem to have been a major consideration in the qualifications desired of the paytan (composer of piyyutim). The claim that music was only treated as an independent art in the synagogue with the emergence of the piyyut is supported by the fact that by the end of the 9th century, when the liturgical order was more or less finally established, the geonim (leaders of the world Jewry) opposed those hazzanim who sung piyyutim (Avenary, 1971–2/R, p.589).
The influence of Hebrew sacred poetry on the forms of synagogue music does not disqualify the opposite creative process, that is, the adaptation of new poems to existing musical models. This phenomenon, known in the medieval Christian context as contrafactum is crucial in the singing of the piyyut. The early presence of this practice among Jews provides valuable information about the musical performance of Hebrew sacred poetry in the Middle Ages. From the earliest period of piyyut composition, manuscripts included in the title of the poems the first line of another poem whose melody was used to sing the new text. In Spain and in the post-expulsion Sephardi world (i.e. after 1492–7), these melodic references began with the term of Arabic origin lahan, while in Italy and ashkenaz the word no‘am is more commonly employed: both mean ‘[sung to the] melody of …’. While such citations given in sources dating from before the 13th century and from medieval Spain generally refer to Hebrew religious song, after this period references to secular Arabic songs appear. In later centuries still are found the melodies of secular songs in Spanish, Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Persian and Italian in the Sephardi world, and German and Yiddish in the Ashkenazi world. In post-medieval Hebrew piyyutim the poets were not satisfied with merely imitating the form and metre of the secular model but also attempted to reproduce the phonetic sound of the opening line of the foreign song.
The melodies used to sing piyyutim in the extant oral traditions cover a wide range of styles. Psalmodic, flexible rhythmic forms (but still strophic, i.e. one phrase being extemporized in constant variations) are considered by some scholars (e.g. Avenary) as remnants of an older style of paytanut. These forms are found in the Ashkenazi as well as the Sephardi and Middle Eastern communities. However, the source of inspiration for melodies of flexible rhythm in the latter appears to have been Islamic forms such as the Turkish ghazel. Metric melodies, on the other hand, are common. It is important to distinguish between piyyutim that have a single traditional melody, for example those for the High Holy Days, and poems sung to a range of different melodies, such as the widespread opening or closing songs of the liturgical services, Adon ‘olam, Ein kelohenu or Yiġdal elohim hai. Finally, traditional melodies of piyyutim can be used for the performance of non-poetic texts in the liturgy. This phenomenon occurs in the liturgy of the High Holy Days and Festivals, when the seasonal association of a piyyut melody is conveyed through its use with another text. For example, in the Sephardi liturgy for the eve of Rosh Hashanah the opening qaddish is sung to the melody of Ahot qetannah, a traditional medieval piyyut sung only at this time.
Jewish music, §III: Liturgical and paraliturgical
(iii) The 17th and 18th centuries.
Jewish music, §III, 3: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Ashkenazi
The term ‘Ashkenazim’ derives from the medieval Hebrew name for Germany (ashkenaz); originally it referred only to the Jews of Germany, but is today used more loosely to denote all Jews of east European descent.
The Ashkenazim trace their ancestry and cultural origins to the Jewish settlements established on the banks of the Rhine during the early Middle Ages. By the end of the 13th century Ashkenazi communities flourished in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland; northern Italy, northern and central France, the Low Countries and England. Beginning in the 14th century, persecution and expulsion led to the migration of many Jews to northern Germany and Bohemia, and later to Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and Russia. The Ashkenazim who settled in eastern Europe merged with the local Jewish populations and gradually came to dominate them, replacing their religious and liturgical customs with Ashkenazi practices. Yiddish, a modified version of Middle High German, became the vernacular and lingua franca of east European Jewry. By the end of the 15th century two separate, though related, Ashkenazi traditions had evolved: the Western, which continued to be influenced by German culture; and the Eastern, which adopted many Slavic and Ottoman characteristics. Both traditions, however, maintained cultural links with each other through the exchange of rabbinical literature and sacred music. The ties grew stronger during the late 18th century and the 19th when Jews emigrated from eastern Europe to Germany.
In the 19th century Ashkenazi communities were also established in North and South America, South Africa, Australia and Palestine. During World War II most of the European Ashkenazim perished in the Holocaust. Those that survived and re-established communities in eastern Europe were religiously and culturally suppressed by the Communist regimes. However, those who joined the Ashkenazi populations in western Europe, North America, Israel and elsewhere effected profound changes in the character, liturgy and music of their foster communities. As a result of the Holocaust and the demographic changes that ensued, the original German Jewish tradition, the minhaġ ashkenaz, and its music have become almost extinct.
As with many other aspects of the Ashkenazi tradition, the early liturgical chants first developed in the Rhineland and then spread throughout Europe; in the east they absorbed and modified various Slavic elements. The migration of chants, however, was not exclusively in one direction. Some songs and melodies originated among the Eastern Ashkenazim and were introduced into the central European communities by itinerant cantors. This trend increased from the second half of the 18th century with the growing demand in Germany for east European hazzanim, who were noted for their sweet voices.
Jewish music, §III, 3: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Ashkenazi
Evidence for the musical traditions of Ashkenazi communities before the 16th century is scarce and no examples of written musical documentation are extant; all traditional chants and melodies were transmitted orally until the 19th century. The first written sources of Ashkenazi chants appeared in the early 16th century with the publication of notations of the Pentateuch cantillation by non-Jewish German musicians and humanists; for example, Johannes Boeschenstein's musical appendix to Johannes Reuchlin's De accentibus et orthographia linguae Hebraicae (Hagenau, 1518; fig.15) and Sebastian Muenster's notation of the same in his Institutiones grammaticae in Hebraeam linguam (Basle, 1524). The earliest notated documents of Ashkenazi prayer chants date from the second half of the 18th century, when hazzanim notated florid recitatives (Adler, 1989). However, some idea about the development of music in the early Ashkenazi synagogue can be gained from an analysis of the old chants as they appear in 19th-century cantorial manuals, the comparative study of extant oral traditions and the references to liturgical customs found in rabbinical texts. Such evidence suggests that the traditional chants of the Ashkenazim consisted of five elements: psalmody and early centonized chants; cantillation of sacred scripture; the mi-sinai melodies; the ‘seasonal melodies’; and cantorial improvisations.
Unlike the Middle Eastern and North African communities the Ashkenazim have a limited repertory of psalmodic melodies. Precentors chant some psalmodic formulae for the last verses of each psalm in the pesuqei de-zimra (zemirot) section of the morning service (Gerson-Kiwi, 1967), and rabbis may lead a public recitation of psalms during times of distress with a sad psalmody. Usually, however, Ashkenazi Jews recite their psalms individually and silently. Interestingly, some psalmodic structures are used to chant medieval poetic verses, such as the Akdamut by the 11th-century poet Rabbi Meir ben Isaac Nehorai of Worms, Germany.
The early centonized chants, called nigunim (or alte Weise in Germany and nusah in eastern Europe) are simple combinations of melodic formulae that may be sung by a non-professional precentor known as ba‘al tefillah. Most are sung to prose texts, which form the majority of the regular prayers. Often the precentor's chant is limited to the last sentences of the prayer, but this is sufficient to control the modal flow of the prayers and to prompt the congregational heterophonic murmur so typical of Ashkenazi synagogues. The old chants tend to have a narrow ambitus of no more than a 6th or an octave, but within this range motifs of beginning, continuation, partial closure, preconclusion and final cadence can still be clearly distinguished (ex.9). The modality of the chant is not determined by the text itself, but by its function in the liturgy and by the occasion – the type of service, Holy Day and so on. The same text may, therefore, be performed differently at different services or seasons, and chants are recognized by the community as musical symbols of the yearly liturgical cycle.
The Ashkenazim developed cantillation systems for the liturgical reading of the various biblical texts. The systems adhere to the Masoretic accents, te'amei ha-miqra, as they were classified during the 10th century by the Tiberias school of Masoretes. The east European Ashkenazim recognize six musical systems for the cantillation of the Bible: the Torah (i.e. the weekly readings); Pentateuch portions read on the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur); haftarah – the Prophetic portions read after the Pentateuch on the Sabbath and Holy Days; Esther; Lamentations; and the Song of Songs, Ruth and Ecclesiastes. The Jews of Germany recognized only the first five systems. Although each system is modally unique, some melodic patterns have clearly migrated from one system to the others. Avenary's extensive study (1978) of the development of the Torah cantillation among various Ashkenazi communities from the earliest documentation in the 16th century to the 20th reveals a remarkable trend towards a continuous perfecting of the cantillation system.
The mi-sinai melodies are a group of late medieval tunes and recitatives sung mainly on High Holy Days and revered by hazzanim in both eastern and western Europe. In 19th-century writings they were erroneously attributed to the ‘Nestor Maharil’, that is, Rabbi Jacob Levy Segal Mölin (c1365–1427), who exercised a decisive influence over Ashkenazi music and liturgy. In eastern Europe they are known as skarbove nigunim (‘melodies of the treasure’). The origins of the current name, which means ‘from Mount Sinai’, is unclear and various explanations have been suggested (e.g. Polnauer, 1997). The 13th-century Sefer hasidim (Book of the Pious) mentions this term, but only in the context of biblical cantillation. It is possible that Idelsohn, who first studied these melodies in depth in the 1920s, adopted the medieval term.
Idelsohn's studies of the mi-sinai melodies (1926; 1929/R; 1933) showed that they were composed between the late 11th century and early 16th. Their style reveals associations with the old Ashkenazi prayer chants and cantillation patterns and with non-Jewish sources, such as Gregorian chant and German Minnesang. Idelsohn's findings were expanded by Eric Werner, who linked the tunes to northern French mourning chants and related their creation to the depressed atmosphere in Jewish communities after the massacres by the Crusaders (1976, pp.26–45). The most famous mi-sinai melody is that for the prayer of Kol nidrei (Aramaic: ‘All vows’) sung on the eve of Yom Kippur. Its Jewish and German origins have been demonstrated by Idelsohn (1931–2), who dated it to the beginning of the 16th century. Regarded as a musical symbol of Jewish suffering and hope for redemption, this melody was considered most sacred and was therefore highly embellished by cantors. The earliest extant notated version of the melody, in a manuscript (c1765) by the hazzan Aron Beer (1738–1821), is full of coloratura passages (Idelsohn, 1929/R, pp.154–5). Werner's attempt to reconstruct the original version of Kol nidrei by divesting it of all ornamentations provides the essentials of the melody, but there is no proof that it was ever sung in this form (Werner, 1976, p.36; ex.10). The melody, with embellishments, was also well-known among non-Jewish musicians in the 19th century and has been arranged several times for instrumental performance (e.g. Max Bruch's Kol nidrei for cello and orchestra, 1881).
The ‘seasonal melodies’ are tunes of certain liturgical or paraliturgical piyyutim sung during the three Pilgrimage Festivals (Pesah, Shavu‘ot, Sukkot), or at Hanukkah, Purim and Tish‘ah be-av. Melodies, such as those for the Hanukkah anthem Ma‘oz sur, the Pesah hagadah song Adir hu and the Tish‘ah be-av lamentation Eli Zion, were strongly associated with the particular Festivals on which they were sung, and thus each became the musical symbol of its season. Many communities, especially those of the Western Ashkenazim, incorporated the tunes or motifs thereof as ‘seasonal Leitmotif's in their services. Werner (1976, pp.89–102) has shown that most of them were adopted from non-Jewish sources. Some became fashionable only from the late 16th century.
Although no records of cantorial improvisation exist before the 18th century, cantors have probably always improvised. The long prose texts and the extensive piyyutim they had to chant, especially on High Holy Days, could not be performed without at least a limited amount of improvisation. On certain occasions a short prayer would be embellished with ‘long melodies’ by the hazzan while the congregation recited a different text (Idelsohn, 1929/R, p.161). It can be assumed from later practices that even during the Middle Ages, improvisations served to highlight musically the emotional content of the text; they also enhanced the beauty of the services and were a means of musical entertainment. In addition, they frequently contributed to the glorification of the cantor's voice and virtuosity. The improvisation patterns were probably based on the old prayer chants and were delineated by the modal structure of the melodies.
Jewish music, §III, 3: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Ashkenazi
During the 17th and 18th centuries, various statements appeared in rabbinical literature protesting against several new cantorial practices (Idelsohn, 1925; Werner, 1976, pp.112–17). Most poignant is a series of complaints stated in the anonymous late 17th-century pamphlet Tokhekhah meġulah (‘Open Reprimands’). The author laments the cantor's ignorance of rabbinical literature, their unfamiliarity with the prayer book, their bad articulation of Hebrew and mannerisms that made a mockery out of prayer. Among the latter he cites the habits of placing their hands on their jaws, temples or throat while singing, introducing nonsense syllables into the prayers, tearing words apart, extending and embellishing non-texted melodies at the expense of essential prayer texts (which they tend to rush through), introducing many non-Jewish melodies into the services; and singing the most sacred qaddish to potpourris of trite melodies. The amount and nature of these protests indicate that a new style of cantorial singing emerged during this period.
Idelsohn used the term ‘ars nova’ for the new cantorial style (1929/R, pp.162, 204, 210; no connection with the 14th-century French polyphonic style is intended) and maintained that it developed as a result of contacts with Italian musicians who travelled throughout Germany. The extent of the influence of the European Baroque style on Ashkenazi synagogue music awaits further research, but it is plausible that the tendency among Baroque singers and instrumentalists to adorn melodies with many embellishments re-enforced and enriched the improvisatory art of the Ashkenazi hazzanim.
The exact nature of the new style in its inception is not clear. Judging from current Orthodox cantorial practice, it can be assumed that much of the improvisation was based on embellishing the old nusah tunes by adding melodic tropes to existing centonized melodies, and that the additional melodic segments were sung without words or to nonsense syllables. Patterns and larger segments of successful improvisations were probably repeated, then memorized and disseminated to other cantors. From the rabbinical complaints it is clear that the new pieces included fashionable tunes of secular, often non-Jewish, sources.
Evidence of the later phase of the new style derives from manuscripts of cantorial music, which first appeared in the mid-18th century; the earliest extant is the 1744 compendium by the hazzan Juda Elias of Hanover. Most important are the manuscripts of the Berlin hazzan Aron Beer (1738–1821), which include the oldest surviving notation of Kol nidrei and over 1200 other pieces by various hazzanim of the time (Adler, 1989; Idelsohn, HoM, vi, 1932/R); other sources are descriptions of Jewish customs by non-Jews, for example, Johann Jakob Schudt's Jüdische Merckwürdigkeiten (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1714–18).
Four features may be mentioned as typical of this phase in the development of Western Ashkenazi synagogue music: the emergence of the ‘cantorial fantasia’; the introduction of fashionable Rococo tunes into synagogue worship; the extensive use of meshorerim (vocal accompanists to the hazzan); and the attempt to introduce instrumental music.
The ‘cantorial fantasia’ (Avenary, 1968) is a peculiar enlargement of the mi-sinai melodies. A typical fantasia begins with a long, textless introduction with Baroque melodic sequences, broken chords and the like; it continues by alternating texted segments of the mi-sinai melody with vocal textless interpolations. The range of the cantor's line is often wide and may exceed two octaves, but the melody is often divided between the hazzan and his assistants. An example is the setting of ‘Aleinu leshabbeah for the High Holy Days by Joseph Goldstein (c1795; ed. Idelsohn, HoM, vi, 1932/R, no.21; ex.11).
Performing the fantasias and other genres, the hazzanim were accompanied by meshorerim (‘singers’) who often served as their apprentices. Usually a hazzan would be helped by a young boy (Yiddish zinger'l) and a bass-singer, but in some larger communities the meshorerim group consisted of a small ensemble of men and boys. Literary descriptions of the singing of the hazzan-bass-zinger'l trio, as well as various indications in the cantorial manuscripts, suggest a distinct style that included drone accompaniments, short responses, typical solos for bass and treble, and parallel motion in 3rds or 6ths between two of the singers. The group often imitated musical instruments and occasionally enhanced their appearance with facial grimaces and hand motions. A thorough reconstruction of their style still awaits research (for an attempt, see Katz, 1995). After the Emancipation, the trio gradually disappeared and synagogue choirs replaced the meshorerim. In eastern Europe, the old style lingered on to the end of the 19th century and some remnants of it may still be heard in synagogue choirs of east European origin.
Another important development was the introduction of fashionable secular tunes in imitation of Rococo instrumental music. The cantorial manuscripts abound in minuets, sicilianas, Waldhorns (horn signals and fanfares), ‘Margos’ (perhaps marches) and other popular tunes, mostly in binary form. Usually written without text, they were intended to be sung to the rhymes of piyyutim, such as Lekha dodi on Friday night or Melekh ‘elyon at Rosh Hashanah (ex.12). They also served as introductions to prayers and were sung to nonsense syllables.
During the 18th century, attempts were made to introduce musical instruments into some Ashkenazi synagogues. Under the influence of the mystical teachings of the Kabbalah, synagogues in Prague and south Germany celebrated the welcoming of the Sabbath with instrumental music on Friday afternoons until sundown. For this purpose they even introduced organs into the synagogue, long before the reforms of the 19th century. This short-lived practice ended in about 1793 (Ellenson, 1995).
The east European Ashkenazim did not usually share the development in the central European style. Jews in Poland, Russian and the Baltic countries were less interested in songs of praise and more in supplication-recitatives that would express their plight and allow them to explore the emotional delights of Slavic-influenced modality. They preferred hazzanim with sweet tenor or high lyric-baritone voices and with fast, florid coloratura. The model hazzan could express the emotional meaning of the prayers through clever use of modal patterns (Yiddish zogekhts) and move the congregation to tears. Hence their predilection for supplicatory or penitential texts. The earliest records of this style seem to be the early 19th-century notations by Hirsch Weintraub (1811–82) of the highly ornate recitatives of his father, Solomon Kashtan (1781–1829; ex.13).
Like their Western counterparts, the Eastern hazzanim were often accompanied by meshorerim, and many made their livelihood by wandering with their choristers from one shtetl (Jewish village) to another. Towards the end of the 18th century, east European hazzanim emigrated to central Europe and exerted some influence over the musical style of the Western Ashkenazi synagogues.
From the second half of the 18th century, east European liturgical and paraliturgical music was enriched by the hasidim. The hasidic movement was founded by the Ba‘al Shem Tov (Rabbi Israel ben Eliezor, 1698–1760), who sought to bring personal and communal salvation to the Jews by worshipping God and performing His commandments with joy and enthusiasm. Music and dance were two of the most important means for achieving the right state of mind for proper worship and therefore the leaders of the hasidic movement encouraged musical creativity and allowed the introduction of new tunes to selected prayers. Some of the leaders served as precentors in their synagogues and various hasidic melodies are attributed to them.
On the basis of the kabbalistic mysticism, the hasidim believed that all music emerged from a divine source and was originally sacred, yet much of the music in the world was defiled through improper use, either by setting it to profane words or by performing it in unholy places and impious circumstances. It was the duty of the pious hasid to redeem melodies from their defilement by using them in holiness. Therefore the hasidim borrowed melodies from secular and non-Jewish sources and incorporated them in their sacred services and ceremonies. Thus, the east European Jewish musical heritage was enriched with Polish mazurkas, Russian kozatchocks, Ukrainian and Romanian shepherd songs and various marches and waltzes. All the new melodic acquisitions underwent subtle modifications to adapt them to hasidic culture. The hasidim were often criticized for their eclecticism and sometimes for their bad taste, but for them salvation overrode aesthetics.
During the 19th century, hasidic leaders (Yiddish rebbes or tsadíkim) established courts and the hasidim flocked there to receive the blessing and advice of the rebbe. These courts soon became centres of musical activity and creation. Some of the rebbes were gifted musicians and composed melodies for their disciples, others maintained menagenim (court musicians) who composed the melodies on behalf of the leaders. New tunes were created for every Holy Day and were considered important spiritual messages. The melodies were not written, but transmitted orally from the rebbe's court to the hasidim in their various towns and villages.
While some tunes were used during synagogue services, most of them were sung at hasidic paraliturgical functions, mainly at the communal gatherings around the rebbe's table – the tish. Some of the tunes were settings of prayers and biblical verses, others had words in Yiddish, Ukrainian or other east European languages, but most of the tunes were sung to nonsense syllables such as ‘ya-ba-bam’, ‘tiri-rai-dai-da’ and the like. The hasidim amassed an enormous repertory of borrowed and newly composed melodies in a great variety of genres and styles that have yet to be classified. These range from simple dance tunes (Yiddish hopkelekh) of one phrase repeated endlessly, to complex melodies with many sections. Most important are the slow tunes known in Yiddish as nigunei dvéikus (Heb. devequt), whose purpose is to raise the soul to its divine source (ex.14).
The hasidic movement, which still flourishes in Israel, the USA and elsewhere, preserves its original musical tradition albeit with modifications. Many famous cantors in eastern Europe and elsewhere came from hasidic families and incorporated hasidic tunes into their liturgical improvisations and compositions.
Cantorial improvisations both East and West, as well as original hasidic melodies, are based on modes known as shteyger (Yiddish, from Ger. ‘Steiger’) or gust. While the Western hazzanim utilized the modes based on natural minor or Mixolydian scales, the Eastern hazzanim preferred those with scales that had the interval of the augmented 2nd. Despite various endeavours to describe some of the shteygers, a comprehensive theory of the Ashkenazi synagogue modes is still lacking. Attempts to discuss the modes were first made during the second half of the 19th century, among the most important is Josef Singer's essay Die Tonarten des traditionellen Synagogengesang (Vienna, 1886), which tried to relate the scales of the cantorial modes to those of the church modes. This approach, considered a breakthrough at its time, was severely criticized by Idelsohn for neglecting the Eastern aspects of the shteyger, namely its motivic and functional components. Idelsohn and later musicologists tried to discuss the modes in a manner similar to the description of the Arabic maqāmāt, taking into consideration the salient motifs, partial and final cadences, recitation tones, the liturgical functions and even the ethos of the mode (e.g. Idelsohn, 1939; Cohon, 1950; Avenary, 1971–2; and Levine, 1980, and 1989. Avenary, 1971 raises questions about the ethos aspect of the modes.)
Theoretical discussions usually describe three main modes and a few subsidiary ones, all named after the initial words of relevant prayers. The principal shteygers are maġen avot, adonai malakh (or adoshem malakh) and ahavah rabbah (ex.15). The simplest (and the oldest, according to Idelsohn, 1933) is maġen avot, which is based on a natural minor scale, sometimes with a lower (Phrygian) 2nd at the cadences. The mode is said to reflect the peaceful atmosphere of the Friday night evening service. More complicated is adonai malakh, which assumed different structures in the Eastern and the Western traditions. In its fullest Eastern form it is based on a peculiar scale built on a series of conjunct equal tetrachords of 1–1–1/2 tones. Cantors regard it as representing glory and majesty and they frequently blend it with the European major scale. The most complex of the three is ahavah rabbah. Used mainly by Eastern hazzanim, it is said to be an excellent means of expressing agitated emotions, both joyful and sad. Its most developed form is built on what might be described as an modified Phrygian scale with an augmented 2nd between the second and third degrees. The sixth degree below the tonic is always raised. Frequent excursions are made through the fourth degree (which serves as a temporary tonic) to the minor, adonai malakh and major modes; a further excursion is sometimes made to the relative major of the minor mode (Laki-Frigyesi, 1982–3).
The most frequently described subsidiary modes are the yishtabbah shteyger, which is based on a natural minor scale similar to maġen avot but with different motifs and with excursions on the fourth degree similar to those in the ahavah rabbah mode; and the mi shebberakh (or av harahamim) shteyger, which is based on the so-called Ukrainian-Dorian scale, that is, the Dorian scale with a raised 4th degree (Idelsohn, 1929/R, pp.184–92). Digressions to this shteyger serve to enrich the other modes.
Jewish music, §III, 3: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Ashkenazi
The Emancipation of European Jews induced in them an urge to be integrated into the surrounding culture. The relative sense of freedom encouraged new trends of thinking influenced by the 18th-century ideology of Enlightenment, especially as presented by its most important Jewish proponent, the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86). Together, the social and ideological changes effected considerable modifications of the Ashkenazi synagogue practices and caused major changes in the liturgical music of the Jews in central and western Europe. Some of the innovations established in German-speaking countries and in France were emulated later in eastern Europe.
One of the most important manifestations of the new trends was the rise of the Reform Movement in Germany during the early decades of the 19th century. The early Reformers, such as Israel Jacobson (1728–1828) in Seesen (Westphalia) and David Friedländer (1750–1834) in Berlin, changed the traditional siddur (prayerbook) by abolishing texts that seemed to them controversial and by substituting new prayers in German for the old ones in Hebrew. They made considerable alterations in the customs and ceremonies of the service. Above all, they introduced the organ into the synagogue and reduced the role of the traditional hazzan. The main musical innovation was the congregational singing of chorales in Hebrew or German with organ accompaniment, mostly to melodies adopted from the Protestant Church. The traditional chanting of the scriptures according to the te'amim was abolished and the weekly portions from the Pentateuch and the books of the Prophets were merely declaimed. The model for many Reform synagogues was the Hamburg Temple, which was dedicated in 1818. However, the attempt made there to combine the modern innovations of Berlin with some of the oldest melodies of the Sephardi rite – as introduced by the Portuguese hazzan David Meldola (1780–1861) – failed.
The innovations of the Reform temples (as Reform synagogues were often known) aroused bitter controversy among rabbis and scholars. A collection of rabbinical responsa, Noġah ha-sedeq (1818), in favour of the new practices triggered the publication of a vast polemic literature that dealt among other things with musical issues, especially the use of the organ in the synagogue.
19th-century Emancipation also helped change the musical practices of the traditional synagogue. The modern quest for aesthetics and decorum was manifest in the new synagogal regulations (Synagogenorderungen) issued by various communities and encouraged by the state. The bylaws discouraged and sometimes forbade old musical practices, especially those that developed during the 17th and 18th centuries. Of special importance was the disappearance of the meshorerim (see above, §3(iii)) and their gradual replacement by the modern choir. With the decrease in the meshorerim practice, training hazzanim through apprenticeship was replaced by regulated study in teachers’ seminaries, which were supervised by the state. Many cantorial students learnt their chants from notated music rather than from oral tradition. To meet the growing demand for written chants, several manuals of cantorial recitatives appeared in print (e.g. Moritz Deutsch's Vorbeterschule, Breslau, 1871). This and a growing distaste for the old flamboyant embellishments caused a major revision in cantorial recitative style. The recitatives were simplified or ‘purified’ and were frequently written and executed in common time.
Various attempts were made to establish services that would stand in mid-stream between the Reform and Orthodox practices. The most influential of the so-called Moderate Reform synagogues was the Seitenstettengasse Temple in Vienna (dedicated 1826). Under the guidance of Rabbi Isaac Noa Mannheimer (1793–1865) its liturgical practices were for the most part strictly traditional. The innovations were the long weekly sermons in German and the new liturgical music introduced by Salomon Sulzer (1804–90). In addition to the ‘purified chants’ and recitatives that he edited, Sulzer sang new compositions for hazzan and an a cappella four-part choir of boys and men in a Classical style. The choral compositions, which were sung in Hebrew, were composed by Sulzer himself, or commissioned from other composers, Jewish and non-Jewish, such as Joseph Fischhoff (1804–57) and Ignaz von Seyfried (1776–1841). Even Schubert contributed to a Hebrew composition – a setting of Psalm xcii (d 942).
The Vienna Temple soon became the focus for the hazzanim of Central and eastern Europe and its influence was further enhanced after 1838 when Sulzer published the first volume of his Schir Zion, containing selected compositions of the Vienna Temple music (the second appeared in 1865). Synagogues following Sulzer's model sprang up first in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and later in Germany.
A similar attempt to combine a traditional service with contemporary music was made by Samuel Naumbourg (1815–80) in Paris. With the encouragement of the French government, he proceeded to reshape the music of the Paris synagogue, aiming to create a model for all the French Jewish communities, which were united under the governmental system of Consistoires israélites. Naumbourg's Zemiroth Yisrael (1847–64), which contains compositions for hazzan and male choir, consists of traditional chants and recitatives in the south-German style and modern compositions influenced by French grand opéra choruses. Naumbourg's influence spread far and wide in France and its colonies.
The innovations of Sulzer and Naumbourg served as examples to English hazzanim, who developed similar repertories of synagogal choral music. The London school was created by Simon Asher (1841–79) and his disciple Israel Lazarus Mombach (1813–80), and reached its peak with the works of Marcus Hast (1871–1911). The music of the modern Ashkenazi synagogues of London was sung in similar houses of worship throughout the British Empire.
During the 1870s, the musical centre of the Moderate Reform Movement shifted to Berlin. The great synagogue on Oranjenburgerstrasse (dedicated 1866), which possessed excellent hazzanim, a large boys’ and men's choir and large organ, was the haven for the music of Louis Lewandowski (1821–94), who served as its choirmaster and music director. Lewandowski, perhaps the most gifted composer of Ashkenazi liturgical music in the 19th century, introduced the Romantic, Mendelssohnian style into the synagogue. His two publications, Kol rinnah u't'fillah (1871, a hazzanic manual with compositions for two-part choir) and Todah w'simrah (1876–82, compositions for hazzan and choir with optional organ accompaniment) became the main source of musical repertory for Moderate Reform synagogues. Many of his compositions were also sung in Reform and Orthodox synagogues.
In the major cities of eastern Europe, a modern type of chor-shul (Yiddish: ‘choral-synagogue’) was established, in which fashionable music by Sulzer, Naumbourg and Lewandowski was sung together with the old, flamboyant east European cantorial recitatives. Such east European composers as Nissan Blumenthal (1805–1903), David Nowakowsky (1848–1921) in Odessa and Eliezer Gerovitsch (1844–1913) in Rostov on the Don, strove to find a musical idiom that would combine the German harmony and counterpoint with the east European modality and idiomatic embellishments. Their compositions tended to be long, with many textual repetitions and were usually intended to display the virtuosity of the hazzan.
In the USA, the first Reform congregations, such as the Reform Society of Israelites in Charleston (established 1824) or Temple Har Sinai in Baltimore (1842), adopted the practices of the Hamburg Reform Temple and adapted them to the needs of the American community. American Reform temples usually abolished the office of hazzan; the music was led by the organist and performed by a mixed choir and occasional soloists. Students of Sulzer, such as Jacob Fraenkel (1807–87) and Morriz Goldstein (1840–1906), served the Moderate Reform synagogues and exerted a lasting influence on American synagogue music of all denominations. Fraenkel and Goldstein's collection of liturgical music, Zimrat yah (1871–86) was disseminated and used widely. Typical of the American style of post-Emancipation music are the works of Sigmund Schlessinger, who was born in Uhlen (Württemberg) in 1835, and emigrated to Mobile, Alabama, in 1860, where he died in 1906. His compositions, which were most popular in American Reform congregations at the beginning of the 20th century, are settings of the American Reform Hebrew Union Prayerbook in the Germanic Romantic style, with some adaptation from Italian opera.
Jewish music, §III: Liturgical and paraliturgical
(iii) North Africa (Maghribi).
(v) Western Europe and the Americas.
Jewish music, §III, 4: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Sephardi
Sephardi Jews (from Heb. sepharad: ‘Spain’) are the descendants of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula, most of whom were expelled from Spain and Portugal during the period 1492–7 or converted to Christianity (since the 14th century) and remained in the Peninsula as crypto-Jews. Those who left Spain after the expulsion settled in North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and later in western Europe and the Americas. This geographical distribution led, from the musical point of view, to the consolidation of several liturgical sub-traditions: the ‘North African’ (also known as the ‘Maghribi’: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), the ‘Ottoman’ (Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Greece, Bosnia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria), the ‘Italian’ (with traces found also in Libya) and the ‘Western’ (south-west France, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Hamburg, East Coast of the USA and the Caribbean).
All Sephardi communities follow the same liturgical order with the minor exception of liturgical hymns (piyyutim), which are added to the normative prayers on Holy Days and special occasions and vary between communities. The musical performance of the liturgy is entirely vocal (in unison or heterophonic texture) and characterized by the interaction between a cantor and an active, participating congregation. Responsorial singing is found in the ancient selihot service of the High Holy Days and in the singing of piyyutim. The whole congregation sings other sections.
Any learned individual may lead a service. However, one or more permanent hazzanim (cantors) serve in each synagogue. Cantors are ordinary members of the community (no ordination is needed) who possess developed singing skills and a knowledge of the liturgical music repertory. Their role is to lead the liturgy, especially on Sabbaths and Holy Days, and within a single service the leading role may pass from one cantor to another. Professional, paid cantors are rare in Sephardi communities, although among west European Sephardim the cantor has held a particularly prominent position, second only to that of the rabbi. In North Africa, a semi-professional singer (paytan) may also participate in festive services, for example when a wedding or bar-mitzvah is celebrated in the synagogue. He sings special hymns or musically elaborated sections of the liturgy.
Within a single daily or festive Sephardi service, several musical genres are performed, namely, psalmody, cantillation, recitative and strophic melodies. The psalmody is characterized by a repeated musical phrase of narrow range (usually a perfect 5th) and clear pulse (but without fixed metre) that is divided into two hemistiches, each ending on a clear cadence. The setting of the text is mostly syllabic. This genre can be heard in the congregational singing of psalms at the opening of the morning services (see above, §III, 2(i)). Cantillation, as in all Jewish communities, is the public reading of the Torah and other biblical texts on Sabbaths and Holy Days according to the Masoretic accents. Despite similarities in the musical realization of the accents in all Sephardi communities, regional styles exist in this genre also, with the greatest distinction lying between the ‘Eastern Sephardi ’ and the ‘North African’ cantillations (see above, §III, 2(ii)). Improvised recitatives in flowing rhythm are used to perform most liturgical texts. Recitatives range from enhanced, syllabic readings of narrow range to developed, melismatic performances of wide range whose pitch organization is framed by modes, especially Arabic maqāmāt or Turkish makamlar. Strophic melodies consist of two or more musical phrases repeated in a fixed order, with or without refrain, and usually with a fixed metre. These melodies serve for the singing of liturgical poems and, occasionally, of selected texts in prose. Strophic melodies may be traditional or adopted from the music of the surrounding culture.
As in all Jewish communities, the liturgical music of the Sephardi Jews is an open system. This concept implies the constant tension between community, tradition and individual innovation in the development of the repertory. Despite commonalities in the liturgical music and its performance in Sephardi congregations over wide geographical areas (the most outstanding example being the musical repertory for the High Holy Days), each synagogue functions as a musical microcosm. An important factor in the merging of continuity with change is the mobility of cantors, who spread and blend melodies from one location to another during their journeys around the Mediterranean.
Paraliturgical events are a crucial component of the Sephardi musical tradition. The singing of baqqashot (see below, §III, 1 and 2(iv)) is the most developed of these rituals and is found in the Ottoman, Moroccan and Syrian sub-traditions.
Jewish music, §III, 4: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Sephardi
The source of the Iberian Jewish culture from the time of the Arab conquest of Spain (late 7th century onwards) is found in the older Eastern Jewish centres, especially the caliphate capital of Baghdad. The musical lore of the Eastern Jews, which already included the concepts of melodic modes, rhythmic modes or cycles, and musical affects (e.g. the writings by Sa‘adyah Gaon, 888–942, in Adler, 1975, nos.600–630), were probably introduced into Spain with the Arab invasion. However, as early as the 10th century, a distinctive Andalusian Jewish heritage had emerged. The close Arabic–Jewish interaction led to the development of a courtly Jewish culture that included, among other features, the creation of a new Hebrew poetry (sacred and secular) based on Arabic models and techniques, such as the use of quantitative metres and innovative strophic forms (e.g. the muwashshah). Poetic metre and strophic forms exposed the Jews to new musical forms that permeated the synagogue. Another phenomenon of Arabic origin already found in early manuscripts of sacred Hebrew poetry from Spain is the substantial use of contrafacta. From the scant information about music in the Iberian synagogues before 1492 it is clear that developed musical skills and congregational singing were established features by the 11th century. These traits are testified in rabbinical responsa in which the preference for cantors with skilled voices is admitted. The complaint against local cantors by Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel from Germany (c1250–1327), who was exiled in Castille, reveals that by the end of the 13th century the musicality of Castillian cantors overruled their religious piety (She‘elot u-teshuvot, Jerusalem, 1965, iv, p.22). The non-centralized character of Iberian Jewry presupposes the existence of regional styles of synagogue music (Andalusian, Aragonese, Castillian, Catalonian etc.). The foundation of synagogues in Salonika (Thessaloniki) and Constantinople after 1492 on the basis of the regional Iberian origins of their congregations appears to corroborate this assumption. However, the existence of melodies from the Iberian period common to all Sephardi communities, especially for the High Holy Days, cannot be ruled out (Avenary, 1986).
Jewish music, §III, 4: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Sephardi
Although Spanish Jews settled in North Africa before their final expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula, in its aftermath they established communities in the major urban centres of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and to a lesser extent Libya. Two layers of music may be detected in the Maghribi liturgy: autochthonous and Eastern Sephardi. The first layer is based on the classical Andalusian musical traditions of North Africa (Arabic al-‘alā al-andalusiyya in Morocco; gharnātī in Algeria; ma’lūf in Tunisia). It is characterized by a particular quality of vocal emission, the use of the Andalusian modes (which have a distinctive pentatonic ground structure) and syncopated rhythmic patterns. The singing of psalms to measured non-metrical melodies is also an ancient hallmark of this tradition, which was later disseminated widely by Moroccan cantors among the west European Sephardi communities (see above, §III, 2(i), ex.2). The Eastern Sephardi layer is reflected in the use of liturgical melodies from Turkey and Palestine that were brought by emissaries (shaddarim) who visited North Africa from the 18th century onwards to raise funds for the Holy Land. The Eastern Sephardi influence is found particularly in some piyyut melodies from the High Holy Day repertory.
The most elaborate paraliturgical tradition among Moroccan Jews is the performance of the baqqashot (‘petitions’). This event, held early on Sabbath mornings during winter, combined kabbalistic rituals such as tiqqun hasot with the performance of a set of sacred poems according to the modes and genres of the Andalusian court music of Morocco. Several traditions of baqqashot developed in different cities, but eventually that of the southern cities of Marrakech and Essaouira, codified in the book Shir yedidut (Marrakech, 1921), prevailed. It was adopted by several synagogues in Casablanca where large numbers of Jews from different parts of Morocco gathered from the early 20th century.
Jewish music, §III, 4: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Sephardi
Despite their diversity, the Sephardi synagogues throughout the Ottoman Empire shared a unified musical repertory. The major musical contribution of this branch has been the adoption of the Turkish and Arabic modal systems (makamlar/maqāmāt; see Mode, §V, 2) as a vehicle to unify the music of an entire synagogue service or of a section of it. Early evidence for this phenomenon is found in the work of Israel Najara (c1555–1625). A descendant of Jewish emigrants from Spain who settled in the Galilee, Najara, an outstanding poet and composer, became a master of the incipient Ottoman makam system and arranged his two major collections of Hebrew sacred poetry (Zemirot yisrael, Safed, 1587; Salonika, 1599; Venice, 1600; and She‘erit yisrael, unpublished) according to these musical modes. However, the practice of using modes in the liturgy was established only during the 17th century, when the involvement of Sephardi Jews in the music traditions of the surrounding culture reached a high point. The manuscript of religious poems belonging to Moshe ben Michael Hacohen from Salonika (1644–1730), cantor at the Levantine synagogue in Venice, includes an index of the Turkish modes, indicating which should be used for each festival and the names of the melodies for each section of the service (GB-Lbl Add.26967, dated 1702).
The proficiency of the Ottoman Sephardi cantor in the makam system is a hallmark of his art. Modal improvisation in flexible rhythm is applied to various sections of the service sung by the cantor as soloist (e.g. the yoser section of the Sabbath morning service). Modulations are expected from gifted cantors. Metric melodies intermingled with the improvised sections are based on the same modes; sometimes these melodies are adopted from popular Arabic or Turkish songs. In addition to these adopted metric melodies, the repertory includes traditional metric melodies for the poetic insertions (piyyutim) performed during the High Holy Day liturgy, and for dirges sung on Tish‘ah be-av: such melodies are considered to date from the oldest layers of the Eastern Sephardi repertory.
The old Ottoman style of liturgical singing still persists in small concentrations of Turkish Jews in Israel, Turkey, France and the USA. However, it has largely been superseded by the ‘Jerusalem-Sephardi’ style (see below, §III, 11(i)). Ex.16 is the mystical poem ‘El mistater beshafrir hevyon’ by Abraham Maimin (fl 17th century) as sung by the Jews of Aleppo (Syria); it is still performed today as an opening to the singing of baqqashot in the Jersusalem-Sephardi style.
The singing of piyyutim in paraliturgical vigils developed in Turkey following the model set by Rabbi Israel Najara in the late 16th century (Seroussi, ‘Rabbi Yisrael Najara’, 1990). Since the beginning of the 17th century and until the 20th, Jewish poets and composers in Turkey and Greece produced a large repertory of sacred songs based on the Turkish makam system and set to instrumental and vocal musical genres of the Ottoman courtly music, such as peşrev, kar, beste and şarki (see Ottoman music). Thousands of such poems are preserved in manuscript. The centres of these musical activities were the cities of Adrianople, Istanbul and Salonika. Many Jewish composers and performers, such as Aharon Hamon (‘Yahudi Harun’, d after 1721), Moshe Faro (‘Musi’, d after 1776) and Isaac Fresco Romano (‘Tanburi Izak’, 1745–1814) served in the Ottoman court and attained considerable prestige. The printed compendium Shirei yisrael be-eres ha-qedem (Istanbul, 1921) preserves the texts of this repertory as it was performed at the beginning of the 20th century.
Jewish music, §III, 4: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Sephardi
Jews forced to convert to Christianity in Spain and Portugal began to leave the Iberian Peninsula towards the end of the 16th century to establish new communities, which are usually called ‘Portuguese’ or ‘Spanish-Portuguese’. They settled in Venice, Amsterdam and south-west France (Bayonne, Bordeaux) and later expanded to other centres in Europe (Paris, London, Hamburg, Livorno, Gibraltar, Vienna) and the Americas (New York, Philadelphia, Rhode Island, Charleston, Savannah, Curaçao etc.). The foundations of their liturgical tradition may be traced back to the ‘mother’ community of Amsterdam. This repertory is based on the North African and Ottoman Sephardi practices (the first cantors of Amsterdam were ‘imported’ from these non-European centres) combined with the creations of local cantors (who were expected to read music notation and perform Western art music). Among the earliest Sephardi cantors in Amsterdam were Joseph Shalom Gallego from Salonika (officiated c1614–28) and Rabbi Isaac Uziel from Fez, Morocco.
The engagement of cantors from Amsterdam in the ‘sister’ communities contributed to the relative uniformity of their liturgical repertories. In the course of time, as the demographic composition of these synagogues changed, more local traditions emerged. Thus, the liturgical music tradition of the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue of Bevis Marks in London, preserved in the collection by Emanuel Aguilar and David A. de Sola (The Ancient Melodies of the Liturgy of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, London, 1857), shows North African influences resulting from the engagement of cantors from Morocco and Gibraltar. On the other hand, the repertory of the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue of New York City includes liturgical compositions by 19th-century German Jewish composers following the contingent of German Jews who joined this congregation.
Original liturgical compositions by cantors from Amsterdam and other Western Sephardi communities (London, Hamburg, Bayonne) are preserved in manuscripts and printed anthologies (Adler, 1989). After the opening of the impressive new synagogue in Amsterdam in 1675, both Jewish and non-Jewish composers were commissioned to write original works in Hebrew with instrumental accompaniment for religious festivals, usually cantatas in the Italian style of the 18th century (Adler, 1966). Among the most distinguished composers serving the Amsterdam community were C.J. Lidarti (1730–after 1793) and Abraham Caceres (fl Amsterdam, 1718–38). Melodies from these elaborated musical compositions from more than two centuries ago survived as monophonic liturgical melodies in the oral tradition (Adler, 1984). Another sign of the influence of art music on the Western Sephardi synagogues is the use of trained choirs in the services, a phenomenon that appeared for the first time in the 1820s in Bayonne, then in London (1830s) and Amsterdam (1875).
Jewish music, §III, 4: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Sephardi
The Sephardi communities in Italy are a special development within the Western diaspora. The oldest Sephardi community in Italy was established in Venice during the 16th century. The five melodies from the Venetian Sephardi tradition notated by Benedetto Marcello in his Estro poetico-armonico (1722–3) already testify to the influence of Eastern Sephardi traditions on the original Spanish-Portuguese layer. In the 18th century, the Sephardi centre in Italy moved from Venice to Livorno. Established by Portuguese Jewish conversos, this community rose into prominence among Sephardi Jews, attracting members from other communities around the Mediterranean rim; ex.17 shows a piyyut (‘Akh zeh ha-yom qiviti’) for Purim sung according to this Portuguese tradition.
The great synagogue in Livorno became a centre for musical activities in which choral music by Jewish composers was customarily performed by a trained ensemble; the antecedents of this practice lay in 17th-century Venice, Mantua and Ferrara in the work of Salamone Rossi (Harrán, 1987; 1989; 1999). Manuscripts of original choral music for three voices dating from the 19th century have survived. Psalms and pizmonim (Holy Day songs) comprise the majority of these choral settings. Michele Bolaffi (1768–1842) was the most distinguished Jewish composer active in Livorno during the first part of the 19th century. The use of organ accompaniment in Italian Sephardi synagogues is attested in rabbinical sources (Benayahu, 1987).
Jewish music, §III: Liturgical and paraliturgical
Precisely when Jews first began to settle in Yemen is not known, although evidence from a few historical findings shows that they had arrived there by the 4th century bce. Today, however, only a few hundred Yemenite Jews remain in the north of the country; most of the population now lives in Israel, following a series of organized emigrations, beginning with a few hundred families in 1881–2 and culminating in the mass emigration of about 50,000 people in 1949–50 immediately after the founding of the State of Israel. A small community has also been established in the USA. This article concentrates on the liturgical music of the Yemenite community as it now exists in Israel.
Although throughout their history Yemenite Jews maintained contact with the various leaders of the different Jewish centres around the world, in many respects their culture differs markedly from the other traditions. Its unique character seems to preserve some particularly ancient features, especially regarding the performance of the liturgy. Even in the modern society of Israel, where acculturation is a continuing process, the Yemenite Jews tend to live together and to form homogeneous communities, especially around their synagogues, where they go to considerable lengths to retain their distinct traditions.
The Yemenite liturgy is almost identical in its text and general form to most other Orthodox traditions, however, its unique character is revealed in three principal ways. (1) The Yemenite pronunciation of Hebrew and Aramaic texts clearly differentiates almost all the consonants and vowels; traditional pronunciations by other Jewish communities often pronounce several vowels or consonants in the same way. (2) The social and liturgical roles of the congregation and cantor are unlike those usually seen in the other Jewish traditions, with the former assuming a much broader role in its interaction with the cantor (especially in the Sabbath morning service). (3) The structure of the musical items, which arises from the liturgical function of each chant, is of a different character from the other traditions, reflecting the respective roles of congregation and cantor.
The chief characteristics of Yemenite liturgical music can be explained by an analysis of the Sabbath morning service. The first part, pasuge dhazimråh (pesuqei de-zimra), includes 22 biblical chapters – 18 from the Psalms, three from the books of Chronicles and Nehemiah, and the Song of the Sea (Exodus xv). Verses from the first three texts are sung by the congregation to a tune with a non-measured rhythm that is repeated for every verse. The singing is extremely heterophonic, as every individual feels free to sing at his own tempo using occasional ornaments and melismas while preserving the ‘kernel’ of the melody (i.e. the basic group of pitches organized into fixed melodic contours). However, for the Song of the Sea the character of the singing changes abruptly. The text is sung to a new melody, which is measured and consists mostly of two rhythmic values, the short being used for the non-stressed syllables and the long for the stressed. This tune is sung slowly and loudly by the whole congregation in complete unity, creating a ‘pluri-vocal’ effect that results from the gradual transposition of the melody by individuals who decide to lower the pitch by one tone or to raise it by a 5th and thereby cause the singers nearby to follow them. This produces the effect of a series of ‘chords’ built on the intervals of a 2nd or a 4th, as is shown in ex.18.
The second part of the service, shama‘ yisrå’el (shema‘ yisrael: Deuteronomy vi.5–9 and 41, xi.13–23; and Numbers xv.37–41), consists of three biblical chapters surrounded by four extensive post-biblical benedictions. The singing is performed in solo cantorial style using the first tune from the opening part of the service and stressing its non-measured rhythm by the use of frequent melismas. Only the initial biblical chapter, is sung by the congregation, slowly and loudly according to another syllabic tune. As in the first part, the importance of this text is further emphasized by the manner of performance, which differs markedly from that of the surrounding musical items.
The majority of the third part of the service – the ‘amidhåh (‘amidah) prayer, which in the Sabbath morning liturgy consists of seven blessings – is a cantorial solo song, sung to another non-measured melody that repeats for every verse. The singing of the birkat köhanim (priestly blessing), which occurs between the sixth and seventh benedictions of the ‘amidhåh, also includes a number of unique features. The text, composed of three biblical verses (Numbers vi.24–6), is performed to the same tune as the ‘amidhåh prayer itself but with every word sung according to the main motif ‘A’, the final pitch of which is the tonic (ex.19). The cantor chants the motif first and elaborates the melody constantly, it is then repeated by the priests, who sing its essential ‘kernel’ in a more rhythmic style in order to express their unity. The final words of the first two verses are sung to another melodic motif ‘H’, which functions, through its final pitch (the one below the tonic), as the ‘herald’ of the approaching cadence – the main motif ‘A’ – on which the response 'Åmen is sung by the congregation. The cadence of the third verse, which ends the entire blessing, is further emphasized by another ‘preparatory’ motif ‘P’, which precedes the ‘heralding’ one. A typical performance of the last four words of the third verse, together with the 'Åmen’ is given in ex.19.
The Yemenites also have a unique manner of performing the hallel, the fourth part of the service consisting of Psalms cxiii–cxviii that is added to the service after the ‘amidhåh on Festivals. The whole text is sung by the cantor to a special tune of non-measured rhythm, with the congregation responding hallaluyåh after every half-verse. This manner of performance appears to be of exceptional antiquity, being mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud: ‘… like an adult who reads the hallel (for a congregation) and they respond after him with the leading word’ (Sotah 30b). The Yemenites sing the first three syllables of this word syllabically while ‘-yå’, which is stressed, is sung to a long melisma. Thus, this musical structure, which is common to all the biblical texts sung by the congregation during the service, maintains the accurate pronunciation of the words. The congregational singing of the post-biblical piyyutim, however, often distorts the accentuation of the Hebrew because most of their tunes consist of repeated metric patterns that do not reflect the linguistic accent.
The fifth part of the service, the Torah readings, is also performed differently by the Yemenites. Instead of having one expert in charge of the cantillation, each member of the congregation is expected to know the recitation of the Pentateuch. According to an ancient custom, every verse recited by the adult reader is followed by its Aramaic translation (Öngalös), performed by a boy who has prepared himself for several weeks for the ‘job’. This Aramaic version (the ‘Boy's Tune’) is a simpler variant of the Hebrew Pentateuch melody (the ‘Adult's Tune’). The singing of the ‘Boy's Tune’ by an adult is considered insulting to the congregation, whereas the use of the ‘Adult's Tune’ by a boy is simply forbidden; in this way the traditional hierarchy of the Yemenite society is maintained.
The Yemenite Pentateuch cantillation is again a unique practice and one that is probably another remnant of ancient tradition. Unlike other Jewish communities, where each of the 28 cantillation signs – the ‘tropes’ – for the 21 biblical books (except Psalms, Proverbs and the poetic sections of Job) has its own fixed musical motif, the Yemenites sing the texts according to eight musical motifs, which set only those words ending textual clauses. The remaining words are sung to reciting tones, the organization of which depends on the talent of the individual reader. The musical structure of the eight motifs expresses the degree of the disjunctive strength a particular word possesses when ending a clause. This structural principle is common to all the tunes sung during the liturgical recitations of biblical texts, which include, besides the Pentateuch, chapters from the Prophets, and from the books of Esther, Lamentation, Ruth, the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes. Ex.20 gives an example of a Pentateuch musical phrase applied to a three-part verse (see also above, §III, 2(ii), ex.5).
This example demonstrates the tendency for the first part of any verse to be sung in a ‘simple’ manner, whereas as the cantor (or the Pentateuch reader) approaches the end of a verse the more developed (‘revered’) his singing of the motifs becomes.
Jewish music, §III: Liturgical and paraliturgical
The Jewish Babylonian tradition evolved in Babylonia (southern Mesopotamia; modern Iraq) following the destruction of the First Temple in 586 bce and the subsequent Jewish exile from the Kingdom of Judah (Palestine) to Babylon. It is thought that an earlier Jewish presence existed in northern Mesopotamia (now Iraqi Kurdistan) from about 720 bce, following the Assyrian exile of the population of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. There was a continuous Jewish presence in Babylon for over 2500 years, until the mass Jewish emigration to Israel in 1950–51, when the Iraqi government legally permitted Jews to leave the country permanently. Today, the Babylonian tradition continues mainly in Israel, England and North America, with diminishing communities in Iraq, India and East Asia.
The finest intellectual achievement of Babylonian Jewry was the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud (completed c6th–7th centuries ce), a religious and cultural work of enormous influence in Judaism, being the text adopted in preference to the Jerusalem Talmud and subsequently disseminated throughout the Jewish world. Babylonia was renowned for Jewish scholarship, its two principal academies, Sura and Pumbeditha, led by a succession of prominent geonim (sing. gaon: ‘excellency’). Iraq had already become the ‘foremost center of world Jewry two centuries before the Arab conquest’ of about 635 ce (Stillman, 1979, p.29). Baghdad, the new capital city founded in 762, maintained this leadership until the end of the geonic period (c11th century), when it ceased to be the spiritual and intellectual centre of world Jewry as communities in Egypt and the Iberian Peninsula gained prominence.
The Babylonian religious tradition (minhaġ babli) is Orthodox. Liturgical texts, which include prayers and hymns, are printed in prayer books or, in the case of public ‘reading’ (cantillation) of the Pentateuch and Prophets, handwritten on parchment scrolls. A few compilations of printed music notation exist in scholarly studies (Idelsohn, HoM, ii, 1922/R; Shiloah, 1983), but the musical performance remains an oral tradition, with the attendant variety in individual performances, coupled with a tenacity in maintaining its characteristic melodies across the boundaries of time and location.
Music in the Babylonian tradition generally corresponds to the norms of Arab music theory and performing practice. Liturgical music may be metred or unmetred. Biblical cantillation (ex.21) is unmetred and performed by a soloist – the cantor, another male member of the congregation or, occasionally, a young boy; in Eastern Jewish traditions it is customary for a boy, before he reaches the age of majority (13), to chant one of more portions from the week's reading of the Pentateuch and Prophets on the Sabbath. 13 modes were identified by Idelsohn (HoM, ii, 1922/R, pp.5–6) for the recitation of the Bible and prayers: Pentateuch, Prophets, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Qinot, Tefilla, Selihot (i) and Selihot (ii). Ex.21 is sung in the Arabic mode of segah with the distinctive three-quarter tone between its first and second degrees. The text includes the Masoretic accents (te‘amim), generally treated syllabically, with occasional melismas. The Hebrew transliteration shows the pronunciation typical of the Babylonian tradition, perhaps one of the most correct phonetically with regard to biblical Hebrew (for differing viewpoints, see Idelsohn, HoM, ii, 1992/R, pp.3, 31; and Shiloah – quoting Morag – 1983, p.10).
Chants, hymns and shbahoth (Judeo-Arabic: ‘praises’) – the Babylonian term for paraliturgical piyyutim (Avishur, 1990–91, p.127; Shiloah, 1983, p.7) – for Sabbaths, High Holy Days, penitential prayers (selihoth) and Festivals provide opportunities for enthusiastic congregational participation, whether the subject matter is laudatory or one of atonement. Chants (ex.22) are generally non-metrical, unrhymed texts comprising a sentence or short passage, which may be chanted by a soloist alone, by a soloist with congregational responses, or by the entire congregation throughout. The term ‘chant’ is used to cover a range of performance styles from ‘recitative’-like forms to those that employ a wider melodic span. Liturgical hymns (piyyutim; ex.23) generally have a regular metrical scheme and rhyme, and are set to metrical melodies. Hymns with a strongly melodic character are associated mainly with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Most congregational items are metrical, with rhythmic melodies usually ranging between a 5th and an octave. The songs are not harmonized, but because of individual differences in speed, pitch (leading to an organum-like effect), vocal timbre and ornamentation, the overall sound is characteristically heterophonic. The paraliturgical genres (shbahoth) include the baqqashoth (‘petitions’) and pizmonim (‘adorations and praise’, ‘refrains’) and are sung to metric melodies (ex.24). Pethihoth (‘openings’, ‘introductions’) are also religious texts that can be sung in an improvisatory (non-metrical) style to introduce a shbah and set its melodic mode. In Iraq the abu shbahoth (Judeo-Arabic: ‘father [expert] of shbahoth) sang both in the synagogue and at celebrations outside; he was accompanied by two or three other men, one perhaps playing a frame or other kind of drum (except on a Sabbath or major feast). Shbahoth are also performed in the home as ‘table hymns’ for the Sabbath or a festive meal.
Jewish music, §III: Liturgical and paraliturgical
Most Kurdish Jews inhabited the Iraqi ‘Kurdistan’ (Barazan, Mosul, Amadiya, Zakhu, Kirkuk) with a minority living in the Turkish and Syrian areas. According to ancient tradition these Jews are descendants of the Ten Tribes from the time of the Assyrian exile. They are first mentioned by the traveller Benjamin of Tudela (12th century ce). Solid information about the Kurdish Jews, however, dates only from the 16th century onwards. Emigration to Palestine began in the 1920s, and following the establishment of the State of Israel, almost all Kurdish Jews now live there.
The liturgical music of the Kurdish Jews, as it is now practised in Israel, like that of many other Jewish communities from the Middle East and Central Asia has been influenced by the Jerusalem-Sephardi style, which is close to their Arabic-influenced vernacular musical culture. However, several archaic liturgical traits may still be found in the repertory: various types of Hebrew psalmody are used, ranging from simple styles based on one or two axis pitches to more embellished ones that span over a tetrachord (these are sometimes performed responsorially, which is perhaps a remnant of pre-Masoretic traditions; Flender, 1992); the recitation of the Targum (Aramaic translation of the Bible) in a parlando style; and a particular form of biblical cantillation that does not conform to either the Tiberian system, which is widespread throughout the Jewish world, or the more indigenous Babylonian. The Kurdish Jews have a local tradition of composing and singing religious poetry (piyyutim) in Hebrew and Aramaic. The names and works of about 30 Kurdish Jewish liturgical poets are known from manuscript and printed sources but their poems are seldom performed.
Jewish music, §III: Liturgical and paraliturgical
(i) Caucasus (Mountain Jews and Georgia).
(iv) Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (Bukhara).
(v) India (Bene Israel, Cochini and Iraqi).
Jewish music, §III, 8: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Central and East Asia
The distinction between the Jews of the western Caucasus (Georgia) and the Eastern (Azerbaijan, Daghestan, and Chechen Republic) – the latter known as Mountain Jews – is fundamental, for they are both ethnically and linguistically distinct.
The liturgical music of the Georgian Jews has hardly been studied. It is thought to be a particularly ancient and unique tradition, although it has been substantially transformed during the last hundred years as a result of emigration. Most Georgian Jews who settled in Israel/Palestine from the early 20th century onwards adopted in their synagogues features of the Jerusalem-Sephardi style. In Georgia itself an Ashkenazi influence is now noticeable, resulting from the influx of Russian Jews to the area from the early 19th century and the training of Georgian rabbis in the academies of Lithuania. A survey of the musical repertory of the Georgian Jewish wedding as celebrated in modern Israel (Mazor, 1986) shows that the repertory includes traditional cantillation of biblical texts, psalmody in flexible and measured rhythm and piyyutim (in both psalmodic style in flexible rhythm and with measured melodies) as well as melodies from non-Jewish Georgian folksongs and dance tunes, hasidic and neo-hasidic tunes, ‘Oriental’ Israeli songs and tunes, and Israeli folksongs. Finally, not all Georgian Jews share the same musical traditions: research has uncovered differences between the practices of eastern and western Georgia.
The liturgical music of the Mountain Jews in the eastern Caucasus is extremely austere. It consists of simple recitation formulae in flowing rhythm by the cantor or in a responsorial manner between cantor and congregation. The range is narrow (up to a 5th) and most formulae are based on descending melodic figures. The simplicity of the liturgical music of the Mountain Jews strikingly contrasts with their rich musical traditions performed outside the synagogue. Remarkably, no musical element from the surrounding culture, such as the Azeri mugham, has permeated the synagogue repertory, as has happened in most Jewish communities throughout the Islamic world. This phenomenon suggests that the Caucasian synagogue may represent an ancient approach to the performance of the liturgy in which the role of music was less prominent.
Jewish music, §III, 8: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Central and East Asia
Research into the religious music of the Iranian Jews is a major desideratum. Key questions remain open, such as the relationships between the musical traditions of the different Jewish centres both within Iran itself (Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Yezd, Hamadan, Mashed) and in the other Persian-speaking Jewish communities (e.g. Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan), and the relationship between Jewish religious music and the secular and religious music of the surrounding Muslim populations.
Until the mid-19th century, Iranian Jewry, living in the rather hostile Shi‘a Muslim environment, was relatively isolated from the rest of the Jewish world, except for sporadic contacts with envoys from the Jewish community in Israel/Palestine. Their physical, economic and spiritual impoverishment awakened the interest of Jews in western Europe, who established the modern schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Tehran (1898) and other cities. Since the mid-19th century Iranian Jews have been exposed to manifold cultural influences, and the recognition of their constitutional rights in 1906 led to their increasing access to the surrounding non-Jewish Iranian culture, including music.
On the basis of the available knowledge, the liturgical music of the Iranian Jews in the 20th century comprises three fundamental styles: recitation formulae with flowing rhythms and a narrow range (usually a tetrachord); adaptations of non-Jewish Iranian melodies with steady beat; and Jerusalem-Sephardi melodies. The music of recitation formulae used for texts such as biblical passages (e.g. psalms; see above, §III, 2(ii), ex.4), prose prayers, and poems (e.g. dirges for Tish‘ah be-av), are determined by the structure of the text. They consist of repeated musical phrases comprising different numbers of motifs with fixed functions (e.g. opening, heralding of the cadence, cadential). This repetitive and narrow musical litany led Idelsohn to characterize the Iranian Jewish liturgy as ‘sad and painful’ (HoM, ii, 1922). The attempt to interpret these recitation formulae in terms of the Iranian dastgāh (Netzer, 1984), however, is conjectural. The adaptation of melodies from the classical dastgāh repertory and the vocal style of the āv¯z to the liturgical texts (especially to piyyutim) were frowned upon by religious authorities because such music distracts the attention of the singers from the text and diminishes the intensity of the religious experience. Nevertheless, this phenomenon increased throughout the 20th century, as Jews became more proficient in Iranian classical music. A feature characteristic of all Persian-speaking Jews is the singing of the tafsīr – the translation of religious poetry into Judeo-Persian (using Hebrew characters). The Hebrew poems with their tafsīr are compiled in books called dastakh, which sometimes include non-Jewish poetry as well.
Idelsohn already noticed the penetration of Sephardi musical and liturgical forms in his surveys of 1911 and 1921 among the Iranian Jewish immigrants in Jerusalem. The growing influence of Zionism in Iran led to an even closer relationship with the Sephardi traditions from Jerusalem, and Iranian Jews in Israel adopted the Sephardi paraliturgical repertories, such as the baqqashot. Despite this noticeable Sephardi influence, Loeb and Netzer were still able to record autochthonous melodies of liturgical and paraliturgical piyyutim from Shiraz and Isfahan in the late 1960s and early 1970s respectively. In the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution in the late 1970s, most Iranian Jews left Iran for the USA (especially California) and Israel where they perpetuate their musical traditions to the present.
Jewish music, §III, 8: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Central and East Asia
The emergence of the Jews who originate in the present-day state of Afghanistan as a distinct ethnic unit is a recent development. It took shape in the 20th century, mostly after the emigration of Jews from Herat and Kabul to Israel/Palestine. In reality, the Afghanistani Jewry has diverse origins, particularly Iranian (Persian) and Uzbeki. The religious music of the Jews of Herat is linked to that of the Jews of Mashed in north-east Iran. Many Jews flying from forced conversion to Islam during the Mashed persecutions of 1839 settled in Herat. In the religious music of the Jews from Kabul there are influences of Bukharan Jews who escaped from Bolshevik Russia and settled in Afghanistan as a temporary station on their way to Israel.
The liturgical music of the Afghanistani Jews, like that of the other Central Asian centres, is extremely simple. It consists of plain recitations with uncomplicated cadential patterns that enhance the articulation of the text. More complex melodies are found in the singing of piyyutim for the Sabbath and Holy Days; ex.25 shows a piyyut for a Holy Day service by the poet Shelomoh. Two principal types of melodies are used for the religious poetry: metric melodies resembling styles of popular Afghanistani music with some Indian influences; and melodies in flexible rhythm without fixed metre that recall the style of the Iranian avaz. Yet all the strophic melodies of the religious poems are simple, usually consisting of between one and four short phrases repeated throughout the poem. After emigration to Israel, Jews from Afghanistan adopted the more elaborate Jerusalem-Sephardi style of liturgical music (see above, §III, 11(i)).
Jewish music, §III, 8: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Central and East Asia
Jewish settlements in Central Asia were first established in Samarkand, Bukhara and Khwarezm (now in Uzbekistan), Balkh (now in Afghanistan) and Merv (now Mari, Turkmenistan), by Iranian Jews before Mongol invasions destroyed these cities in the 13th century. Jewish life in Samarkand and Bukhara was renewed during the Timurid era, which formally began in 1370. Although they share many musical features of the Iranian tradition, at the end of the 18th century Bukharan Jews (as Jews of Central Asia are commonly termed) adopted elements of Sephardi liturgical practice from a Moroccan rabbi, Yusuf Mamon Mogribi, who took up residence in Bukhara in an attempt to revive Jewish customs and traditions.
The different genres of liturgical music practised by Central Asian Jews show varying degrees of assimilation of local Muslim practices. The least assimilation is in biblical cantillation, as Idelsohn demonstrated in the first systematic documentation of the oral tradition of Jewish liturgical music from Central Asia (HoM, iii, 1922/R). Idelsohn's informants were emigrants living in Palestine, and his work established that Central Asian styles of cantillation follow the melodic contours governed by the Masoretic accents (te‘amim) and the modal configurations used by other ‘Oriental’ Jewish communities; ex.26 is an example of Bukharan Pentateuch cantillation. In contrast, among Jews still living in Central Asia prayer tunes, piyyutim and the chanting of the Sefer ha-zohar (Book of splendour) largely reflect the melodic and rhythmic characteristics of the (non-Jewish) Bukharan art song, in particular the Central Asian court music repertory known as shashmakom (‘six makom’). For example, the Sabbath song Deror yiqrah (ex.27) is set as a contrafactum to melodies from the shashmakom. Liturgical texts, however, are not accompanied by the frame drum, which is ubiquitous in art song, and are typically sung with more rubato than is present in art song. Bukharan Jewish musicians have also performed the shashmakom to Hebrew spiritual poetry and share a common repertory of spiritual songs with Muslims, although they ascribe the texts to biblical, rather than Islamic, sources.
Assimilation of Islamic music and chant into Jewish liturgical practice has been facilitated by the overlapping social and religious worlds of Muslims and Jews. For example, Jewish musicians have long been active as performers of art song among urban Muslims in Central Asia (see below, §V, 1).
Moreover, a number of these performers were chalas (hidden Jews), who outwardly practised Islam but secretly preserved Jewish ritual traditions. Certain non-canonical practices have been borrowed from Muslims, for example antiphonal funeral laments called haqqoni (from Arabic haqq: ‘truth’ – one of the names of God frequently invoked in Iranian Sufism), which are sung by men and resemble the tensed, high-tessitura katta ashula performed by a Muslim hāfiz during the Sufi ritual of dhikr, and shaydo-i ovoz (Persian: ‘chant of one possessed’), a rhythmic funeral chant led by a professional female mourner (guyanda) with refrain singing provided by other female mourners. When the deceased has not witnessed the wedding of a son or daughter, shaydo-i ovoz may assume a highly emotional form, often accompanied by drumming.
Among paraliturgical practices, the chanting of the Sefer ha-zohar is an important element of synagogue worship and provides one of the main vehicles for the display of cantorial talent (ex.28). Excerpts from the Sefer ha-zohar are chanted not only at the start of morning and afternoon services, but in the home during Sabbath meals, and on occasions commemorating the dead. Singers use different melodic modes and melodies to adapt the performance of the Sefer ha-zohar to these various occasions, and successive verses are often performed in turn by different singers, each striving to display vocal virtuosity in a kind of undeclared competition.
Other popular forms of paraliturgical song include a large corpus of Sabbath hymns (Heb. shi'ra), songs for Holy Days, among which Purim, Simhat Torah, and Pesah are especially rich, and festive dance-songs performed at life-cycle celebrations known generically as toi, especially at marriages or circumcisions. In Bukhara and Samarkand, groups of female Jewish entertainers (sozanda) operated like a guild, singing and dancing at both Jewish and Muslim tois, and accompanying themselves on frame drums (dâyra) and stone castanets (qayrak). All these forms of paraliturgical singing share a tendency towards the alternation of solo verse and choral refrain, encouraging communal participation in music-making.
With the increasing freedom to practise their religion that accompanied the break-up of the Soviet Union, Bukharan Jews came under the influence of missionaries from the hasidic Lubavitcher sect, who introduced changes intended to bring the Bukharan liturgy in line with Orthodox practices. At the same time, many Bukharan Jews emigrated from Central Asia to New York and Tel-Aviv.
By the end of the 20th century, Central Asian liturgical traditions were arguably more alive in Tel-Aviv and New York than in Transoxania.
Jewish music, §III, 8: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Central and East Asia
By the 20th century the Jewish population in India comprised a variety of extremely diverse communities of different (and sometimes obscure) origins and with distinct musical traditions. The basic groups are the Jews of Cochin (Kerala), the Bene Israel (‘Sons of Israel’) and the Iraqi (Babylonian) Jews. Although the musical traditions of these communities have been studied in recent years, much still remains to be done.
The religious music of the Jews of Cochin reflects the complex history of this community, which is internally subdivided into the Paradesi, or ‘white’ Jews (Portuguese, Syrian and Ashkenazi Jews who settled in Cochin from the 16th century onwards) and the Malabari, or ‘black’ Jews (descendants of the original Jewish population of the area). Several influences may be detected in their religious music and poetry, especially notable is a Yemenite layer. However, there is no noticeable influence of Indian music from the surrounding culture, although a possible relationship with the music of the Syriac Church in Kerala still needs to be explored. The Cochini liturgy also includes folk melodies known as ‘Shingli’ tunes (after the Jewish name for Cranganur, where the original Jewish settlement of Kerala was located until the 16th century).
The traveller Moses Pereyra de Paiva visited the Cochini community in the mid-17th century while on a mission on behalf of the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam, and later described its musical life, stressing the use of instruments to accompany the singing of the liturgy (Notisias dos judíos de Cochin, Amsterdam, c1687; Portuguese trans. by M.B. Amzalak, Lisbon, 1923); unfortunately the nature of these instruments is not known. The prayerbooks and manuscripts brought by Pereyra de Paiva from Amsterdam as a gift to support their eroding religious life had a permanent influence on the religious repertory of the Cochini Jews. However, no Portuguese Jewish musical influence may be detected in the present-day oral tradition. Of particular interest are the piyyutim in the Sephardi style brought to India from the 16th century by Jewish emigrants from Yemen and later from the Ottoman Empire (particularly Syria). Local Cochini Jewish poets also began to compose new songs following the Sephardi models. These religious songs were collected in manuscripts and printed anthologies that are still used today. An exceptional feature is the participation of Cochini women who are versed in Hebrew in the singing of this religious poetry in the synagogue. Almost all the Jews from Cochin emigrated to Israel in the 1950s, settling in agricultural communities where their religious musical traditions are tenaciously perpetuated.
The Bene Israel trace their mythical origins to Jews who settled in India either in the time of King Solomon or after the persecutions of the Jews by Greek King Antiochus from 175 to 163 bce. They settled in Bombay and its environs after the British conquest of this city in 1661. Before the 18th century the Bene Israel had extremely tenuous links with normative Judaism, but they returned to more traditional religious observance under the influence and coaching of immigrant Cochini Jews. Most of the Bene Israel moved to Israel in 1948 settling in several cities, especially Lod, where their central synagogue is now located. Their liturgical music is based on a set of modes, each of which is reserved for a specific occasion (Krut-Moscovich, 1986). Two main styles of performance are employed in the synagogue – ‘straight singing’ (phrases in syllabic style made up of simple motifs of three to four notes) and ‘singing with melody’ (elaborated versions of the same motifs and phrases in melismatic style); both styles employ a flowing rhythm. Religious poems in Hebrew and Marāthī are performed outside the synagogue, sometimes to the accompaniment of the portable harmonium and the bulbultarang that were adopted from Indian music. A special genre of religious songs is the kīrtan, poetic paraphrases of biblical stories, both in Hebrew and Marāthī, performed by a singer called kīrtankār.
Iraqi Jews settled in Bombay and Calcutta from the early 19th century, especially after the religious persecutions of 1825–35 in Baghdad, and reached a peak population of 5000 in the 1940s. Despite the birth of several generations of Indian-born Iraqi Jews, this community maintained a fierce attachment to its original Baghdadi ancestry. Thus, their religious music, especially the singing of religious poetry (pizmonim) is in fact a branch of the Iraqi tradition (see above, §III, 6). Since the independence of India from British rule, Jews of Bombay and Calcutta have emigrated to Great Britain and the USA.
Jewish music, §III, 8: Liturgical and paraliturgical: Central and East Asia
Although Jews are known to have lived in what is now China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region from as early as the 8th century ce, the most lastingly influential of all Jewish groups was that which came from India or Persia and settled in Kaifeng (once capital of Henan Province) between the 10th and 12th centuries. Completely isolated from other Jewish centres and absorbed into the surrounding Chinese Han and Islamic environment, this community went into decline during the 17th century and within about 200 years had effectively disappeared. From the mid-19th century, modern Jewish communities were established in concession cities (e.g. Shanghai, Harbin, Tianjin and Hong Kong) by British-Iraqi Jewish merchants from India, and immigrants from Russia, especially after the 1917 Revolution. However, the greatest influx of Jews into Shanghai resulted from Nazi persecution. All the modern communities, except those in Hong Kong, began to disintegrate after 1949.
Information concerning the Kaifeng Jewish community comes from local inscriptions and eye-witness reports of Christian missionaries. Although little is known about its music, brief and tantalizing observations have been made, often with vague and ambiguous terminology. The first Kaifeng synagogue was built in 1163. It was called a ‘mosque’ by the local people and looked from the outside like a typical Chinese Buddhist or Taoist temple. In its heyday, the Sabbath, Pesah and most other solemn occasions (except Hanukkah) were strictly observed, and the three periods of daily prayer were also kept. But there was also a powerful Chinese influence in rituals, the most indicative being the worship of the ancestors of the Jews, which took place in the synagogue twice a year.
In the 12th century Persian was the vernacular language of the Kaifeng community, and the overall character of the ritual was similar to that of the Persian Jews, with part of the piyyutim of Rabbi Sa‘adyah Gaon (882–942) and all rubrics (except for a few prayers and songs in Aramaic) recited in Persian, and with the schedule for reading the Torah and the 54 divisions of the Pentateuch following the Persian scheme. Some rituals, however, were very similar to those of the Yemenite Jews (e.g. Pesah Hagadah). The ritual followed talmudic prescriptions: the faithful prayed aloud or silently, and the Hebrew readings (pronounced with a Chinese accent as well as Chinese melodic intonation) were chanted without instrumental accompaniment. Wearing blue head-dresses and taking off their shoes, the worshippers stepped and bend forwards and backwards and bowed to the left and right as they intoned certain portions of the liturgy. A ‘monitor’ (a manla, from Arabic mullah), stood by the hazzan and corrected the reading or chanting. Where necessary, the manla was likewise attended by another monitor. The hazzan in Kaifeng was also a rabbi; originally he was known as an ustād (Persian), but later as a zhang-jiao (Chinese-Islamic). Processional rituals, especially the festival of Simhat Torah, are known to have been celebrated with the chanting of prayers. To call worshipper to pray, the leader of the synagogue would beat a jade chime (fig.17), a gong of black marble or a pair of wooden clappers – all typical Chinese Buddhist temple instruments. This practice, however, is paralleled among Chinese Muslim muezzins, who, in some cases, summon the faithful with the above instruments instead of the human voice.
Among the four Jewish communities in Shanghai, the British-Iraqis, especially during the 19th century, strictly adhered to the traditional Sephardi practice, taking instructions on religious customs directly from Baghdad. Their chant featured responsorial and perhaps even choral singing. The liturgy of the Russian Jews in Shanghai originally followed Sephardi practice, but it was later completely taken over by more Orthodox elements from the Polish refugees in the early 1940s. The majority of the Austro-German refugees, from the Reformist Liberal synagogue, created a congregation of their own, and employed the harmonium, a mixed male choir and even female soloists in their services. After 1938 there were about 20 hazzanim active in both Sephardi and Ashkenazi services; they formed the Gemeinshaft jüdischer Kantoren Shanghai in 1939.
The Jewish community in Hong Kong, the only one now surviving in China, are mainly of Iraqi and European origin, most belonging to the Orthodox denomination. Ohel Leah, built in 1901, is the only synagogue holding regular services in East Asia.
Jewish music, §III: Liturgical and paraliturgical
The community today known as the Ethiopian Jews has historically been known in Ethiopia itself by two names, ‘Beta Israel’ (‘House of Israel’) and ‘Falasha’. Thought to descend from indigenous Agau peoples, the Ethiopian Jewish community apparently emerged out of a complex interaction with Judaized Ethiopian Christian monks in the 14th and 15th centuries. The first, isolated reference to the Beta Israel occurs in a 15th-century Ethiopian source; subsequent evidence proliferates only from the 16th century onwards. There is no documented contact between the Beta Israel and Jews of other traditions before the mid-19th century, and sustained relationships with other Jewish communities began only in the early 20th century.
The textual, liturgical and musical content of the traditional Beta Israel liturgy, the outcome of the complex Beta Israel history in Ethiopia (itself the subject of a vast literature), varies significantly from universal Jewish models; its origins seem to lie in traditions inherited from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (see Ethiopia, §II). No literary or musical genres corresponding to the piyyut and related paraliturgical chants were known in the Beta Israel community, nor was there any cyclical recitation of the Bible. The liturgical texts, which can be dated from the 14th century onwards, are in classical Ethiopic (Ge‘ez), which was also shared by the Christian Church, occasionally interspersed with an indigenous Cushitic language (Agau); no Hebrew was known or used by the Beta Israel until its introduction by Western Jews in the mid-20th century. The Beta Israel observed a short morning ritual (sebhata negh) and evening service (wāzēmā) daily, as well as more elaborate liturgies beginning well before dawn on annual Holy Days and extending through the night on important fasts.
While there are prayer texts preserved in manuscripts and a small Beta Israel literature (non-liturgical), the liturgy and its music was learnt and performed exclusively as a sung oral tradition. Until the 20th century, liturgical transmission was guided primarily by Beta Israel monks and performed by specially trained musicians (dabtarā). With the decline of these divisions of the clergy, responsibility for liturgical and religious practice was assumed by ordained priests (qēs), who performed all the music. By the 20th century the male congregation could not participate actively because they did not understand Ge‘ez. Traditionally women played no role in Beta Israel worship.
Beta Israel liturgical melodies, known as zēmā, supported the performance of lengthy, primarily strophic, texts paraphrasing the Bible and the Psalms. As late as the 1970s, Beta Israel priests still performed the complete liturgy in village prayerhouses and were able to name three categories of zēmā, two of which (kaffettaññā: ‘high’, ‘lofty’, and qwāmi: ‘steady’, ‘usual’) could be defined through ethnographic observation and analysis of recordings. Kaffetaññā zēmā is based on a hemitonic pentatonic pitch set, while qwāmi zēmā may be described as outlining a series of 3rds of variable inflection. Ex.29 is a transcription of the prayer ‘Kalhu kwellu malā’ekt’ (‘All the angels proclaimed’); set in qwāmi zēmā it is sung before dawn as part of the Night Office on weekdays, Sabbaths and Holy Days (it also occurs in the Ethiopian Orthodox church liturgy).
Except on the Sabbath and fast days, much of the liturgy was accompanied by a repeated five-beat rhythm played on the kettledrum (nagārit) and metal gong (qachel); some prayers are sung in a free rhythm. Unison or heterophonic textures dominated the liturgy, often performed in antiphony; on Holy Days the priests sometimes joined together in liturgical dance.
Changes in Beta Israel religious life throughout the 20th century culminated in the migration of the entire community to Israel by the early 1990s. Active transmission of the musical liturgy in Israel is limited. Excerpts are occasionally performed by elderly clergy in private and at public events, but most Ethiopian Jews have tended to join existing synagogues and to adopt the Hebrew liturgy.
Studio recordings have been made in Israel at the National Sound Archives of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A few published recordings and a collection of field tapes deposited in the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music provide documentation of the Beta Israel musical tradition during its final decades in Ethiopia. Recent research on the Ethiopian Christian zēmā provides further insights into musical and liturgical concepts and structures once shared by the Beta Israel.
Jewish music, §III: Liturgical and paraliturgical
In the 8th century ce Judaism was split by a schism into Karaites (named from miqra, the Hebrew designation of the Bible) who upheld the teaching of the Old Testament alone as emanating from divine provenance, and Rabbanites, who regarded later interpretations in the Mishnah and the Talmud as sacred sequels of the Bible.
Although Jerusalem was the holy centre of Karaite Judaism, other Karaite communities also flourished from the Middle Ages, mostly in Byzantium and later in Turkey, the Crimea, Poland and Egypt. In Egypt during the rule of Muhammad Ali (1805–48) and especially after the British occupation in 1882 the ancient community of Cairo increased in size and emerged as the largest Karaite population, attracting immigrants from Istanbul and the Crimea, such as Hakham (‘the Wise’) Tovia Babovitch. World War II brought about the dispersal of the Karaite communities in eastern Europe. The number of committed Karaite Jews has dwindled during the past few centuries to about 40,000 worldwide.
The Karaites of Cairo developed a cohesive community around the synagogue at the Harat el Yahud (‘Jewish Quarter’) and a second synagogue opened in the Abassiyeh Quarter in 1931. The musical tradition of the Karaites is entirely liturgical and paraliturgical, that is, there is no ‘secular’ Karaite music. The Cairo community claimed that its musical heritage was markedly different from that of the surrounding Egyptian culture, though mutual influences were frequent. Most salient was the case of the Karaite musician Da’ud Husni (1876–1937), who acquired national fame with his operas and songs, some sung by Umm Kulthum. Husni's songs were set both to Arabic secular texts and to Karaite paraliturgical rhymed poetry. The nature of the relationships between the musical heritage of the Karaites of Cairo and that of mainstream Egyptian music still awaits systematic study.
The deterioration of political relations between Egypt and Israel in 1948 led to the persecution and eventual expulsion of the entire Cairo community between 1950 and 1970. Most Karaites settled in Israel, where they received religious autonomy and established their centre in Ramlah, and the ancient ‘Anan Ben-David shrine in Jerusalem was restored. A smaller group settled in the USA, where an active and well-organized community has developed in the San Francisco Bay area. Such radical displacement has put the future existence of world Karaism in jeopardy, and the preservation and reconstruction of the musical heritage has become an important factor in unifying the community.
The Karaite prayerbook (siddur) is completely different in structure from those of the Rabbanite Jews, although many verses are shared. The Karaite siddur consists mostly of verses from the Scriptures, especially from the Psalms, to which piyyutim were gradually added. An important element in the Karaite prayers and customs is mourning for the destruction of the Temple. The siddur is the same for all Karaite Jews, yet the orally transmitted musical traditions differ from one centre to another. So far the music of only the Cairo community has been documented and studied, although sporadic recordings of less accessible or disbanded centres are kept in the National Sound Archives (Jerusalem) and elsewhere.
The Karaite service is held twice daily, morning and evening. Services on the Sabbath and on High Holy Days are much longer and elaborate. Whereas the texts were canonized in the siddur, the music was orally transmitted. The verb signifying cantillation is le-nagen (‘to inflect the tune’) hence the use of the noun nigun signifying recurring patterns of intervals, unlike its meaning in hasidic music. The nigunim can be loosely defined as modes, although there is no strict modal system in Karaite cantillation. The siddur contains frequent rubrics referring to modal change, such as nigun galut (‘exile mode’) for sad texts, or simply vetakhlif (‘change’ the tune). Most of the service is chanted in responsorial style, that is, the cantor and the congregation alternate verses or half-verses, in accordance with the parallel structure of the Psalms. In fewer cases, mostly in lamentations, the congregation keeps repeating the first verse as a litany while the cantor proceeds through the chapter.
The cantor prays standing on the carpeted floor facing the shrine of the Torah Scroll and the members all stand in rows behind him. There are distinctions between the weekday mode (ex.30), the mode for the Sabbath, and the exile mode for lamentation (ex.31). The exile mode differs from the weekday mode not only in its intervallic patterns but also in its much wider melodic range. The cantor varies the melody in accordance with the number of syllables and his individual way of stressing important words, whereas the alternating response of the congregation remains unchanged. A few climactic sections are rendered as metric choral songs, such as the Song of the Sea (ex.32). The weekly portions of the Torah are recited according to the Karaite system of Masoretic accents.
The Karaites employ no professional cantors. Rabbis lead most services, yet any competent lay member may be invited to act as celebrant. Notable members of the congregation are entrusted with chanting certain important verses or blessings. Women never lead the service and they pray from an enclosed area in the back of the synagogue, although a prominent woman may frequently be entrusted with an important verse in the course of the service. No instruments are ever used in the synagogue.
The dispersal of the Cairo Karaites into eight communities in Israel has inevitably led to the emergence of local variants. The religious leaders have attempted to maintain a central tradition by organizing festive services, such as the traditional gathering in Jerusalem at Pesah and at Sukkot, as well as by seminars for rabbinical candidates and summer camps for the youth.
The Karaite paraliturgical songs (siddur, iv) are rhymed poems (piyyut) sung on many occasions of the life cycle, such as following the liturgical wedding ceremony. Many of the old tunes were lost in the trauma of the expulsion from Cairo, although young Karaite rabbis have recovered a few from older members of the community and private recordings, such as the slow, ornamental song preserved in a recording by the venerable rabbi Lieto Nono (ex.33). Yet most Karaites have preferred a more recent and livelier version for the same poem (ex.34). The Karaite folk composer Moshe Baruch Tanani (1927–98) invented new melodies approved by the Chief Rabbis. These tunes became popular among Karaites in Israel, but gained no foothold in the San Francisco community. They reveal external influences, for example Ya petah na follows the symmetrical rhythmic dance pattern and the accompaniment with finger drumming typical of many hasidic dance songs (ex.35). At the end of the 20th century Tanani was the only new composer in the community. In 1997 the Karaites also founded the Ahva youth choir which has performed on many occasions and recorded a selection of the paraliturgical melodies arranged for choir with rhythm group.
Jewish music, §III: Liturgical and paraliturgical
The consolidation and imposition of the ‘Jerusalem-Sephardi’ style of liturgical music has been the main development in 20th-century Israel. This style is based on the Arabic maqāmāt of the modern Middle Eastern urban music that has replaced the Turkish makamlar, reflecting the growing importance of Palestine, and specifically of Jerusalem, as the liturgical music centre of modern Sephardi Jewry. The ‘Jerusalem-Sephardi’ style incorporates older layers of the Ottoman Sephardi traditions from Turkey and Syria (particularly Aleppo), combined with new melodies adopted from current Egyptian art and popular music (e.g. by Muhammad ‘Abd al-Wahhāb and Farīd al-Atrash). Sephardi cantors, many of whom are now trained in formal schools of cantors in Israel, are expected to conduct the liturgy using the Arabic maqāmāt (see Mode, §V, 2) and to be acquainted with new Arabic songs released on the market in order to incorporate them into the services. Each service, especially the complex Sabbath morning liturgy, is based on a single maqām. During the course of the service, the cantor adapts the maqām to different musical genres: for the fast recitation of texts in prose he uses only the basic tetrachord and cadential patterns of the maqām; for the singing of opening or closing texts of key sections in the liturgy he may develop a mawwwāl, an elaborated improvisation in which the entire range of the maqām is explored and modulations to other maqāmāt appear; finally, poetic sections are set by the cantor (with the congregation joining him on the refrain or throughout the song) to metric melodies in the maqām of the service.
The Jerusalem-Sephardi style developed around the élite rabbinical academics of Jerusalem and has been adopted in Israel by most non-Sephardi ‘Oriental’ Jews (e.g. Iranian, Kurdish, Bukharan, Iraqi, Yemenite) because of its social prestige and musical appeal. Distinguished Jerusalem-Sephardi cantors are generally of non-Sephardi origin. Some, such as Asher Mizrahi, Mordechai Halfon and Rahamim Amar, were also composers of original pieces for soloist and choir. This style has also influenced considerably the liturgical practices of the entire Sephardi diaspora since World War II via wandering cantors from Jerusalem and, more recently, through the use of cassettes, compact discs and videos produced in Israel.
Further impetus to the Jerusalem-Sephardi style was provided by the custom of the paraliturgical baqqashot. Originating in the Ottoman tradition (see above, §III, 4(ii)), the baqqashot developed in the city of Aleppo (Syria) in the second half of the 19th century and was sanctioned in Jerusalem in the early 20th. It consists of the singing of Hebrew poems early on Sabbath mornings during winter. The poems are mostly set to Arabic melodies, particularly muwashshahāt, and are performed antiphonally by two choirs. Each poem is in a different maqām and they are linked to each other by psalm verses which the soloists in each choir use as modulatory bridges between the maqāmāt. Proficiency in the singing of the Jerusalem-Sephardi baqqashot is considered as a high musical achievement for any cantor in Israel today. The drive to perform these (and other) sacred poems with instrumental accompaniment (forbidden on Sabbaths) led to the development of concerts of Sephardi religious poetry and cantorial music held on weekdays.
In North Africa, the French and Italian colonial protectorates (beginning in Algeria in the 1830s) exposed the Jews of the urban centres of the Maghrib to Western styles of music as well as to modern popular Arabic music. This exposure led to the development of modern popular Arabic music among Jews and its emergence as a distinct influence in their liturgy. A major source of this influence was the schools of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a network of secular vocational schools promoted by French Jews. Musical elements from the 19th-century synagogues of Paris, for example the use of trained choirs and original compositions, were adopted. A prayer book, Sefer tehilloth yisrael (1906), printed by Joseph Cohen of the ‘progressive’ Portuguese community in Tunis, contains notations of melodies by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer and Rossini, amid Maghribi and Middle Eastern popular songs, all set to liturgical texts. Ashkenazi musical influences on the Sephardi liturgy in North Africa resulted from the activities of the Habad and the religious Zionist movements in these areas. The impact of Egyptian popular music on the Maghrib also affected the Sephardi Jews of North Africa. Following this impact, the Jerusalem-Sephardi style exercised a major influence in the Maghrib. The famous Jerusalemite cantor and composer Asher Mizrahi (1890–1967), who served in Tunis from 1929, was the major representative of this style in North Africa. Despite the ongoing Jerusalemite influence on Maghribi cantors in Israel, their particular style and repertory (based on Andalusian modes and melodies) is still heard in the synagogues of towns in Israel where the majority of the population is North African, as well as in synagogues of Maghribi Jews in France, the USA and Canada.
The towering figure of Rabbi David Buzaglo (d 1975), a Hebrew poet and expert in the Moroccan Andalusian tradition, was crucial to the survival of the main baqqashot tradition in Morocco and later in Israel, to where he emigrated in 1965. Like his Arabic contemporaries in Morocco, Rabbi Buzaglo widened his musical horizons by adopting contemporary Egyptian music into his repertory, setting new Hebrew songs to popular Egyptian, as well as Algerian and Tunisian melodies.
20th-century developments, especially those after 1950, are characterized by many innovations in American Jewish musical content and liturgical performing practice. All have been influenced by three watershed historical events: the culmination, around 1920, of the mass migration of central European Jews to the USA; the annihilation of most of the remaining European Jewish community by 1945 in the Holocaust; and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. One important outcome was a renewed emphasis upon Hebrew language worship pronounced in a Sephardi style; another was the institutionalization of American Jewish religious musical life by three denominations, including the founding in 1947 of the School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College, New York (Reform), the Cantor's Institute in 1951 at the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative), and the Cantorial Training Institute in 1954 at Yeshiva University, New York (Orthodox). Cantorial schools provided settings in which liturgical continuity and purposeful change subsequently interacted, ranging from a shift from the German to the east European tradition following World War II (Schleifer, 1995, p.62) to the introduction of the female cantor in the 1970s. The professionalization of the cantorate, the emergence of the cantor-scholar and the open discussion of musical values and change at annual meetings and in sectarian publications have served to reposition much of the debate about musical innovation and change, extending it to the musical practitioners themselves, as well as rabbinical circles. At the same time, widespread interest remains in cantorial singing and its repertory, a tradition that has its roots in the ‘Golden Age’ of cantorial performances and recordings of the first half of the 20th century (Schleifer, 1995, pp.66–7).
Pluralism in American religious life has encouraged diversity in the American Jewish community, leading to multiple streams of Jewish musical tradition, most of which are centred in synagogues that serve both religious and social needs. Musical practice in the Reform Movement has been deeply influenced by the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, which brought openly experimental performing practices, including dance, into many synagogues (Shelemay, 1987). The compositions of Jeff Klepper and Debbie Friedman have gained an enthusiastic following, and through their accessibility, have spurred an increase in congregational singing. While many Reform (and some Conservative) synagogues continue to use a choir accompanied by an organ to perform the liturgy, the number of new art music compositions, as well as the special occasions on which they are performed (such as the annual Friday Evening Liturgical Music Service mounted by the Park Avenue Synagogue of New York City), appear to have declined since 1980.
Innovations have also taken place in more traditional quarters. The Havurah, usually considered a ‘traditionalizing trend’ shaped by the 1960s counter culture, is credited with inventing a practice of using traditional chants for Torah cantillation with English texts (Weissler, pp.2, 17). While the value placed upon the maintenance of tradition has limited large-scale liturgical and musical innovation in the Orthodox domain, the popular music of Israel and the USA has had a major impact on various Orthodox and hasidic practices. Many techniques are used to refresh the liturgy, such as the Syrian Jewish practice of improvising melodies in the Arabic maqāmāt. American synagogues have continued the time-tested practice of incorporating familiar secular or popular melodies into their liturgies. A prominent source of borrowings from the late 20th-century onwards has been Israeli folksongs, such as ‘Jerusalem of Gold’, which is widely used to set the qaddish prayer in American synagogues of all denominations. Similarly, a wide array of American musical forms provide rich resources for liturgical contrafacta, allowing melodies to cross boundaries in unexpected ways. Lubavitcher Hasidim have used the melody from a popular soft-drink commercial to compose a new nigun, while Syrian Jews have adapted American show tunes and patriotic songs for paraliturgical and liturgical use. Many American synagogues stage elaborate Holy Day rituals with colourful musical content, such as the integration of popular American tunes into the Simhat Torah observance at the Tremont Avenue Shul in Boston.
2. Folksongs in Jewish languages.
Jewish music, §IV: Non-liturgical music
Jewish folk music emerges from the dialectic between two contrasting conditions in Jewish culture and history, and the response of music to these conditions. It functions either to maintain and reproduce what is essentially Jewish or to interact with and transform the non-Jewish. Definitions of Jewish folk music, therefore, stress its ability to express internal traits or to change in accordance with external traits. These definitions, however, are themselves contested, and they produce considerable disagreement in both theory and practice. The concern over the definitions of Jewish folk music reflects constantly changing relations between Jewish culture in the Diaspora and that in Israel, as well as the fragile framework characterizing the debates over what is and is not Jewish.
The dialectic underlying definitions of Jewish folk music extends to a broad range of musical concepts and practices. At one extreme, folk music is local, transitional and specific to a community or place. The languages or dialects in which it may be sung and the customs with which it is associated are similarly local and shared entirely neither by other Jewish communities nor by non-Jewish cultures. In contrast, some definitions argue that folk music must be globally present to be truly Jewish. Repertories should extend across community and linguistic boundaries in order to express a core of customs linking the Jews as a people.
The elements of Jewish folk music bear witness to this conceptual and definitional dialectic: song texts may be in Jewish (e.g. Hebrew or Ladino) or non-Jewish languages (e.g. Russian or Arabic); song contexts may be sacred or secular; performing practices may require an insider's knowledge or an experience outside the community; repertories may be shared by many in a community or highly specialized; song and instrumental music may fall into entirely different cultural domains.
Concepts of Jewish folk music reflect the historical ambivalence or conflict about Jewish music in general. Orthodox religious interpretation may hold that music abstracted from text, notably instrumental music, should not be allowed in the synagogue or elsewhere. Strictly speaking, folk music that reveals influences from non-Jewish contexts becomes inappropriate, if not suspect. Such concepts may exclude instrumental practice, for example, and excoriate specialized musicians. Strict definitions often go one step further, actually redefining acceptable practices by insisting on an unbroken connection to biblical practices or pre-diasporic repertories. Early 20th-century scholars such as A.Z. Idelsohn (1914–32/R) and J. Schönberg (1926) applied traditional concepts of folksong to Jewish repertories to various degrees, arguing that oral transmission had undergirded historical connections to the distant past, further lending folksong great age. As Jewish folk music was redefined for modern purposes it retained also its local qualities and contexts for the family, ritual and community. New definitions, for example those stressing the possibility of Israeli nationalism (Nathan, 1994), stressed and expanded the potential for folk music to be Jewish.
Jewish folk music lends itself to definition only in relation to concepts and practices of folk music in the larger cultures of which a given community is a part. Folksong in eastern Europe, for example, differs conceptually from that in central Europe, as does that in North Africa from practices in the Middle East or Central Asia. Ashkenazi and Sephardi concepts of folk music differ greatly. Within Sephardi folksong, moreover, distinctions may result from connections to Iberian narrative genres or the interaction of Balkan and Turkish practices with the musics of Muslim neighbours (Katz, 1972–5).
There are many ways that the Jewishness of folk music is maintained from within. Text plays a particularly important role in defining the inside of Jewish traditions. Songs with texts in Jewish languages strengthen the inside and hinder oral tradition from extending beyond Jewish practices. History, especially the connectedness of the Jewish present to Israel, is a persistent internal trait for many repertories. Historical connectedness may also assume local forms, as in the pilgrimage songs of Iraqi Jewish women, the Judeo-Arabic texts of which articulate links to the shrines of ancestors (Avishur, 1987). Folk music synchronically serves as a means of using Jewishness to negotiate the connections between private, semi-public and public spheres in Jewish society, thus spinning a musical and cultural web of which family, synagogue and everyday community experiences are equally a part.
Folk music indexes many of the confrontations between Jewish and non-Jewish traditions, and it thereby participates in the negotiations between self and other. Throughout the Diaspora Jewish folk music regularly absorbs non-Jewish components, for example language, melodic structures, or scalar and modal forms, as Moisey Beregovsky (1892–1961) observed in his studies of Ashkenazi folk music in Russia and Ukraine (Slobin, 1982). Looking for music in isolation on the island of Djerba, Tunisia, during the 1920s, Robert Lachmann discovered instead that the folk music of Jewish communities was indistinguishable from that of the surrounding Muslim and Maghribi cultures (1940; repr. 1978). Folk music in Middle Eastern Jewish communities makes full use of the modal systems of the region, for example maqām in Syrian and Egyptian Jewish repertories. The dance forms of the Ashkenazi klezmer ensembles (e.g. the widespread doina from Romanian folk music) similarly locate Jewish practices in the midst of non-Jewish traditions (Salmen, 1991). Border-crossing sometimes proceeds so far that it negates the boundaries between inside and outside, for example in the ballad, Die Jüdin (‘The Jewish Girl’), which appears in the standard German ballad repertory and in Yiddish variants (see Ginsburg and Marek, 1901/R; Bohlman, 1992).
To some extent the definitional dialectic marks the distinction between folksong and folk music. Broadly derived from folksong and folk-music scholarship since Herder, this distinction is particularly important in Jewish practices. Concepts of folksong often reflect the internal markers of identity, especially language and liturgical function; concepts of folk music, especially folk dance, reflect external markers. Folksong results from everyday practice; folk music is possible only because of specialization and professionalism.
Creativity and composition play a particularly powerful role in concepts of Jewish folksong. As it is usually understood, however, composition is a matter of creating the new from the old. Pizmonim (Heb., sing. pizmon) form a genre of songs composed for special occasions, often in the life cycle, by utilizing pre-existing materials, often combining them in especially creative ways (Shelemay, 1988). Collecting and anthologizing folksong, which results from the widespread cultural motivation to remember and conserve the past, usually involves recomposition in one form or another, such as settings for piano and voice or mixed chorus (Nadel, 1937; Rubin, 1950; Nathan, 1994). The historiography of Jewish folksong may be calibrated according to the moments when conscious attempts to compose from folksong were especially evident. Similarly, improvisation has a special significance in concepts of Jewish folk tradition, for it results from recombining the traditional through performance to create the new, for example through processes of contrafaction in the ghettos and concentration camps of the Holocaust (Flam, 1992; see below, §V, 2(iv)) or in the ensemble music of Iraqi Jewish immigrants to Israel (Shiloah, 1983). Composition and improvisation, furthermore, serve as a link between popular Jewish music (e.g. Yiddish theatre) and folk music. Not only does song from the Yiddish theatre adapt folksong for the stage, but Yiddish folksong frequently evolves through oral tradition from the transformation of popular theatre songs into folksongs (Slobin, Tenement Songs, 1982).
The definitional dialectic is strikingly paradoxical: although Jewish folksong and music is overtly tradition- and past-bound, it responds to change and modernity. Song is traditional because of its malleability and adaptability. The newness of folk music, for example in the haskalah (Jewish enlightenment) or on kibbutzim in Israel, reflects folk music's capacity to index the past. Accordingly, the recent history of Jewish folksong and music reveals the emergence and invention of new forms and genres. Very distinctive bodies of folk music, for example, represent Israeli nationalism (Bohlman and Slobin, 1986; Nathan, 1994), albeit at a level of considerable multi-culturalism and ethnic diversity. The revival of Jewish folksong, too, bears witness to this paradox; perhaps the best example is the renewal of interest in Yiddish song and klezmer music in eastern Europe after the fall of communism. The ability to negotiate between past and present, old and new, sacred and secular, and self and other gives folksong and folk music a powerful presence in Jewish society.
Folk music is generally perceived as the ‘secular’ Jewish music. Such a perception evades the critical role of religion in all aspects of traditional Jewish life. Thus, the content or style of Jewish folk music may not be related to religious themes but its contexts of performance are founded on the prescriptions of religious life. Secular contexts properly exist in moments of privacy, such as when a mother rocks her baby.
Jewish folk music is performed within assigned social contexts: rites of passage, communal celebrations and entertainment. Vocal music predominates while instrumental music plays a secondary role. Folksongs in vernacular Jewish languages are generally performed by women, contrasted with the dominance of male voices in liturgical and most paraliturgical music. However, religious hymns in Hebrew performed by men are sung to tunes that often overlap with those of folksongs in the vernacular sung by women. Jewish folk instrumentalists are usually male, but there are cases (e.g. Iraq, Yemen and Morocco) in which professional women singers accompany themselves with percussion instruments.
Jewish law (halakhah) prescribes the occasion and manner of celebration of rites of passage in which folk music is performed: the period between the birth of a male infant and his circumcision at the age of eight days, the naming of a baby girl, the entrance of young boys to adult society at the age of 13 (bar-mitzvah), engagement and wedding, and the seven-day period of mourning.
The wedding is the richest musical event of the Jewish life cycle. It consists of a series of events, usually spanning a week, that includes parties in which gifts are exchanged between the families, the presentation of the dowry, the ritual bath of the bride, the ceremonial hairdressing and dressing of the bride, and, in Islamic countries on the night before the wedding, the henna ceremony in which red vegetable dye is applied to the hands and feet of the bride. The actual wedding ceremony takes place under a canopy, followed by the festive sheva‘ berakhot (‘seven blessings’). The reading of the Torah by the groom in the synagogue on the following Sabbath and the first meal cooked by the bride occur after the wedding ceremony. The texts of the songs sung during these ceremonies describe the associated customs and their meaning, and treat the roles and characteristics of the participants, in particular the mother-in-law. The use of instrumental music in weddings is encouraged following the talmudic deed ‘to gladden the groom and bride’ (Berakhot 6b). However, instrumental music is banned, as a sign of mourning for the destruction of the Temple, from weddings held in Jerusalem by some of the city's ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi communities.
Religious folk festivals such as the Moroccan mimuna (the night of the seventh day of Pesah) or the Kurdish saharane (Sukkot) serve as an important setting for the performance of folk music. A major religious festival shared by all Jews (North African and hasidic in particular) is the hillulah of Rabbi Simeon Bar Yohai held in Meron (Upper Galilee) on Lag ba-omer (the 33rd day between Pesah and Shavu‘ot). All these festivals include the performance of instrumental music and Hebrew and secular songs by folk musicians who entertain the public on formal or informal stages. These festivals have been revitalized in Israel in recent decades.
In addition to sanctioned life-cycle events and religious festivals, folksongs appear in many other contexts. The lullaby repertory is rich in most Jewish communities. In many cases, songs unrelated to a child's environment are sung as lullabies, for example, the Sephardi romances (see below, §IV, 2(ii)). Courting songs are found in communities where premarital social relations between couples became customary. Folksongs are also used as educational tools, for instance to teach the alphabet in elementary schools. The singing of epic songs, either of Jewish content, such as biblical episodes or events related to the history of the community, or adopted from surrounding cultures, is found in such Eastern communities as the Kurdish Jews and those of the Caucasus, Central Asia, India and Iran. The function of these songs is to entertain or educate the family or the community after working hours or during winter nights.
The decline of traditional folk music followed the mass migrations and urbanization experienced by most Jewish communities since the 19th century. Electronic media have had a critical impact on Jewish folk music. Traditional music, reconstructed in commercial recordings produced in Europe, the USA and the Middle East, often substituted for live performances, and instrumental folk tunes became popular in new arrangements. Only some of these folk tunes are still functional at weddings; most are now intermingled with pop music performed by rock bands or disc jockies. More recently the mass media have revived older styles of folk music after periods of decay. The case of klezmer instrumental music from eastern Europe is the most remarkable (see below, §IV, 3(ii)). Mediated folksongs in Yiddish and Ladino that are distributed commercially appeal today to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. Most of these reconstructed songs comprise the bulk of Jewish songs known today to the public at large.
Jewish music, §IV: Non-liturgical music
(iii) Yiddish and central European languages.
(iv) Central and South Asian languages.
Jewish music, §IV, 2: Folksongs in Jewish languages
The Yemenite Jews recognize two kinds of non-liturgical music: ‘men’s singing’ and ‘women’s singing’. The first, regarded as the more prestigious, is based on texts from the Diwan, the traditional collection of Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic poems written mainly by Rabbi Shålöm Shabbazi (1619–80), and is performed only by men. The second, based on Arabic poems transmitted by means of oral tradition, is sung by women. These two repertories developed directly from the singing and dancing at family parties, especially wedding ceremonies, that take place within two simultaneous circles: one male, the other female.
‘Men's singing’ consists of cycles of songs divided into three parts according to the literary structure of the poems: shirim, shirot and hallelöth. All the lines of a shir (pl. shirim; Arabic nashid), the first type of poems, are identical not only with regard to their metrical structure but also their rhyme scheme. The men sit in a circle and one singer, at the request of his friends, assumes the role of leader. The latter holds the Diwan and decides which poem to sing and the tune to which it will be sung. He also determines where to disrupt the continuity of the melody in order to insert ornaments or improvisatory passages. In addition, he decides if and when the tempo should be quickened up or slowed down, and where to switch from one tune to another. The non-measured, recitative-like character of the singing is based on an antiphonal style of performance: the leader begins, and after one or two lines those sitting near him join his melody while others contribute the response. After performing the written text, the singer adds a verse built of phrases from the Psalms (’Annå ’adhönåi, höshi‘åh nå; ’Annå ’adhönåi, haslihåh nå) and sung to a fixed melody that serves as a bridge to the tune of the following poem.
A shir usually precedes a shiråh (pl. shiröth), the second type of poems. The prosody of every shiråh is generally in shir ezor form (the Arabic muwashshah), consisting of about 7–12 textual units, each composed of three stanzas. The first stanza contains three or four two-part lines, the second (tawshih) includes three or four short lines, and the third has one or two lines identical in form, metre and rhyme to the lines of the first stanza. The musical style of shiråh differs from that of the previous shir in its fixed rhythmical and metrical patterns, but here, too, the musical phrase is repetitive and parallels a complete line. The melody of the second stanza differs slightly from the melody of the first, but, again, is repetitive and parallels each line. Dancing, with added drumming accompaniment, takes place when the shiråh is performed on weekdays. When dances occurs, melodic differences are also expressed by a change in the pattern of the steps. The tune of the third stanza may differ from those of the two previous stanzas or it may resemble the tune of the first one. The leader begins singing the first one or two lines, then those sitting nearest him join in singing the opening parts of the phrases, and those furthest away responding with the closing parts. The mounting excitement provides the soloist with an opportunity to display his talent: he ornaments his singing and the shiråh itself by extending the musical phrases with trills at fixed points, and by longer improvisations between each line and especially between stanzas. The soloist makes gradual or sudden changes of tempo, as well as sudden switches of tunes. For the last line of the shiråh, the leader performs a new recitative which leads directly to the subsequent poem. During this recitative all the dancers return to their seats and prepare themselves for the singing of the final poem of the cycle, the Hallaluyåh.
The poems of this third part, the hallelöth, differ from other Diwan texts in style, form and social function. Most consist of four to ten verses, of different length but uniform rhyme. Every poem begins and ends with the word ‘wa-Hallaluyåh’, and all lines are unified by the musical formulae to which they are sung. The leader starts the poem by singing ‘wa-Hallaluyåh’, followed by the first verse, performed according to a fixed recitative tune based on a non-measured rhythm. The participants continue singing the poem along the same melodic course but now in a measured rhythm based on two values, short and long, sung syllabically though still without metrical groupings. Parallel vocal parts at the intervals of a 4th or 5th are occasionally added.
In ‘women's singing’ the leadership role is assumed by two women who are known among members of their community to possess a special knowledge of the musical tradition, especially their ability to remember many melodies and texts and to render the songs successfully by improvising new lines. One leader beats a drum, the other a sahn (flat metal platter on which a small metal object is tapped). The rhythms produced on the drum determine the rhythmic pattern for a desired dance, while the playing of the sahn fixes its beat. There are four types of tunes: (1) a slow, opening tune with a simple rhythmic but non-metrical pattern, usually performed by one group of participants seated near the leaders in alternation with another group of women; (2) a dance – da'ase – in a seven-unit rhythmic metre and with tunes generated from an initial musical phrase for the first line of text and a concluding phrase for the second; (3) tunes in regular metre and with a fixed rhythmic pattern (ex.36), played immediately after the da'ase without a break in the drumming; (4) tunes in regular metre and with a fixed rhythmic pattern that includes syncopation (ex.37), also performed immediately after the previous dance without a break in the drumming. During the performance of the last three dances the tempos gradually accelerate and their melodies are sung at two dynamic levels: in sung phrases the drumming is less intense so that the words and the tune can be clearly heard; once the singing phrases end, the drummers immediately increase the volume and continue playing until the singer begins the next phrase. Another characteristic of women's singing is the hijer – long and high tones created using the head voice with ululation; one of the women begins ululating, and others immediately join her, continuing for some five to ten seconds. The hijer is performed especially during pauses between singing musical phrases.
Judeo-Arabic songs of the Jews of Iraq are associated with non-synagogal events, both religious and secular, generally related to annual and life cycles: the Pesah seder ceremony celebrated at home, with each section of Hebrew or Aramaic text followed by the Judeo-Arabic translation; religious and secular pilgrimage songs particularly associated with the festival of Shabu‘oth; women's songs for the prenuptial henna ceremony; men's songs for wedding celebrations; and lullabies. The extant texts form a valuable record of Jewish life in Iraq, particularly during the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Judeo-Arabic language includes elements of local Arabic vernaculars and Hebrew. In folksongs it ranges from a literary vernacular or, more specifically in Iraq, literary Judeo-Baghdadi, to colloquial Judeo-Baghdadi, which is also spoken by many Jews elsewhere in Iraq. However, most folksongs in the repertory of the Jews of Iraq are composed in an Arabic dialect similar to that of local Muslim song (Avishur, 1987). Judeo-Arabic texts appear in Hebrew characters, either printed in block letters or handwritten in rashi-style characters. In addition to printed religious and semi-religious texts, many secular songs have survived in 19th-century manuscripts: a number of these are now reproduced in standard printed Hebrew (Avishur, 1987; 1990–91; 1994). The songs are also well known in the oral tradition and show the influence of Arab music.
The following music examples are drawn from the repertory of the Jews of Baghdad, the main centre of Iraqi Jewish life. Other Jewish centres, such as Basra, Al‘Amārah, ‘Ānāh, Mosul, Kirkūk and Khānaqīn, share this repertory with local variations. Ex.38 demonstrates the opening section of the Pesah hagadah sung in (a) Aramaic and (b) a semi-literary Judeo-Arabic that mirrors the word rhythms of the Aramaic text. It is an unmetred song-like chant that is sung communally. The hagadah also includes metred song and narrative solo sections.
The piyyut (Judeo-Arabic shbah: ‘praise song’) Suri ġo’ali yahh (Heb.: ‘My rock, my redeemer is the Lord’) serves as an introduction and chorus to the light-hearted, semi-religious Judeo-Arabic qunāgh (‘way-station’; Shiloah, 1992, pp.167–8) songs, which map the route to the tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel, near Al Hillah, Iraq, or other holy sites in Israel. In a text of 1927 the author expresses a wish that the pilgrims ride in a trāmbél (automobile). Earlier secular songs refer to pilgrims riding on a mule and other hardships encountered en route (Avishur, 1987, pp.163–92).
Some pilgrimage songs refer in later versions to bridegrooms and are classified in religious song books as pizmonim le-hathan (‘bridegroom songs’; Mansour, 1953–4). The song Yānabi (‘O prophet’; Manasseh, 1997, pp.90–91) and that shown in ex.39 were originally dedicated to the Prophet Ezekiel and Ezra the Scribe respectively. They are sung in colloquial Judeo-Arabic, to the igrug rhythm unique to Iraq. In Iraq these songs were performed by the abu shbahoth (‘master of praises’) who sang shbahoth in both Hebrew and Arabic at religious and social occasions.
Music for the henna celebration before weddings was performed by the daqqāqa who sang and played the naqqāra (pair of small kettledrums) and a chorus of two or three women who each played a daff (frame drum with rattles). Most daqqāqa songs are in the igrug rhythm. With the virtual demise of their profession, their repertory is no longer associated solely with women's groups. Ex.40a is a transcription of their most famous song, in typical Judeo-Baghdadi dialect, sung somewhat acrimoniously, as though by the groom's mother to the bride's mother. It was also performed by men as a pasta (light, metric song following a performance of Iraqi maqām), and was recorded in the 1930s by Rashid al-Qondarchi, the leading Muslim singer of Iraqi maqām (ex.40b). All these songs remain in the Iraqi Jewish repertory, in Israel and elsewhere, though in changed circumstances. The relatively recent text of ex.41 (mixed Judeo-Arabic dialect and modern Israeli Hebrew) was composed in Israel after the mass emigration of Jews from Iraq (1950–51) and expresses the stark social conditions initially endured by the community in the abrupt transition to their new homeland.
The Jewish communities of the Maghrib (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) developed folksong repertories in Hebrew and in local Judeo-Arabic dialects. Two strikingly different groups of Maghribi Jews exist: those of large cities on the coasts who are influenced by urban musical styles and in the 20th century by modern trends of mainstream Middle Eastern Arab songs, and dwellers of remote inland areas such as the Atlas Mountains or the Sahara Desert who show Berber influences.
The folksong genres of urban Moroccan Jews include the malhun and qasīdah sung by men, nuwwah (Arabic; mourning songs) and arubi and mawwāl sung by women. The most popular of these genres is the arubi. Performed at weddings, circumcisions, and other social gatherings such as the visit of an important guest, the arubi consists of five-line stanzas of ten syllables with fixed rhyme patterns (up to 50 stanzas). The melodies are adopted from a standard repertory which the singer adapts in the process of extemporizing the text. The topics of the arubi include love, the beauty of nature, the suffering and pain of loneliness, cursing of an enemy, and current events (e.g. a song cursing Adolf Hitler was composed during World War II). The arubi takes the form of a dialogue between a man and a woman, and includes witty lines. The malhun, with texts from the 16th century to the present, is based on modes and melodies from Andalusian music (see Morocco, §2(ii)). The songs treat social issues, ideological stands and historical events of the community. Malhun songs appeared in commercial recordings. Among the famous Jewish artists of this genre are Sami al-Maghribi and Zohara al-Fasiya. Social issues appear in the qasīdah, too, such as the L'qasīdah de-skhina which describes the preparation of the traditional meat-stew of the Sabbath. Maghribi Jewish songs, which combine Hebrew with Judeo-Arabic, are known as matruz. They treat religious and secular topics such as the praise of wine and the complaints of a poor teacher lacking funds for Pesah.
Folksongs of the Jews from the Middle and High Atlas are characterized by pentatonic scales and responsorial and antiphonal styles of performance similar to Berber music. Men dance shoulder to shoulder, sometimes in lines or circles, and are accompanied by songs performed by a female soloist with a frame drum. These songs are performed at weddings and recall the Berber ahwash. The ziyyāra pilgrimage to the tomb sites of venerated saints is another important occasion for the performance of folksongs.
Robert Lachmann, in his survey of 1940 (repr. 1978), found that the Judeo-Arabic folksongs sung by Jewish women on the island of Djerba off the coast of Tunisia bear the musical characteristics of general Tunisian folk music genres. The bulk of this repertory is connected with wedding events. The characteristic manner of performance is responsorial: a soloist accompanies herself with a darbukka (goblet-shaped drum), while a group, sitting around her, responds. Since the 1920s Jewish singers from Tunis (such as Habiba Mssika) excelled in the performance of popular songs based on folk elements, similar to the Moroccan malhun.
Jewish music, §IV, 2: Folksongs in Jewish languages
The Spanish language spoken by Jews at the time of their expulsion from Spain in 1492 conformed not only to a variety of regional dialects spoken by the Christians, among whom they lived, but also embodied Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic elements. The exiled Jews who established communities in the Eastern Mediterranean region (Ottoman Empire) also absorbed linguistic elements of other national populations (mainly Turkish, Greek and other Balkan tongues), whereas those who settled in Northern Morocco absorbed Arabic. It is these linguistic components that distinguish the Eastern from the Western Sephardim. From the mid-19th century onwards, French and Italian had a decisive impact on the language of the Eastern Mediterranean Sephardim, as did Modern Andalusian Spanish on the speech of Sephardim in Morocco. English, Standard Spanish and Modern Hebrew tended to replace the traditional dialects of Sephardim who emigrated to North and South America after World War I, and to Israel after 1947. Although the language has been referred to as judezmo, koiné, spanyol in the Eastern realm and haketía in North Africa, Judeo-Spanish appears to have gained wide currency as the best term for both the pre- and post-exilic language. Ladino, another highly popular term, refers more precisely to the Spanish calque language that developed from the literal translation of Hebrew into Spanish.
Scholarly studies dealing with the various secular and paraliturgical musical genres rendered in Judeo-Spanish have appeared with increasing frequency since the 1980s. These studies have for the most part concerned orally transmitted materials (both sung and recited) that were collected and recorded among Sephardi informants of both Eastern and Western traditions residing in the USA, Canada, South America and Israel.
Jewish communities existed among the various populations of the Iberian Peninsula from at least the first millennium bce until the expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492) and from Portugal (1497), and doubtless shaped a secular culture quite separate from that of their Ashkenazi and Middle Eastern counterparts. Before the Islamic invasion of Spain in the early 8th century there were musical exchanges between Christians and Jews.
Medieval Spanish literature continues to be combed for information concerning Jewish musical practices. Jewish, together with Christian and Muslim musicians, participated in the varied performances of the Cantigas de Santa Maria produced at the Castilian court of Alfonso X el Sabio (1252–84), and sung in the Galician-Portuguese language. Whether Jews assisted in composing their melodies is not known. Although numerous Peninsular sources reveal the names of Jewish musicians, minstrels and poets, there is no evidence that they represented a manifestly Jewish musical tradition.
At the time of their expulsion, the Spanish Jews had incorporated many of the contemporary popular poetic and song genres such as the romance and the villancico into their secular music tradition. Yet, the extent to which their tradition reflected the varied musical styles and tastes current on the Peninsula and what remained of their Iberian tradition during the generations that followed may never be clear.
M.J. Benardete viewed the Sephardi diaspora as two waves of emigration, the medieval Jewish exiles and the Renaissance converts who sought to re-embrace Judaism. The former comprised those Jews who settled in North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean region, where they continued as folk societies and preserved their Hispanic culture; the latter embraced those who settled in various parts of western Europe and North America and whose rapid Westernization led to the elimination of most traces of their Hispanic past.
Musicologists have focussed their attention on the Sephardi diaspora, particularly on the extant orally transmitted repertory of the widely scattered 20th-century Sephardi communities. Thus, it is mainly from Moroccan and Algerian communities of North Africa (particularly Tanger, Tétouan, Larache and Oran), and those of the Eastern Mediterranean region (particularly Sarajevo, Salonika (now Thessaloniki), Istanbul, Izmir, Edirne, Rhodes and Jerusalem) that most ethnographic information has been obtained. This information enabled modern investigators to characterize the musical heritage of the Sephardi diaspora not only as a collective entity but also as regionally distinct groups. Moreover, a distinction may now be drawn between those elements that persisted since pre-Expulsion times and those that were borrowed from the peoples among whom the Sephardim settled after their exile from Spain.
An important genre of Sephardi secular poetry and music is the Judeo-Spanish Romancero. This tradition represents an early stage in the development of the Spanish ballad, not only in its 15th-century Castilian lexical and phonological features, but also in its retention of numerous ballad themes that were current in medieval Spanish balladry. Also included in the Sephardi ballad repertory are themes from medieval French sources, events from Spanish history, subject matter derived from the Bible and classical antiquity, and a variety of adventures that blend lyric and narrative elements. The Judeo-Spanish branch also shares numerous themes with the pan-Hispanic (Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan) Romancero.
In its typical form, the romance embodies a 16-syllable verse divided by a medial pause into two octosyllabic hemistichs, the former without rhyme, the latter rhyming in assonance. The romancillo comprises two hexasyllabic hemistichs. Both are sung to strophic tunes with the quatrain strophe predominating.
Sephardi ballad scholarship begins with the Catálogo del romancero judío-español (1906) by R. Menéndez Pidal (1869–1968), which listed over 140 ballad themes current among the Sephardim in their diasporic communities. Since then, numerous scholars have been actively collecting and studying Judeo-Spanish ballads, among whom M. Alvar, P. Bénichou, R. Benmayor, D. Catalán and A. Librowicz have sought out collaborators to provide musical transcriptions for their publications. Since 1959, through the collaboration of S.G. Armistead, J.H. Silverman and I.J. Katz there has been more systematic fieldwork involving the collecting and editing of texts and tunes with the aid of recording equipment in the USA, Israel and North Africa. Menéndez Pidal's Catálogo has been superseded by Armistead's Catálogo-índice (1978).
A detailed survey of musicological research focussing on the Judeo-Spanish Romancero from about 1900 to the early 1960s was published by Katz in 1972, and subsequent musicological fieldwork has been undertaken by E.N. Alberti-Kleinbort, J.R. Cohen, E. Gerson-Kiwi, A. Petrović and S. Weich-Shahak. Among composers and musicians, A. Hemsi, L. Algazi and I. Levy collected and incorporated ballad tunes in their musical anthologies. M. Manrique de Lara, a close associate of Menéndez Pidal, conducted earlier fieldwork in the Balkans and Middle East (1911–12), and in northern Morocco (1915–16), during which time he gathered almost 2000 ballad texts and transcribed over 450 tunes directly from oral tradition. Decades later, A. de Larrea Palacín (1952) collected 270 texts and 285 tunes from the ballad tradition of Tétouan, Morocco. Interestingly, the earliest notations we possess for Judeo-Spanish ballad tunes were made by L. Kuba, in Sarajevo, 13 years prior to Menéndez Pidal's Catálogo (Weich-Shahak, 1979–80).
Well over a century after the Expulsion there was still active communication between the exiled Sephardim and the Iberian Peninsula. During this period, the most popular ballads from Spain continued to circulate throughout the greater Mediterranean region. By the late 1600s, however, contact with Spain became increasingly sporadic, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean region where relations among the varied Sephardi communities were slowly disintegrating, thus marking the beginning of the ballad's decline. Numerous Castilian ballad books and broadsides made their way to the Moroccan Sephardi communities, and from these sources and from the headnotes in the Hebrew hymnals published in Amsterdam, Venice, Istanbul, Salonika and Safed (c1525–1819) those ballads that were current at that time have been inventoried and categorized. Their headnotes cited the initial verses (incipits) of ballads and other songs (in Spanish, Arabic and Turkish) whose tunes were widely known and which served as tune indicators for the hymns to which they were sung. This practice (contrafactum), already known in Spain among the Hebrew poets (paytanim) who created liturgical hymns (piyyutim) during the Golden Age of Hispano-Hebraic poetry, had its ancient origin in the Book of Psalms. Here follows an example (Ex.42) of the ballad tune for La vuelta del marido, which served as a tune contrafact for the popular liturgical hymn Adon ‘olam.
To whatever degree each community strove to maintain the tunes associated with ballad incipits, their replacement by tunes from the new surroundings must have begun a century after the Expulsion. Essential stylistic differences in the individual ballad repertories of the Eastern Mediterranean and Moroccan Sephardi communities began to appear on textual levels, while even greater divergences emerged in the music.
While research to date has not yet traced extant ballad tunes back to 15th- or 16th-century Peninsular sources in cancionero and vihuela collections, romanticized notions have continued to characterize the diaspora tunes accompanying known Iberian ballad texts as ‘traditional Hispanic melodies’. A novel, but unconvincing, attempt to link ballad tunes from the extant tradition with the aforementioned collections has been undertaken by J. Etzion and S. Weich-Shahak (1988). Furthermore, the stylistic differences between the ballads of the Eastern and Western tradition, and the possibility of identifying tune families have been discussed by Katz (1968; 1988) and Etzion and Weich-Shahak (1988; 1993).
Another important genre that has lately been studied in greater depth is the Judeo-Spanish copla (var. compla, kompla) highly favoured among the Eastern Sephardim. Deriving its subject matter from biblical stories, Jewish history and tradition, and contemporary events, the copla has also been used to impart communal values. Composed, for the most part, in octosyllabic quatrains, it was suited to strophic melodies that were current in surrounding regional and local cultures.
Coplas were printed on pliegos impresos (broadsides) and circulated throughout the Eastern Sephardi diaspora, especially in Salonika and Istanbul. Thus, the copla circulated more as a written tradition than an exclusively oral one. In Salonika, in particular, it enjoyed continuous popularity throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.
Sung mainly in private homes, the coplas comprised a large repertory of paraliturgical songs for celebrating the more festive Holy Days of the Jewish religious calendar and for commemorating various stages of the life cycle (i.e. circumcision, weddings etc.). Unlike the Romancero tradition, cultivated principally by women, coplas were sung primarily by men. Their texts are also rich in Hebrew, Turkish and Greek lexical items.
Canticas or cantigas, as they are known among the Eastern Sephardim, or cantares or cantes among the Western, constitute the richest and most variegated repertory of the three genres discussed here and embody vestiges of pre-Expulsion popular Peninsular poetry. M. Attias (1972), traced its history from the Expulsion to modern times with ample textual documentation. Interestingly, Attias pointed out that from the end of the 18th century until the first half of the 19th, liturgical songs in Judeo-Spanish were more dominant than secular songs, which, like the romances, were on the decline. M. Alvar's pathfinding study (1971) uncovered numerous survivals of pre-1492 metrical patterns and poetic conventions in the Moroccan Judeo-Spanish wedding songs.
Unlike the romances and coplas, the lyric texts focus on more universal themes, the predominant category being love songs. In the Eastern tradition, many texts are translations of Turkish and Greek songs. Sung mainly as octosyllabic quatrains to strophic tunes, they also exhibit musical structures that vary considerably from those of the romances and coplas. Many of them contain estribillos (refrains). In general, lyric songs are shorter than ballads and coplas, and their themes are appropriate to all stages of the life cycle. Among the love songs, the şarkis combine consecutive stanzas of diverse origin that are thematically unrelated. Songs of this type are also popular among the Turks and Arabs.
An overview of the musical traditions of Sephardi secular life must take into account the life cycle and liturgical calendar, for both are richly endowed with songs. Accompanying the various events of the life cycle there are lullabies, children's songs, love songs, wedding songs and dirges. Endechas (dirges) are sung at funerals and during the week preceding Tish‘ah be-av (the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, commenorating the destruction of the Temple). Romances have permeated all facets of secular life, and some, because of their elegiac subject matter, have entered the endecha repertory. Religious occasions (e.g. circumcisions, bar-mitzvahs and weddings) and gatherings on Holy Days (e.g. the Passover seder, Hanukkah and Purim) permit the singing of secular songs. Weddings predominate as the most elaborate of all the ceremonies, whose varied stages involve not only vocal but also instrumental music. Sung by individuals or groups of singers, lyric songs were, at times, accompanied by the pandero (shallow, circular single-headed frame drum).
Jewish music, §IV, 2: Folksongs in Jewish languages
(b) Composed song and Yiddish theatre.
Jewish music, §IV, 2(iii): Folksongs in Jewish languages: Yiddish and central European
The folk music of Ashkenazi Europe is both unified and differentiated by the history and languages of central and eastern Europe. Historical issues are essential to understanding Ashkenazi folk music, for Jewish folk music, like ‘folk music’ in general, is the product of changing ideas about music, what it represents, and how it functions, which in the case of Ashkenazi Jews must also be understood as products of Europe and European concepts of music.
During the initial central European phase of Ashkenazi culture, traditional music already fitted the social structures and institutions of the Jewish presence in German-speaking Europe. Private and public religious practices provided a setting for folk music, not least because of the predominance of oral traditions. The urban cultures of medieval Jewish cities contrasted with rural folk traditions, just as local repertories were distinct from regional traditions and those practised by all Jews. Jewish traditional music, moreover, embraced practices unique to the Jewish community and those from surrounding, non-Jewish cultures.
The core of Jewish culture in the Rhine valley was frequently subjected to acts of prejudice and violence, but in the 14th century several major pogroms forced the Rhineland Jews into eastern Europe. Still retaining the Middle High German of the medieval Rhineland, with an essential complement of Hebrew words and orthography, the Jews of eastern Europe established new centres of culture where the Yiddish language developed and became the basis for east European Jewish folksong. The history of Ashkenazi folk music, therefore, unfolded from the schism between central and eastern Europe, and reflects the relation between these two parts of Europe until the present.
Distinctions of genre in Ashkenazi folk music result from religious and aesthetic distinctions between vocal and instrumental music. Vocal music, or folksong, contains more privileged genres because vocal music receives more approbation in religious attitudes about music. Religio-aesthetic judgment places folksong closer to the core of the community, not least because of the anchoring role of texts in Hebrew and Yiddish dialects. Folksong genres often reflect the polyglot nature of traditional Jewish society. Instrumental music often accompanies less strictly Jewish activities, such as dance, which has a much older presence in European communities than usually realized. At least as early as the Middle Ages, Rhineland communities could claim dance halls, where leytsonim (instrumental musicians) performed, perhaps the forerunners of klezmer musicians who first appear in the Early Modern Era (see below, §IV, 3(ii); see also Salmen, 1991).
Other concepts of genre reflect other functions, repertories and social structures in Ashkenazi Europe. Early 20th-century scholars (e.g. A.Z. Idelsohn and J. Schönberg) regarded synagogue song as ‘folklike’, especially when it used melodic and modal materials from folksong. Hasidic genres have developed in eastern Europe and spread throughout the Diaspora and to Israel with the mystical and ecstatic traditions of the practitioners (Vinaver, 1985). There are also genres that admit to the presence of outside traditions, but also stress their integration into Jewish uses and functions.
Though the settings and contexts for Ashkenazi music in Europe fall into two major categories, secular and religious, Ashkenazi folk music often bridges these categories and negotiates between them. Family traditions depend on religious repertories, such as zemirot, performed most frequently at Sabbath meals; zemirot have Hebrew texts and follow oral tradition, but they regularly borrow melodic material from other sources. Synagogue song in both central and eastern Europe regularly borrows from secular and sacred sources, Jewish and non-Jewish, which are then moulded into liturgies that undergo variation in a manner similar to secular folksong.
Secular contexts for folk music are present in both private and public spheres. Much Yiddish folksong in the home, for example, reflects the responses of women to life events, child-rearing and challenges to the family from non-Jewish society (e.g. conscription of sons into the army). Dance, both as a component of Holy Days such as mid-winter Purim, with its Purimball, and as an accompaniment to wedding celebrations, takes place in settings that cross the boundaries between sacred and secular. The folk music of political and ideological movements reconfigure Jewish traditions for functions in a changing public sphere. Accordingly, repertories of hasidic songs (Vinaver, 1985) and Zionist songs (Taich, 1906; Glaser, 1914) disseminated Jewish folk music to Jewish communities throughout Europe and the Diaspora. Finally, the stage is an important setting for folk music, which constantly interacts with popular music in Ashkenazi traditions (Slobin, Tenement Songs, 1982).
References to Jewish folk-music specialists appear in both Jewish and non-Jewish sources as early as the 12th century. Specialists have most often been instrumentalists within the Jewish community, for example klezmer musicians, or they have performed at events where instrumental music was necessary. Specialization and professionalism in Jewish folk music characterize domains in which the acceptability of music-making may be questionable, especially in more Orthodox communities. Folk-music specialists effectively assume responsibility for many forms of secular music-making, thereby negotiating the conceptual barriers between secular and sacred musical practices. The presence of badhanim (Yiddish badkhónim) at weddings reflects the ways in which they were once ritual specialists and tricksters.
Records documenting payment to folk-music professionals often reveal considerable mobility and frequent interaction with non-Jewish musicians (notably Roma musicians) and events (especially dances), both of which accounted for processes of exchange within regions and between central and east European folk-music traditions. In many areas, specialists provided music for folk drama or for wandering dramatic troupes. Within such historical contexts, Jewish folk musicians found their way to cabaret and popular stages in central Europe and to Yiddish theatres in eastern Europe (see below, §IV, 2(iii) (b)).
Specialization increasingly characterized the musicians of the synagogue in the wake of the haskalah (Jewish enlightenment). The hazzan not only won a place for his performances in the religious life of a community, but he also often contributed to secular traditions, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Hazzanim, moreover, moved from synagogue to synagogue, transforming melodic traditions and repertories through the introduction of new styles and the alteration of old ones. Cantors such as A.Z. Idelsohn were among those earlier 20th-century specialists who consciously collected and adapted folk traditions from Jewish communities throughout the world for the creation of new, international canons of Jewish folk music.
As a result of transformations in Jewish identity during the 19th and 20th centuries, there was growing interaction between folksong and other domains of music-making, within the Jewish community and without. Oral traditions in central European synagogues incorporated melodic and formal materials from secular and non-Jewish traditions, transforming these into new sacred identities. Collections of Jewish folk music appeared in published form and were then disseminated by the beginning of the 20th century, serving as the basis for growing attempts to compose new works based on Jewish folk melodies (e.g. Loewe, 1894; Ginsburg and Marek, 1901/R; Grunwald, 1924–5).
A recognizably European Jewish folk music had therefore emerged to form distinctive repertories and canons by the 20th century, and this Jewish folk music took its place alongside other national traditions whose roots could be philologically traced and whose distinctive representation of modern history grew from both textual and contextual uniqueness. As European Jews began to settle in the Yishuv, the Jewish community of modern Eres Yisrael (‘land of Israel’), a new historical phase emerged in which Hebrew folksongs and folk dances took their place within European collections next to German or Yiddish repertories. Folk music responded to 20th-century modernism and internationalism by representing Jewish identity in even more complex and diverse ways (Bohlman, 1989; Nathan, 1994).
Despite the massive destruction of Jewish communities during the Holocaust, Jewish folk music has gradually but steadily gained a new presence, albeit with radically different functions and roles. In many areas of eastern Europe, folk music was inaudible as Jewish communities maintained low public profiles. Professional musicians may have participated in other ethnic and national traditions, whereas the oral traditions of synagogue music preserved folk-influenced liturgies while membership dwindled through death and emigration. In the first decades after the Holocaust, until the 1960s new anthologies appeared as means of memorializing the Holocaust, but these also provided a store of Jewish folksongs for the German folk-music revival in the 1960s and 70s, and for the use of some east European state ensembles in the 1970s and 80s.
In the 1990s the folk music of Ashkenazi Europe underwent a widespread revival. New collections of older repertories (Lemm, 1992; Freund and others, 1992) complement fieldwork and the discovery of Jewish musicians who survived the Cold War era. Many east European Jews, especially Poles and Russians, have emigrated to Austria and Germany, where they introduced Eastern Ashkenazi traditions into religious and sacred practices of central European communities. Klezmer ensembles, with and without Jewish members, proliferated, and folk-music ensembles of all kinds included Jewish dances in their repertories. Historical and modern recordings juxtaposed Ashkenazi folk music in a postmodern mix, transforming it to a widely disseminated form of ‘world music’, that is, international popular music. With different functions but many of the same historical contradictions, the folk music of Jewish Europe continues to represent the changes in and challenges to Jewish communities throughout the world.
Jewish music, §IV, 2(iii): Folksongs in Jewish languages: Yiddish and central European
Music composed to Yiddish-language texts in the form of composed song and music for the theatre is a phenomenon of the later 19th century and is related to the contemporaneous European nationalist movements. Theatre music first appeared with the creations of Abraham Goldfaden (1840–1908), an itinerant writer and performer who established the first professional Yiddish theatre company, in 1876 in Iaşi, Romania. Goldfaden's touring companies were enthusiastically supported by the east European Jewish masses, and gave rise to a proliferation of rival organizations. Untrained in music but with an ear for adaptable melodies, Goldfaden drew on and borrowed a variety of sources for use in his self-authored stage productions, including synagogal chants, Jewish and Slavonic folksongs and dances, and west European operatic and popular music. While Goldfaden never fully consolidated these influences, the composers who followed him were able to fashion a musical idiom from his legacy suited to the emerging Yiddish theatre. Important features of this style were already present in Goldfaden's work, most notably the conjoining of musical and literary motifs from east European Jewish folk culture with Western harmonic and formulaic procedures. An illustration of this process may be found in Goldfaden's popular lullaby, ‘Rozhenkes mit mandlen’ (Yiddish: ‘Raisins and Almonds’), from the 1882 operetta Shulamith. The song's poetic subject descends from a cluster of Yiddish folkloric cradle songs using the phrase ‘raisins and almonds’; its minor-mode melody stems from a different source in Jewish folksong. Goldfaden composed an original text around the folk motif and adapted the folk melody to 3/4 waltz time.
Goldfaden's most important successor in theatrical composition was Joseph Rumshinsky (1881–1956), a conservatory-educated musician with a professional background in liturgical, choral and stage music. Born in Russian Lithuania, Rumshinsky emigrated to the USA in 1904 and eventually settled in New York City, which had by that time become the world centre of Yiddish theatre because of the Tsarist ban on public performance in Yiddish throughout the Russian empire. Rumshinsky's early productions, often in collaboration with the actor and impresario Boris Thomashefsky, included several large-scale operettas. These works, modelled after European light opera, mark an advance over Goldfaden's idiom with respect to stylistic unity and professional polish; they also reflect, in their opulent production values, the spectacular success of the American Yiddish theatre during the first decades of the 20th century. The 1916 production Tsubrokhene fidele (‘The Broken Violin’), for example, called for a pit orchestra of near symphonic dimensions. Under Rumshinsky, music for the Yiddish stage underwent a process of Americanization: European light opera style gradually yielded to Tin Pan Alley fashions and formulae (see §V, 2(vi)). This trend increased after World War I when the American-born children of immigrants began to make up an important segment of the theatre-going public. The influence of American popular music on compositions for the Yiddish stage may be located in form (verse/refrain), structure (4×8-measure phrase units), style (syncopated melodies) and content (American themes and vocabulary within song texts).
With the compositions of Rumshinsky and his younger colleagues, particularly Alexander Olshanetsky (1892–1946), Sholom Secunda (1894–1947) and Abraham Ellstein (1907–63), Yiddish theatre music had reached the apex of its popularity by the late 1920s to early 1930s. The works of these songwriters represent the genre's classic phase. Olshanetsky was prized for his artful harmonies and Russian-Gypsy melos, Secunda for a directness reminiscent of folksong (two of his songs, ‘Bay mir bistu sheyn’ and ‘Dona, dona’ became crossover hits), and Ellstein for bringing the vitality of jazz and swing music to Yiddish popular song. By the 1920s, American Yiddish music had an international following, as performers toured venues in Canada, Latin America, Europe, South Africa and Australia. The style was particularly well received in many Polish cities, where the Yiddish theatre, re-established in independent Poland, had begun to institute post-Goldfaden conventions of its own. Music for the Yiddish stage in Poland and the former Soviet Union has attracted little scholarly attention (see, however, Fater, 1970; Pamietnik teatralny, xli, 1992; Michalik and Prokop-Janiec, 1995).
The ‘golden age’ of Yiddish theatre music coincided paradoxically with the decline of the American Yiddish stage, whose patronage by the late 1920s dwindled as a result of restrictive US immigration policies and the assimilation of its patrons into the American cultural mainstream. The theatre's decline led to a refinement of the style, as songwriters responded increasingly to the demands of the recording industry, radio and dance halls. A noteworthy aspect of this later phase is the ethnic coding evident in many songs, accomplished through selective use of the melodic augmented 2nd. This device, adopted from traditional cantillation modes, was already quite common in Yiddish theatre music. However, during the genre's final stage of development, the augmented 2nd interval also took on a symbolic function, which, together with a minor-key melody (and, of course, the Yiddish text), effectively established a song's pedigree for its increasingly assimilated audience. After World War II, the altered social circumstances of its Jewish American patron base, in addition to the extermination of its parent culture during the Nazi Holocaust, spelt an end to the great creative phase of the America Yiddish theatre.
The origin of Yiddish composed song (art song) may be traced to the 1897 meeting in the Moscow hotel room of composer Joel Engel (1868–1927) and Russian music critic Vladimir Stasov, during which the nationalist Stasov challenged Engel to seek musical inspiration in his own Jewish heritage. Engel and several colleagues soon set to work, publishing in 1901 a landmark anthology of Yiddish folksong texts (Evreskaya Narodnaya Pesnya v Russie, ed. Dinsburg and Marek) and founding in 1908 the Jewish Folk Music Society (with branches in St Petersburg, Moscow and elsewhere), whose chief objectives were the collection, harmonization and publication of Jewish folksongs and the creation of ‘art’ compositions based on the content or spirit of these materials. During its ten-year existence, the Society subsidized numerous publications, among them many songs composed to texts drawn from folk poetry or from the works of contemporary Yiddish writers. Apart from Engel, important contributors to the nascent repertory included Ephraim Shkliar (1871–?1942), Solomon Rosowsky (1878–1962), Lazare Saminsky (1882–1959), Mikhail Gniessen (1883–1957), Alexander Krein (1883–1951), Joseph Achron (1886–1943) and Moses Milner (1886–1953). When the Society disbanded in the wake of the Russian Revolution, many members relocated to the West where they continued to propagate the cause of Jewish musical nationalism.
The work of the St Petersburg Jewish Folk Music Society composers derived from the Russian Romantic tradition epitomized by Rimsky-Korsakov, the group's mentor at the St Petersburg Conservatory. As it developed and spread, however, the genre attracted composers of various backgrounds and styles: Yiddish texts, therefore, rather than any particular set of stylistic features, remain the defining element of this repertory. By the 1920s, Yiddish art songs were being published and performed in the USA and Latin America as well as many European nations. Composers prominent in the post-Engel generation include: Samuel Bugatch (1898–1984), Michel Gelbart (1889–1962), Vladimir Heifetz (1894–1970), Henech Kon (1890–1972), Solomon Golub (1887–1952), Leo Low (1878–1960), Maurice Rauch (1910–94), Jacob Schaeffer (1888–1936) and Lazar Weiner (1897–1982), all in the USA; Leon Wajner (1898–1979) in Argentina; Shaul Berezovski (1908–1975) in Israel; and Solomon Fayntukh (1899–1985), Leyb Yampolsky (1889–1972) and Zinovii Kompaneetz (1902–87) in the former Soviet Union.
The earliest publications of the St Petersburg Jewish Folk Music Society included artful arrangements of Yiddish theatre pieces erroneously ascribed as folksongs. With the passing of time, the distinction between ‘theatre’ and ‘composed’ song has grown increasingly artificial. Many performers presently regard the enduring melodies of both categories as equal in the heritage of Jewish national song.
Jewish music, §IV, 2: Folksongs in Jewish languages
Jews spread eastwards at the time of the First Temple exile and settled in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Iran and India. In each location they created a folklore in local Jewish dialects which, musically, has strong ties with the surrounding non-Jewish cultures. The folk music of these Jews has been studied only sporadically.
Of the two major Jewish castes that coexisted in Cochin along the coast of Malabar (state of Kerala), the Malabari or black Jews and the Paradesi or white Jews, only the former developed a local folksong repertory. Malabari women sing folksongs in Malayalam, a dialect of Tamil from Kerala. Some of these songs date to the 13th century and were transmitted by oral tradition. They treat Jewish themes, such as the blessing of Abraham, mythological figures (e.g. Evarayi, the wise man from Jerusalem), stories about the origins of their community and lyrical topics.
The Kurdish Jews (mostly from Iraq) sing in a dialect of Aramaic known as Lishna Yahudyya or Lashon ha-Targum of Jebali, as well as in the local Kurdish language, Kurmanji. The singing of ballads and folk epics is a distinctive feature of Kurdish Jewish culture, a common heritage of Jews and Muslims in this region. Two biblical epics sung in Aramaic are the stories of Joseph and of David and Goliath. These songs are strophic with a refrain and rhythmically flowing. Most songs of this genre, however, are in Kurmanji. Folksongs are also performed to accompany folkdances of three types: open-half circle and line dances with arms linked tightly, diwanki (solo dances) and dancing in processions. The dances, accompanied by a dola-zirne ensemble, are performed successively without interruption. Songs are responsorial or antiphonal with the lead singer facing the line of singers. Dances are associated with the songs they accompany. Diwanki are performed at home during evening gatherings for the purpose of entertaining. Stories, songs, instrumental tunes and virtuoso solo dancing were performed while the public sat in a circle. Procession dances are performed by individuals. They occur mainly during the bar-mitzvah and wedding ceremonies along the way from the synagogue to the home.
The Mountain Jews from the eastern and northern Caucasus developed a rich folksong repertory in Juhuri, their vernacular language, and in Azeri. There are two musical traditions: därbandi (northern Azerbaijan, southern Daghestan up to Khäytogh) and khäytoghi (Khäytogh, northern Daghestan, Chechen Republic and Kabardino-Balkaria). Before the Mountain Jews settled in large cities in the early 20th century they were an agricultural society that depended on the changing of seasons, and they marked the routine of nature with rituals of pagan or Zoroastrian origins which include shä‘mä vasal (spring ritual) songs and gudil gudil (songs for rain). Lullabies improvised by mothers and grandmothers while rocking babies describe their wishful thoughts regarding the future of the child. Mä'nihoy ‘ärüsi (wedding songs) comprise the bulk of the folksong repertory. They are performed with instrumental accompaniment by semi-professional singers and are influenced by the modes, rhythms and forms of Azerbaijani art and popular music. Ex.43 is a circumsision and bar-mitzvah song performed by the Mountain Jews.
Folk stories of epic content (e.g. sections from the Persian epos Irani-pehlevi) or episodes of the local Jewish history (e.g. the recruiting of Mountain Jews to the Russian Army after the conquest of the eastern Caucasus in the mid-19th century) are sung by professional male singers (ovosunächi or mä'nikhun in Juhuri or ashugh in Azerbaijani) at homes, the centre of the Jewish quarter or the synagogue. Giryä (laments) are sung by women at the home of the deceased during the seven days of mourning. Singers of giryä-khundä have prominent status owing to their knowledge of this repertory. The highly metaphorical texts and the melody are improvised responsorially between a solo singer and chorus of mourners. As the days of mourning pass and the songs are repeated incessantly, they acquire a fixed form.
Songs in Persian appear in manuscripts as early as the 14th century, when the Jewish poet Shaheen was active. His songs continued to be performed up to the modern era. Other Persian Jewish poets are Amrani, Biniyamin ben Mishael and Siman Tov Melamed. Songs were preserved in the dastakh, a manuscript pocket book owned by singers. In certain areas of Iran (particularly Shiraz) the Jews distinguished themselves as musicians and also served the Muslim society, such as Isaac under Nasser al-Din Shah (1848–96) and the singer Yonah Dardashti (b ?1905) (see below, §V, 1).
Wedding songs are close in their structure to the Persian Tarane-hai mahali. They consist of short phrases repeated many times based on motifs of selected dastgāh. In addition to the general Jewish Persian repertory, there are local songs of individual communities, such as Isfahan and Mashhad.
The repertory of the Bukharan Jews (Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent and Dushanbe) includes traditional songs in Persian, Uzbek and Tajik. Some genres have a specific function as the gakhvorabandon (putting the newborn into a special cradle), koshchinon (ritual painting of a bride's eyebrows) and haqqoni (laments). At weddings and other celebrations professional female Jewish singers/dancers perform elaborated dances from the sozanda genre.
Jewish music, §IV: Non-liturgical music
Jewish music, §IV, 3: Non-liturgical music: Instrumental music
Jewish musicians were of particular importance in the performance and composition of instrumental music throughout the Islamic world, despite their lowly status both among Muslims and within their own communities. Jewish ensembles, sometimes including non-Jewish musicians or accompanying Muslim male and female singers, perpetuated the repertories from the various classical music traditions in North Africa, the Middle East, Iraq, the Caucasus, Iran and Central Asia, serving as agents of musical exchange between the different regions of the Islamic world. In most cases Jewish ensembles served both Jewish and Muslim audiences at life-cycle events (notably weddings) and for pure entertainment (e.g. playing in coffeehouses and private residences). Although ‘Jewish musicians’ in the present context generally refers to male performers and composers, there are cases of Jewish women who crossed the boundaries of their traditional community confines and became performers of instrumental music in Jewish and, more rarely, non-Jewish events (see below, §V, 1(i)).
Jewish musicians were active in the practice of the Arabic-Andalusian music traditions in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. In earlier periods there is evidence of gentiles performing instrumental music for Jews in North Africa – as Rabbi Abraham Ibn Musa (c1680–1733) testified (GB-Lbl Add.440, f.164v):
I witnessed a scandal … [Jews from Tunis] bring to their houses on Holy Days, and sometimes on weekdays, gentiles that play kinnor (kamanja) and nevel (‘ūd) and tof (drum, probably tār) and halil (wind instrument, perhaps the ghayta) … and men intermingle with women.
However, since the 19th century Jewish instrumentalists appear to have attained prominence, as testified by travellers such as the Italian Jew Samuel Romanelli and the French painter Eugène Delacroix, as well as by the evident esteem with which the Sultans (e.g. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz; ruled 1894–1908) regarded Jewish musicians.
The cities of Marrakech and Mogador in particular have a history of Jewish performers of al-‘alā al-andalusiyya (Moroccan-Andalusian music). Among the famous ensembles from Marrakech in the early 20th century was the Arba‘a al-kbīra (Arabic: ‘large’ or ‘double four’, because it included twice the number of each instrument: ‘ūd, rabāb, Western viola, and tār) led by Samuel ben Dahan. In Mogador the leading ensemble was that of Yosef Zdidi, whose musicians were trained by the Muslim master Mahdī Ibn Sūta (Ben Ami, 1970). Jews were also active in the perpetuation of Andalusian musical traditions. In Algeria the Jewish musician, publisher and impresario Edmond-Nathan Yafil (1877–1928) founded the musical society al-Mutribiyya and was considered a central figure in the renaissance of Algerian-Andalusian music (Bouzar-Kasbadji, 1980, pp.39–86). Among the Jewish masters of the Algerian nūba in the 20th century has been Saud El Medioni, also called Saoud l’Oranais. Later, instrumentalists such as Raymond Leyris and Sylvain Ghrenassia continued to excel in the performance of the Algerian-Andalusian tradition. Jewish and Muslim Arab musicians were still sharing performances in North Africa in the 1970s (e.g. on the Isle of Djerba, Tunisia; see Davis, 1999). The peace process in the Middle East has allowed for a renewal in the relations between Moroccan Muslim and Jewish musicians, with mutual exchanges and performances being staged in Israel and Morocco.
Ottoman Jewish musicians from Constantinople (Istanbul), Edirne, Salonika and Izmir were involved in the development of Ottoman classical music from the early 17th century. Among them were the miskalî (player of the miskal, an Ottoman panpipe) Yahudi Yako and the tanburî (player of the string instrument tanbur) Yahudi Kara Kash, and the composers Çelebiko (an instructor of the famous Ottoman musician Prince Cantemir), Moshe Faro (known as Musi or Tanburî Hakham Mushe, d 1776) a leading musician at the court of Sultan Mahmud I, Aharon Hamon (known as Yahudi Harun, d after 1721), and Isaac Fresco Romano (known as Tanburî Ishāq, 1745–c1814), who was the most prominent Jewish musician of the Ottoman Empire and who served at the court of Sultan Selim III. Among the distinguished Jewish musicians and composers of more recent generations in Turkey were Shem Tov Shikiar (1840–1920), from Izmir, and Abraham Levy Hayyat (Missirli Ibrahim, b 1881), who was active in Istanbul.
In Iraq Jews were conversant in all musical genres and played a particularly important role in the development of the traditional maqām ‘irāqī in the 19th and 20th centuries (Warkow, 1986). The instrumental ensemble established by Jewish musicians, called al-schālghī al-baghdādī, consisted of a singer (qāri’ al-maqām) accompanied by a santūr (a version of the Persian 72-string box zither played with two wooden sticks), jūza or al-kamāna al-baghdādiyya (3- or 4-string spike fiddle), dumbuk (clay drum) and daff (small frame drum with metal discs). More modern ensembles incorporated the Western violin, qānūn, nay and ‘ūd. At the International Congress of Arabic Music held in Cairo in 1932 the official Iraqi delegation included many Jews. They were led by the famous ‘awād (‘ūd player) Ezra Aharon (‘Azzūrī Effendi) who was involved in the introduction of ‘modern’ (i.e. Egyptian) music to Iraq. Another prominent Iraqi Jewish musician of that period was the violinist and composer Salāh al-Kuwaytī, a founding member of the Iraqi Radio Orchestra in 1936. Aharon left Iraq for Palestine in 1934 to become a leading figure in the development of modern Arab music in Israel/Palestine and the leader of the ‘Oriental’ Orchestra of the British-sponsored Palestinian Broadcasting Authority (later Kol yisrael, the Israeli Radio); the orchestra included Jewish immigrants from Iraq and Egypt as well as local Muslim and Christian Arab musicians (Warkow, 1987).
In the Kurdish territories of Iraq, Jews shared the instrumental repertory for zurna (double reedpipe) and doira (large barrel drum that hangs from the shoulder and is played with sticks) with their Muslim counterparts. This instrumental music accompanies group dancing at Jewish weddings and other family celebrations (Squires, 1975).
In Iran (Persia) Jews played a substantial role in the conception and transmission of instrumental art and folk music. This phenomenon was particularly noticeable in Shiraz (Loeb, 1972). A census of 1903 counted 60 professional Jewish instrumentalists and singers in this community of 5000. Jewish experts on the Persian dastgāh are known by name from the late 19th century. The kamancha virtuoso Musa-Khan Kashani (1856–1939), who served under Prince Thal Al-Sultan, was considered one of the great creative geniuses of Persian classical music. In the 20th century the outstanding Jewish musician was Mortaza Ney-Davud (b c1904), a disciple of Aqa Huseyn-Qoli and Darwish-Khan, who recorded his radif in the 1970s on behalf of the Iranian government (Netzer, 1984).
In the Caucasus, from Baku to Nalchick, it was customary for Muslims to engage musicians from the Mountain Jews to play at their festivities (Eliyahu, 1999). The music profession was handed down from one generation to the next within families, and therefore the Jewish ensembles consisted of relatives. Among the musical genres performed by Jews are sections of the Azeri and Daghestani mugam repertory, with a marked preference for the modes bayati shiraz, segah, mahur hindi, chargah and shur. Suites consisting of a mugam (improvised section), täsnif (‘song’) and räng (‘dance’) are regularly played at weddings. Among the outstanding Mountain Jewish musicians were the garmoshka (Asiatic accordion) virtuoso Shamil Navakhov (1920–81) and the members of the Avdalimov and Izrailov ensembles from Derbent.
The instrumental music of Jews from Azerbaijan and southern Daghestan is mainly associated with dances, such as täräkämä, ovshori and khars. Täräkämä melodies are performed by a leading instrument (e.g. zurnov, tar or komonchä) accompanied by a dämkäsh (playing a bourdon) and ghovol (frame drum), and are usually played in mugham segah. In the northern Caucasus the dances of the Jewish communities are the yir, lezginka and suydum tayaq. The former consists of an opening improvisation in free rhythm based on motifs from well-known songs, a short middle passage hinting at the rhythm used in the next sections, a sudden return to the improvisation of the opening, and a final section that consists of several melodies, each faster than the one preceding. Occasionally the yir is performed as a purely instrumental piece without dancing, being played on the garmoshka and ghovol. A fragment from the opening section of the yir may be used as an introduction to an autonomous dance, such as the lezginka, or a song. The lezginka, a widespread dance from the northern Caucasus, has several melodies, each named after the village of its origin. It takes the form of a theme and variations and is played mainly on the zurnov (but often now on the clarinet) accompanied by the garmoshka and govhol. The suydum-tayaq (Kumiq: ‘love stick’) dance for couples is, like the lezginka, a theme and variations and is characteristically in 3/4 time; it is played on the garmoshka and ghovol.
Outstanding Jewish performers were also involved in the transmission of the shashmakom tradition of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The old Jewish style of shashmakom was chamber-like, being performed only by the Uzbeki tanbur accompanied by the doira (large frame drum). Under Soviet influence, larger ensembles were formed consisting, in addition to the traditional instruments, of the dutar (two-string lute), chang (hammered zither related to the Persian santūr), ghijak (upright spike fiddle), nāy (transverse flute) and clarinet. Among the distinguished Jewish shashmakom performers in the 20th century are Levi Bobohonov, Gabriel Mullokandov, the Talmasov brothers, Berta Davidov, Barno Izhakova and the Eliezerov family who reached Palestine in the 1930s and perpetuated their tradition there (Slobin, 1982). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Jewish musicians from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, who comprised a relatively large percentage of the professional performers in their original countries, resettled in Israel and the USA (especially in the New York area), where they continue to develop their art today.
Female Jewish instrumentalists in the Islamic world have chiefly been percussionists who accompanied ensembles of female singers. From the 19th century onwards, however, there is evidence of Jewish women playing other musical instruments, but always in internal gatherings. The traveller Victor Guerin witnessed in mid-19th century Rhodes Sephardi girls and women who met regularly at the fountain in the main street and knew how to play ‘a guitar that resembled a Spanish mandolin and accompanied singing and dancing at celebrations’ (1856). The playing of string instruments such as the ‘ūd, mandolin and even the qānūn was customary among East Sephardi women in the early 20th century as part of the modernization processes affecting their communities during this period.
Examples of semi-professional female ensembles are the daqqāqāt from Iraq, a group of four or five drum players who entertained audiences at Jewish weddings and parties. Similar to them are the tañedoras in the Sephardi communities of the Ottoman Empire. Jewish women performing outside their community, however, were frowned upon. A rabbinical responsum by Rabbi Moshe Israel from the Island of Rhodes (d 1782; see Moshe yedabber, f.57a) recalls two Jewish merchants who witnessed a group of non-Jewish men and women leaving a social gathering playing drums and wind instruments. Among them were two Jewish women, who were singing and rejoicing along with the others. The merchants reported the incident to the Rabbi who summoned the women to a meeting at which he warned them about their inappropriate conduct. The women replied that while they did indeed attend the parties of gentiles, they did so solely in a professional capacity, not to socialize with the non-Jews but to sing for payment.
Jewish music, §IV, 3: Non-liturgical music: Instrumental music
The Yiddish term klezmer (pl. klezmorim; from the Hebrew word for musical instruments), was first used for the professional musician in the 17th century by Jews in eastern Europe. The klezmer profession originated in the older Ashkenazi centres of central Europe, where the Jewish musician had formerly been termed leyts (pl. leytsonim, from Heb.: ‘clown’).
The link between the west and east European klezmer traditions seems to have been Bohemia. The characteristic four to five-piece ensemble, consisting of lead violin, contra-violin (sekund), cimbalom (cimbal), bass or cello, and occasionally a flute, seems to have spread from early 17th-century Prague both eastwards and westwards. In western Europe it was adopted by non-Jews only in the 18th century, and in parts of the east during the 19th. The clarinet was accepted as a second lead instrument by the early 19th century in Moldavia, Ukraine, Lithuania and possibly other areas. In the later 19th century an ensemble of 10–15 men, featuring brass as well as strings, appeared in the cities and towns of the Tsarist Pale of Settlement and also Bessarabia. After 1900 it was recreated in the USA.
Throughout the territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Poland, Galicia, Lithuania, Belarus', Ukraine), landowners encouraged the development of the klezmorim as a Jewish guild. During the 19th century, however, after most of these territories had come under Tsarist rule, the guild-like structure of the klezmer ensembles (kapelye, khevrisa) declined, surviving mainly in Austrian Galicia and Ottoman Moldavia. Professional klezmorim formed an occupational caste, intermarrying at times with the families of wedding jesters (badkhón or marshalik). Klezmorim spoke their own Yiddish professional jargon (labushaynski). By the beginning of the 18th century klezmer ensembles were exclusively male. Traditionally, the leader was the first violinist, who usually passed on his position to his son or son-in-law. While the first violinist was usually a full-time musician, the band-members often held secondary professions, often that of the barber.
In most of the northern areas, where Gypsies (Rom) were never particularly numerous, the klezmorim constituted the majority of the professional musicians. Principally located in the private towns on the large estates of the Polish nobility, there were also several urban centres of klezmer music, especially Vilna and Lemberg (Lwów, now L'viv), as well as Iaşi, the capital of Ottoman Moldavia. Depending upon their legal status, klezmorim played many genres of popular dance music for the nobility and for the urban gentile population. Non-Jewish sources between the 17th century and the 19th speak of the high regard in which the nobility held the best Jewish violinists and cimbalists. At the same time klezmorim from lower-status kapelyes worked as individual musicians at taverns and at peasant weddings.
While Jewish professional musicians (both male and female) were well-known in West Asia and North Africa, a distinctive Jewish instrumental repertory, style and system of genres is documented only in eastern Europe, with its derivatives in America and Israel. The genres and style of European klezmer music originated mainly in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, probably before the middle of the 18th century. Most of the European repertory known today developed between 1800 and 1900. This repertory displays both Western and Near Eastern/Balkanic features, but reveals relatively little influence of purely local musics, except those of Moldavia and Wallachia. Since the 18th century at least – during the era of Greco-Ottoman rule in Moldavia (1711–1828) – klezmer music shared a deep mutual connection with both Moldavian and Greek instrumental traditions, resulting in the creation of a Jewish Moldavian repertory, generally performed by mixed ensembles of Jews, Gypsies, Romanians, Greeks and Russians.
The most common klezmer dance-genre was known variously as the freylakh, khosidl, rikudl, hopke, karahod or sher. Most of these tunes were created in a scale employing an augmented second degree (‘freygish’), but a significant number used a minor scale. Some degree of harmonic accompaniment was present in even the simplest klezmer performance. The development of the chromatic klezmer tuning for the cimbal seems to have been a product of this early harmonization. Three-section tunes generally feature modulation and passing-note alterations. Syncopations and rhythmic contrasts within the sections of the freylakhs are striking.
Only a small fragment of the original klezmer repertory is extant today. The leading klezmorim based their performances on extended metrical or unmetred improvisations (gedanken and taksim), interspersed with dance-tunes for listening (skochne). Some Near-Eastern inspired pieces were performed with the Turkish violin tuning (tsvei shtrines: ‘two strings’). These klezmorim created their own versions of liturgical or paraliturgical pieces (shteyger, khsos, tish-nign etc.), as well as individual compositions (zogekhts etc.). Among the prestigious composed wedding genres were the dobriden and mazltov. One of the major genres of the wedding ceremony proper was the improvised kale-bazetsn or kale-baveynen. Klezmorim performed their Jewish repertory principally at Jewish weddings, and at Holy Days such as Simhat Torah, Hanukkah, Purim, sometimes Sukkot, Pesah and Rosh-hodesh and at the end of the Sabbath. At weddings klezmorim also accompanied the rhymes of the wedding jester – otherwise they would not accompany any Jewish vocal music. Apart from both Jewish and gentile dance-music, the leading klezmorim utilized the wedding table (tish) of wealthier Jews, as well as certain Holy Days (such as Hanukkah) to perform their finest compositions and improvisations. Several hasidic courts, such as Liubavich and Sadegora in the 19th century, encouraged the development of klezmer music, either by employing local klezmorim, or by keeping their own kapelye.
Composer-klezmorim of the 19th century included Abraham Kholodenko of Berdichev, known as ‘Pedotser’ (1828–1902), Shepsl of Kobryn, Marder Ha-Godol of Vinnitsa, Khayim Fiedler of Orhei, Shmuel Weintraub of Brody and Khone Wolfstahl of Tarnopol (1853–1924). The first klezmer to achieve fame on the European concert stage was the Belarusian cimbalist Mikhl Guzikow (1806–37). In 19th-century Moldavia, such klezmorim as Itsik Tsambalgiu and Lemish of Beltsi were performers and composers of the local urban music that was also performed by Gypsies. Similar trends existed in Hungary, where Jewish musicians seem to have played exclusively non-Jewish popular pieces. The descendant of a Hungarian klezmer family, Mordekhai Rosenthal (Rózsavölgyi, Márk, 1787–1848) became one of the first composers to introduce the popular national style (verbunkos) into Western-style symphonic and chamber music; such a practice among Jewish musicians, however, seems to have been unique to Hungary.
Music notation seems to have been first accepted by ensemble leaders in the early 19th century, at least in the larger centres. While some wrote down their compositions, they were never published, but handed down only to their successors in the kapelye. The majority of small-town klezmorim remained illiterate until late in the 19th century. The acceptance of Jews into Russian and Austrian conservatories in the last third of the 19th century affected both the performance style and professional opportunities of klezmorim in larger cities and towns. After World War I klezmorim were increasingly integrated into various forms of European musical life, while sometimes also maintaining a role in the communal music of the Jews. The Holocaust put a complete end to klezmer music in Poland, while the genre and profession were largely surpressed in the Soviet Union.
Documentation of klezmer music began only in the early 20th century. Between 1908 and 1911 the Columbia, Victor and Odeon labels recorded violin and cimbal duets through their studios in Lemberg (L'viv). Between 1912 and 1913 the Warsaw-based Sirena and the Kiev-based Stella companies recorded many sides by the ‘Belf's Romanian Orchestra’. In this era a few sides were issued in Istanbul by the Odeon and Orfeon labels. Scientific collection of klezmer music began between 1912 and 1914 in Tsarist Ukraine and Belarus', principally by Joel Engel (1868–1927), working with S. An-Ski (1863–1920). In the 1930s they were followed by Moisey Beregovski (1892–1961) at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kiev, who amassed the single most significant collection of klezmer music. Moshe Bik's small but important collection from Orhei, Bessarabia was published in Haifa in 1964. In New York the klezmer violinist Wolf Kostakowsky published a major commercial collection of dance repertory in 1916. Between roughly 1912 and 1929 American record companies issued a large number of klezmer recordings featuring large ensembles, clarinetists or violinists. A more purely American klezmer repertory was issued in the 1940s and 1950s.
Previously unknown repertory is emerging from older Jewish musicians from the former Soviet Union. Certain hasidic groups in Israel and America still preserve some of their instrumental traditions; several hasidic vocal repertories are also closely related to klezmer music. In addition, a small independent repertory exists among Orthodox musicians in Israel. Of the numerous klezmer manuscripts that once existed, many were destroyed in the 20th century, but some may still survive in eastern Europe and Israel. During the early decades of the 20th century, several Jewish musicians, most of them students of either Rimsky-Korsakov or Liadov at the St Petersburg Conservatory, composed pieces based in part on the klezmer repertory. The major figures in this movement were Joel Engel, Joseph Achron (1886–1943), Alexander Krein (1883–1951), Mikhail Gniessin (1883–1957) and Jacob Weinberg (1879–1956). The clarinetist Simeon Bellison (1883–1953), an early associate of Engel, continued to perform this repertory with his Zimro Ensemble (1918) and, after 1920, with the New York Philharmonic.
In America, following the mass immigration from eastern Europe in 1881, much of the klezmer repertory and its distinctive performance style were lost. It was only during the 1920s that an American klezmer music began to emerge, chiefly in New York. Its most influential figures were the clarinetists Naftule Brandwein (1889–1963) and Dave Tarras (1897–1989). Tarras's music, which combined a mainly Romanian repertory with a classically-influenced clarinet tone, became the model for most American Jewish dance music during the early 1960s. By this period most of the American-born children of the klezmer families abandoned Jewish music, entering the classical or various popular fields. Only a small minority of these musicians continued to perform parts of the American klezmer dance repertory for parochial Jewish communities in New York, Philadelphia, Boston or Toronto.
The revival of klezmer music occurred in two distinct stages, the first c1970–85, and the second from 1985 to the present. In the early 1970s Giora Feidman, a clarinetist with the Israel Philharmonic, began to popularize American klezmer music in Europe. In the mid-1970s young musicians from non-klezmer families in New York and California (the Bay Area ‘Klezmorim’) began to relearn some of the klezmer repertory and style, mainly from old American recordings. In New York Zev Feldman and Andy Statman (cimbal and clarinet) were apprenticed to Dave Tarras, and their 1978 concert with him became a milestone in the revival. Statman went on to become a major voice of klezmer. The following decade witnessed a revival of both American klezmer and Yiddish theatre music, by such groups as the Klezmer Conservatory Band in Boston and Kapelye in New York. In 1985 Henry Sapoznik (founder of Kapelye) instituted the yearly ‘KlezKamp’ which fulfilled an important role in teaching klezmer and other Yiddish music.
In the mid-1980s a largely non-Jewish audience for both more traditional European and innovative klezmer styles emerged in the USA and Germany. This led to the formation of several influential groups and eventually to regular concert programmes and festivals in Europe and elsewhere featuring klezmer and other Yiddish music. Among the major groups formed at this time were the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble, Brave Old World and Budowitz, featuring such musicians as Kurt Bjorling, Joel Rubin, Michael Alpert, Alan Bern, Stuart Brotman and Joshua Horowitz. A somewhat younger group of musicians began to take klezmer music in new directions, with the support of a growing audience in Germany, especially after the unification of 1989. Klezmer Rock’n’Roll took its most influential shape with the Klezmatics (formed by Frank London and Alicia Svigals), while the clarinetist David Krakauer created a sophisticated klezmer jazz. Zev Feldman and the violinist Steven Greenman formed Khevrisa, performing European klezmer compositions. By the early 1990s Germany was the home to an increasing number of klezmer ensembles and performers, followed by the Netherlands and other European countries. In Israel a small group of Orthodox klezmorim, led by Musa Berlin, perform a largely American-derived, but partly local, repertory especially at religious pilgrimages.
Jewish music, §V: Art and Popular Music in Surrounding Cultures
Jewish musicians performing outside their own communities are documented from as early as the Middle Ages. In general, the social contexts for such activities were the palaces of Muslim rulers and the aristocracy. Unlike musicians of other religious and ethnic denominations living under Islam, the Jews were generally not slaves. However, they were compelled to appear at the courts whenever the monarchs ordered it. This status is reflected in a Jewish folk tale found in various versions throughout the Islamic countries: a Jewish musician is ordered to play or sing in the midst of a Jewish Holy Day against his religious precepts, thus creating the dilemma of whether to remain faithful and face the consequences, or to betray his faith; in some versions of the story the Jewish musician commits suicide, in others he saves his life by intoning a song of the corresponding Jewish Holy Day.
The names of several Jewish musicians serving at the Muslim courts of Spain are recorded. For example, in the semi-mythological history of Ziryāb, the founder of the Western Arabic school, a Jewish musician, known as al-Mansūr al-Yahūdī, who was active at the court of Al-Hakīm I and ‘Abd al-Rahmān II in Cordoba, is sent to Algesiras to receive the great musician coming from the Eastern Caliphate. Rabbi Eliyahu Capsali (1483–1555) from Constantinople related the story of a Jewish musician, a refugee from Spain, called Abraham who was nominated by Sultān Bāyazīd II (1481–1511) to the highest musical position in the seraglio after the monarch in disguise heard him play at the Jewish quarter (Capsali, 1976, i, 91ff). Sometimes, Jewish musicians served as the means of linking the Jewish community to the centres of political power. In Libya Jewish men gained access to the palace ‘by virtue of their abilities as singers’ (Goldberg, 1990, p.26).
The acquaintance of Jewish thinkers with Arabic music theory from the time of Sa‘adyah Gaon (882–942) forms another point of contact with the surrounding Islamic music culture. Gaon's passage on the rhythmic cycles in his Sefer emunot ve-de‘ot is apparently indebted to the works of Al-Kindī (836–901). This involvement continued in Spain. Yehuda ibn Tibbon's Arabic translation of the famous passage on singing in the Sefer ha-kuzari by Yehuda Halevy (1075–c1141) is indebted to the terminology of the Kitāb al-mūsīqī al-kabīr by Al-Fārābī (873–951). The source of a passage on music in the Sefer ha-mevaqqesh by Shem-Tov ben Yosef ibn Falaqera (1225–95) appears to be the ‘Epistle of Music’ composed by members of the Brotherhood of Purity sect (Ikhwān al-Safā; Shiloah, 1978).
European colonialism in North Africa and the Middle East since the 19th century granted the Jews a more secure status and created for Jewish artists new opportunities in the musical life in the major cities of these areas. The development of the publishing houses, broadcasting and the recording and film industries boosted this Jewish presence. Jews were also actively involved in live musical performances in coffeehouses. Thus, while Jewish musicians and music entrepreneurs continued to be involved in the performance of the classical traditions (see above, §IV, 3(i)), they also commanded the emerging secular popular music styles stemming from the recording industry and the movies, especially in North Africa. Notable among performers in the popular Algerian styles are the blind singer and ‘ūd player Reinette Sultana Daud, also called Reinette l’Oranaise, Raymond Leyris from Constantine, the violinist Sylvain Ghrenassia, Edmond Atlan, and Enrico Macias, son of Sylvain, who attained a great success in France (Teboul, 1987). In Tunisia, the French- and Egyptian-influenced popular song of the city of Tunis has been composed and performed since the early 20th century mostly by Jews, such as the sisters Shamama and Leila Qfez, Raoul Journo, Habiba Mssika (d 1931), Luezia Tunsia, Simon Amiel (born in Egypt), Bishi Slama (called Khaisa) and the cantor Asher Mizrahi, who came from Jerusalem and also recorded secular songs (Taieb, 1989). Among the performers of popular music genres in Morocco are Zohara Elfassiya, Ibrahim Suiri, Elma'alma Nejma and Sami Elmaghrebi. The latter, who was influenced by another prominent Jewish singer from Algeria, Salim Halali, also became a prominent performer for the immigrant communities of Moroccan Jews in France, Canada and Israel. In Israel the chief programmer of Moroccan popular music is Sheikh Muizo (Moshe ‘Attar).
Jewish participation in the European-influenced popular urban culture of the Islamic countries from the 20th century onwards is one of the many signs of the weakening of traditional Jewish life and of the authority of the religious leadership during this period. As a means of avoiding the influence of the entertainment industry and of the coffeehouses, some rabbis allowed the composition of Hebrew sacred songs texts set to the melodies of the most popular songs of the day. An expert in this field was Rabbi David Buzaglo from Morocco.
There were cases in which the deep involvement of Jewish artists in the entertainment industry, coupled with the nationalist policies of the mass media of the Islamic countries, forced them to convert to Islam as a mean to reach the summit of success, as for example the great Egyptian Jewish singer Layla Murād. Those who refused to follow this trend sometimes had no choice but to leave their native country. Such appears to have been the case of cantor Isaac Algazi (1889–1951), an expert in the Turkish ghazal, who emigrated in the early 1930s to South America.
Jewish music, §V: Art and Popular Music in Surrounding Cultures
(iii) Emancipation to World War II.
(vi) Popular music: Tin Pan Alley and Broadway.
Jewish music, §V, 2: Art and Popular Music in Surrounding Cultures: The Christian world
The concept of ‘Jewish music’ was controversial in the case of Western art music compositions that acquired ‘Jewish’ connotations through the explicit intent of composers or through an audience's interpretation. Devoid of religious contexts, Jewish connotations were created by titles or by the Jewish origin of their composers, necessarily linked with vague musical properties. The confusion was illustrated when, in 1946, a survey held by the Palestine Broadcast Service revealed that listeners labelled Varlaam's aria from Boris Godunov as ‘Jewish’ (Hirshberg, 1995, p.252). The existence of Jewish music was questioned, especially in response to Wagner's ‘Judentum in der Musik’. Most of the papers read at The Jewish Music Forum (founded in New York, 1939) struggled with the definition of their own titles. Faced with the challenge of his bibliography Sendrey wrote that ‘every statement regarding the style … must be viewed … as a more or less arbitrary opinion’ (1951, p.xxi).
Since the 1920s three models have emerged:
(1) The contextual model, which regards the inclusion of Jewish chant melodies or folk tunes as a precondition for the Jewishness of a concert composition (Werner, 1978). However, this model has been precarious from the outset; Idelsohn, for example, defined Bruch's Kol nidré as ‘German’ music despite the quotation of a Jewish liturgical melody (1929/R, p.466). Wolpe, however, argued that the audience's recognition of folk material within a concert piece was not a necessary condition for the identification of music as ‘Jewish’, and that radical transformations of the folk material should be allowed when used in art music (1946).
(2) The sociological model, which considers Jewish communal life, such as existed before World War II in eastern Europe, as a precondition for Jewish folk music (Stutschewsky, 1935) and regards Jewish art music as a development dependent on the establishment of Jewish territorial entity in Palestine (Idelsohn, 1929/R; see also Hirshberg, 1995, p.243). In 1943 Sachs convened a symposium in which he claimed that music merely of the Jews (Meyerbeer's) or for the Jews (Sulzer) was ‘not Jewish music’, and that national music can develop only ‘within a nation on its own soil’.
(3) The genetic-psychological model, which identifies certain general musical traits as emanating from the inner Jewish soul. Nadel (1923) adopted Idelsohn's characteristics of synagogue music (recitative, melodic diatonicism, anapaestic rhythm and structural parallelism), to which he added meditative tendencies, mixed tonalities and irregular rhythmic changes – all of which also fitted polyphonic art music (see Ringer, 1990, p.194). Berl (1926) considered ‘Jewishness’ to be embedded in the Asiatic character of the ‘autonomous melody’ and vocal expression of Jewish composers, including Meyerbeer and the converted Mendelssohn. Berl considered Jewish music a fresh inspiration for the renewal of European music following the ‘Romantic crisis’. His approach was adopted by Felber (1928) and Fromm (1978), and theoretically refined in Ringer's concept of ‘affective inheritance’ (Ringer, 1990, p.201), which was applied to Mahler, Bloch and Schoenberg as the epitomes of Jewish musical expression.
Jewish music, §V, 2: Art and Popular Music in Surrounding Cultures: The Christian world
Evidence indicates that some Jews actively participated in the music of the surrounding Christian culture as early as the Middle Ages. Mahieu le Juif, for example, was a French trouvère poet-composer who is thought to have lived during the 13th century, and Jews are known to have been involved in performances of the Cantigas de Santa Maria at the court of Alfonso el Sabio (1252–84) in Castille. Such evidence, however, remains exceptional and Jewish art music was a relatively late development in the general history of the Western music tradition, appearing in Italy only at the end of the 16th century. The problems of explaining why Jewish art music developed so late and what motivated its formation in the first place must, therefore, be addressed.
The ‘late start’ may partly have resulted from rabbinical antagonism to all kinds of music that break with traditional song as practised in the synagogue. With the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews were expected to be in perpetual mourning, and hence not to display art. The rabbis condemned secular music and the use of instruments, frowning upon music as a source of entertainment (Maimonides). Synagogue chant, for prayers and the cantillation of the scriptural readings, was not considered to be ‘music’, but rather a melodic inflection of sacred texts; from a rabbinical standpoint it sufficed to fulfil the ritual needs of the community.
Yet there are other reasons for the late start: synagogue music itself has traditionally been monophonic and this defining characteristic limited other forms of music-making. Art music (polyphonic music in particular) was associated with Christians, and Jewish authorities hardly encouraged the imitation of ‘Christian ways’ (hukat ha-goy) in prayer services or communal activities. A further problem that had to be overcome before a tradition of art music could develop was notation. Because Hebrew is written from right to left, the Western system of notation could not ensure an adequate correlation of notes with the syllables of Hebrew texts. Except for isolated examples of Hebrew chants before the 17th century (three hymns from the 12th century, and examples of cantillation in 16th- and 17th-century humanist writings on Hebrew grammar), the earliest fully fledged notation of Hebrew polyphony was that in Salamone Rossi's sacred songs published in 1622–3.
The motivation for an art music tradition came from various quarters. First, the practice of hymn composition: hymns, or piyyutim, were introduced into the synagogue as early as the 5th century, only to become associated, after the 10th, with strophic metrical forms (see above, §III, 2(iv)). Three elements were crucial: the iterative structures of the verse; its quantitative or sometimes qualitative measurement; and the melodies to which the verse was performed – some drawn from secular or non-Jewish sources and often wed to the Hebrew texts as contrafacta. In this respect the piyyut differed from biblical cantillation, which usually had free rhythms, prose texts and ekphonetic motivic patterns. From the very beginning ‘new’ melodies were often cultivated in its performance; the 13th-century Sefer hasidim (‘Book of the Pious’) orders singers of piyyutim to ‘seek for melodies and when you pray employ a melody which will be beautiful and soft in your eyes’. By contrast, the ‘melodies’ of the cantillated texts were not to be tampered with, for they were thought, by legend, to have been delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai. With the gradual rise of the hazzan to a position of prominence in the synagogue liturgy, there was a concomitant tendency to favour the introduction of a ‘new’ repertory suited to displaying his increasingly professional skills.
Another element in the formation of an incipient polyphony was the meshorerim practice of the Ashkenazi rite from the 16th century (or perhaps even earlier) onwards. The hazzan was supported at times by two assistants, one a boy with a higher voice, the other an adult with a bass voice; they punctuated various portions of the hazzan's phrase, particularly its cadences, creating three-part harmony (see above, §III, 3(iii)). Still other elements might have been influential: the use of music as an adjunct to joyous Holy Days (e.g. Simhat Torah, Purim) and to private and communal festivities (banquets, weddings, circumcisions, the consecration of a synagogue, the inauguration of a Torah scroll); the efforts deployed by rabbis of a more liberal tendency, in particular Leon Modena (d 1648), to introduce part singing into the synagogue; the service of Jewish musicians in the Italian courts (Mantua, Turin), where they became acquainted with, and eventually adopted, the latest styles of Christian art music. Jewish musicians also performed in the Mantuan Jewish theatre, which, from the mid-16th century to the early 17th, provided theatrical entertainment with musical interludes for Christian audiences, especially during the Carnival season. In justifying their interest in art music, Jews often cited the example of the glorious music practised in the ancient Temple, which Salamone Rossi, among others, was thought to have revived in his own day (according to Leon Modena's preface to Rossi's Hebrew collection).
Art music by Jewish composers began in Italy, particularly Mantua, in the late 16th century, then spread to Amsterdam and southern France in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its practical remains are limited. Secular vocal music (madrigals, canzonettas etc.) is represented by collections of the Jewish composers David Sacerdote (1575), Salamone Rossi (eight books; 1600–28), Davit da Civita (1616) and Allegro Porto (three books; 1619–25), although with the exception of Rossi's the collections are all incomplete, lacking one or more voices. The only known instrumental works are the four collections by Rossi (1607–22; containing sinfonias, sonatas, gagliardas, correntes etc.). Sacred art music with Hebrew texts seems to have been introduced into the synagogue in the first decade of the 17th century, spreading from Ferrara to Mantua, Venice and other mainly northern Italian centres. Such music may have been largely improvised, for only two early Italian collections are extant: Rossi's Ha-shirim asher li-shelomo and the presumably eight-voice pieces, of which only one of the voices survives, in an anonymous manuscript (US-CIhc Birnbaum 4F 71; ?Venice), which most likely dates from the late 1620s or the 1630s. From the late 17th century to the end of the 18th, a small number of cantatas and liturgical songs was composed for use in Venice (or perhaps Modena), Casale Monferrato and Siena, in connection with celebrations of religious confraternities or the dedication of a new Torah scroll: their composers are either unknown or Christian (e.g. Carlo Grossi, 1681; Volunio Gallichi, 1786, 1796). In Amsterdam during the later 17th century, sacred music was performed in the Great Synagogue of the Portuguese Jewish community, although the earliest known sources (cantatas, choral works) date from the 18th. Of the various composers two were outstanding: Abraham Caceres (a Jew) and C.J. Lidarti (a Jesuit Christian). From southern France remains a single cantata; composed about 1680–1700 by Louis Saladin (a non-Jew) to celebrate a circumcision, it consists of preludes, dances and choruses.
The most important early Jewish composer was Salamone Rossi. In addition to his 12 secular collections he may be credited with the first polyphonic set of Hebrew sacred songs (Ha-shirim asher li-shelomo). His activity as an art music composer was paralleled by utterances of contemporary writers, among them Judah Moscato, who, in a sermon on music (printed in 1588), expanded on the symbolism of the number eight (the octave, hence perfection; Simhat Torah, the joyous eighth day of Sukkot; the scientia divina, or eighth science that forms the culmination of the seven liberal arts); Leon Modena, who debated the legitimacy of using art music in the synagogue in a responsum published in 1605; and Abraham ben David Portaleone, who, in his voluminous treatise Shiltei ha-gibborim (‘Shields of Heroes’, 1612), described the music in the ancient Temple after the example of the forms, practices and instruments of 16th- and 17th-century Italian art music.
Jewish music, §V, 2: Art and Popular Music in Surrounding Cultures: The Christian world
The 150-year period that began with the French Revolution and culminated in World War II saw some of the most dramatic social upheavals and cultural developments in European Jewish history. Until the end of the 18th century, European Jews had generally been forced to live in ghettos or shtetls (Jewish villages) and had been severely restricted in their choice of profession. There was comparatively little interaction between Jews and their Christian neighbours, and participation in the musical arts – conducted usually under the auspices of the Church and Court – was closed to all but a few privileged Jews. However, a thorough musical education was prevented not only through the official blocking of access to institutions of higher learning, but also from within the Jewish community itself, as sacred vocal music, for prayer and praise of God, was the only musical expression fully approved of by the rabbinical authorities. Klezmer musicians had been tolerated only because the entertainments provided by this low stratum of east European Jewish society evoked a suitably lively atmosphere at weddings and other communal festivities. Therefore, talented individuals with an interest in ‘serious music’ had no legitimate outlet except as synagogue cantors or choristers, who taught and learnt their art according to an internal system of apprenticeship. Consequently, no framework existed for the training of composers.
In the 19th century, as the effects of the Emancipation spread throughout Europe, the physical and psychological walls of the ghetto were gradually dismantled, and Jewish integration, acculturation and assimilation became evident everywhere to a greater or lesser extent. In eastern Europe, the Jews reflected the current mood of other ethnic groups, who chose to rediscover and consolidate their respective identities. This new national awareness was expressed through haskalah (religious and philosophical enlightenment) and the absorption of environmental elements for the purpose of enriching their Yiddish and Hebrew literature. Although the consequences of political emancipation in the West were felt from the beginning, they were slow to penetrate fully the Russian ‘Pale of Settlement’ (a swathe of land in which Jews were permitted to live); only specially privileged Jews were allowed to inhabit the larger cities, and a numerus clausus obtained in most educational institutions. Those who wanted a musical training had to travel to the conservatories of the West. Many Orthodox cantors and choirmasters learnt the necessary skills to enable them to create an effective and sensitive synthesis of classical Western harmony within the melos of traditional synagogue chant without destroying its modal essence. In Poland Jews were able to participate more actively in the musical life of their surrounding culture: they regularly attended concerts, theatre and opera performances, established Jewish music societies, played in orchestras and sang in choirs – as both professionals and amateurs.
From the 1880s onwards, a steady stream of east European Jewish refugees fleeing from pogroms settled in the West, especially in the relatively philo-Semitic USA, where they could choose whether to maintain or relinquish their Jewishness. In western and central Europe from the early 19th century onwards there were energetic moves to dispense with national and religious barriers and to recognize the universality of the human race. Jews, now full citizens of the lands they inhabited, could be part of this new society; they could enjoy a liberal education and contribute freely to the development of science and the arts. For the first time they had access to conservatory training and opportunities to perform music with their Christian neighbours. Indeed, France was the first European country in which a Jewish composer could receive the highest national honours. Halévy, for example, became the first Jew to win the Grand Prix de Rome in 1819. Synagogue cantors in Vienna, Paris, London and elsewhere, much to the consternation of their more traditional congregations, developed a taste for opera and Lieder, and some became leading exponents of these art forms.
With the rise of capitalism and the middle classes, a wider public gained access to concerts, ballet and opera, and this in turn created a growing demand for composers and performers. Despite the hitherto almost complete gulf between the practices of traditional Jewish music and those of Western art music, Jews rapidly became active – a few achieving notable international success – as composers, conductors, performers, scholars, teachers, directors, editors, publishers, critics, impresarios, patrons and piano manufacturers. Paradoxically, this new liberty brought its own problems and complexities to the issue of Jewish identity, especially for composers (who are the principal subjects of this survey). A few resolved the matter of identity by composing primarily for the synagogue. The Reform Movement, which began in Germany in the early 19th century, enlisted the services of trained musicians – both Jews and Christians – who remodelled liturgical settings for the newly built ‘Temples’ (the designation used to this day for German and American Reform synagogues) in the style of contemporary classical and church composers. Admittedly, the influence of the West was pervasive: traditional modes and motifs were standardized into major and minor tonalities and harmonized accordingly.
The majority of Jews, however, especially in the French- and German-speaking countries, became anxious to be seen as full members of the nationality, culture and society in which they lived. This desire was often expressed in a self-conscious and exaggerated manner, which created tensions both within the Jewish community and between Jews and Christians. Orthodox and Traditional Jews viewed assimilated Jews as opportunists, and those who converted to Christianity as traitors. However, those who had left the Jewish fold by default or by formal conversion – either at the behest of their parents (who had them baptized) or of their own volition as adults – felt justified in expressing their alienation from Judaism as a religion, their desire for the perceived benefits of speedier emancipation or their wish to protect themselves from accusations of ‘double allegiance’. In any event, hostility from outside did not disappear. No matter how earnestly Jews attempted to compose European music for European audiences, there were those who never failed to remind them of their original identity. Wagner, in at least two of his essays (Das Judenthum in der Musik of 1850, revised in 1869, and Erkenne dich selbst of 1881), attacked the rootlessness and lack of indigenous art music of the Jews, accusing even the greatest of them of mimicry, lack of depth and an inability to be truly creative. But if there were a tendency among Jewish composers to emphasize intellectuality, craft, mastery of the rules of formal design and technique, and in some cases to develop a taste for satire and irony, it may have been because they felt vulnerable and sensed the need to protect themselves by disguising or even suppressing any exposure of their inner life and deeper emotions in the interests of proclaiming their newly evolved musical identity.
Five of the greatest Jewish-born composers of the Romantic era came from culturally Jewish backgrounds and clearly identified themselves as Jews: Meyerbeer (1791–1864), Halévy (1799–1862), Mendelssohn (1809–47), Offenbach (1819–80) and Mahler (1860–1911). But were there any traits in their works that could be described as distinctly Jewish? Were there any conscious or subconscious reminiscences of traditional elements from childhood?
As a child, Meyerbeer had a private Hebrew teacher as well as a Jewish tutor for general subjects. His father, Herz Beer, was a wealthy German banker who opened a Reform Temple in his own home, for which Jakob (later Giacomo) composed a setting of the Sabbath text Uvnucho yomar for five-part mixed choir. He is on record as stating his belief that the instruments of the ancient Holy Land (harps, horns, trumpets etc.) should be used in modern Temples. Although he wrote numerous psalm settings and biblical romances, and was an active member of Reform congregations in Paris and Berlin, none of his mature stage works was based on Jewish subjects. However, he accepted an invitation to write an anthem for the Seitenstettengasse Tempel in Vienna and was only prevented from fulfilling this commission by the onset of his final illness.
Halévy's father, Elias Levy, was a cantor, teacher, Hebrew poet and scribe who compiled the first ever Hebrew–French dictionary and edited the weekly Parisian journal L'israélite français. He chanted his son's setting of Psalm cxviii at his synagogue in the Rue St. Avoye for the first time at the High Holy Day services of 1819. This work was later included in the first volume of Zemiroth Israel (‘Chants of Israel’), music for the entire liturgical year by the Parisian cantor and composer Samuel Naumbourg. Halévy, an active member of the Consistoire israélite in Paris, wrote several works for the synagogue, including Hebrew settings of Psalm cxxx and of the Sabbath prayer Yigdal for cantor and three-part mixed choir. Of his 30 stage works La Juive (1835), based on Lessing's Nathan der Weise, is the most frequently performed. Others with Jewish associations include Le Juif errant (1852), Le Nabah (1853) and Les plagues de Nil (1959). Noé was completed posthumously by his son-in-law Bizet.
Mendelssohn, though a sincere and practising Lutheran, remained conscious not only of the literary and philosophical heritage of his illustrious grandfather Moses, but also of political and social issues affecting the Jews of his own day (as evidenced in copious correspondence with various members of his family). His admiration for the music of other Jewish-born musicians encompassed not only the classical compositions of Ignaz Moscheles and Ferdinand David, but also the klezmer performances of the folk musician Mikhl Gusikow, whom he described enthusiastically as a genius. Some scholars have pointed to Mendelssohn's use of a popular melody for the Sabbath Yiġdal hymn (based on the 13 articles of faith as formulated by Maimonides, 1135–1204) in one of his early String Symphonies, as well as a traditional High Holy Day chant Adonai, adonai, El rahum in ‘Behold, God the Lord passed by’ towards the end of Elijah. Others have speculated that the contours of the melody presented at the beginning of the Violin Concerto show a clear affinity with motifs associated with certain Ashkenazi prayer modes. Mendelssohn wrote a German setting of Psalm c for the Reform Temple in Hamburg and planned an oratorio on the subject of Moses.
Offenbach's father, Cantor Isaac Juda Eberst, wrote about 300 songs and recitatives for the Sabbath and Festivals. At the age of 18 Offenbach composed a piano suite entitled Rebecca, as well as a collection of waltzes based on Jewish motifs.
Much has been written about the Jewishness of Mahler. Whereas this factor was an essential part of his psychological and spiritual make-up, the question of specifically Jewish elements in his music is more obscure and debatable. Some melodies do show an affinity with the east European hasidic style in particular, but hasidic music has always borrowed freely from the non-Jewish environment and Mahler also felt a close connection with Bohemian and other folk and popular styles. Although he became Catholic in 1897 in order to facilitate his appointment as conductor of the Imperial and Royal Court Opera in Vienna, he was still able in later life to recall the synagogal chants of his youth and to improvise piano accompaniments to them.
In addition to the aforementioned, a number of 19th-century Jewish composers in the European mainstream showed a passing interest in historical or religious Jewish themes: Charles-Valentin Alkan, Karl Goldmark, Ferdinand Hiller, Josef Joachim, Isaac Nathan and Anton Rubinstein to name a few. (So, also, did some Christian composers such as Beethoven, Bruch, Massenet, Musorgsky, Saint-Saëns and Schubert.) Others born Jewish, such as Dukas, Heller, Moscheles, Moszkowski and Wieniawski, found their sources of inspiration elsewhere. It seems that none of the above was motivated to express a specifically Jewish ethos through music.
The 20th century was entirely different. The seeds of a vibrant Jewish consciousness in music were sown in both eastern and western Europe at the turn of the century and began to bear fruit during its first decade. The collection of sacred and secular traditions gained new momentum with the invention of the phonograph. Composers soon realized how valuable these resources would be as a means of expressing the mood and experience of the people. The resulting acculturation and eclecticism produced a kaleidoscope of contemporary styles in which Jewish history and legend, text and symbol, modality and tone colour could be blended into the richness of the mainstream. In a short survey it is possible only to examine a small representative sample of the sudden proliferation of Jewish art music that emerged in the four decades before World War II.
In eastern Europe this musical burgeoning took the form of what might be described as a ‘school’ of composition, consolidated through the foundation of the St Petersburg Jewish Folk Music Society in 1908. Ever since the especially severe pogroms of the 1880s Jews had been leaving eastern Europe in large numbers, mainly for Palestine and the USA. But in spite of this mass emigration (which continued right up to the outbreak of war in 1939), Jews in Russia and Poland were growing in number and congregating in the larger cities, to the extent that they formed about 70% of the world Jewish population at this time. Deeply traditional in their upbringing, they developed a vigorous cultural life, based on the synagogue and on Yiddish lore, literature and music. Many Russian non-Jewish composers, such as Balakirev, Glazunov, Glinka, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Liadov, Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Taneyev, became aware of the distinctive qualities of Jewish liturgical and non-liturgical music. They stimulated the interest of the general Russian public and – more particularly – of Jewish composers. Indeed it was the non-Jewish music critic Vladimir Stasov who encouraged Joel Engel (1868–1927) to research local Jewish repertories. In 1900 Engel gave his first lecture on Jewish folk music to the Imperial Ethnographic Society in St Petersburg.
Branches of the Jewish Folk Music Society sprang up in other Russian cities. Its activities may be categorized into three main phases. First came the collection and publication of thousands of Jewish folksongs, dance tunes and – to a limited extent – cantorial chant that originated in Latvia, Poland, Galicia, Belarus', Romania and elsewhere. Simple harmonization was the main feature of the arrangements made at this stage by composers such as Achron, Gniessin, Alexander Krein, Moses Milner, Solomon Rosowsky and Saminsky (see above, §IV, 3(ii)). In the next phase, folk material was used as the basis for original compositions, usually for chamber ensemble, in the form of rhapsodies, suites and the like. The third phase saw the development of large-scale choral and orchestral works in which the individuality of the composer took precedence over traditional elements. Some composers were engaged by the Habimah Theatre Company, based in Moscow until its transfer to Tel-Aviv in the 1920s, to write works of a national Hebrew character. Despite the disapproval of the assimilated Jewish intelligentsia on the one hand and of Orthodox Jewry on the other, the Society went from strength to strength until the advent of World War I. It enjoyed a brief revival after the Russian Revolution of 1917, but foundered during the early years of the Soviet regime. During its short existence it had organized over 1000 concerts.
Whereas there was no equivalent of the Jewish Folk Music Society in western Europe, the activities of a number of prominent individuals in the West gave expression to a new Jewish art music.
The most prominent composer of Jewish origin after Gustav Mahler was Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951). Although his purpose was not to compose ‘Jewish music’ per se, he was aware of the tradition that had been passed down through many generations of cantors on his mother's side. Most of the works that exhibit Jewish elements were composed after World War II, but a few, such as the oratorio Die Jakobsleiter, the drama Der biblische Weg, Credo for unaccompanied chorus, and Kol Nidre for speaker, chorus and orchestra, were all written during or after World War I. Having converted to Lutheranism in 1898, he returned to Judaism formally in 1933, partly as a gesture of solidarity with ‘Jewry in distress’. He wrote numerous analytical essays and political programmes as well as personal letters to friends concerning Jewish history and heritage. Some commentators have likened his particular system of musical serialism with ancient Near Eastern processes (not least in the pre-eminence of melody over harmony) and have suggested that his preoccupation with the Jewish liturgy left its mark on works in other respects wholly unconnected with religious texts or associations. The debate continues.
The motivation that produced the self-styled ‘Jewish Works’ of Ernest Bloch (1880–1959) was essentially spiritual, cultural and historical rather than religious, national or political. His grandfather had been a celebrated lay-cantor in the north Swiss Jewish community of Lengnau, of which he was also President; his father had at one time intended to become a rabbi. Bloch often described his vivid childhood impressions of the Passover celebration at home. Some of the traditional synagogue chants his father used to sing found their way into youthful and mature compositions alike, not in the form of arrangements but as elements integral to the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and textural character of the music. About a quarter of his works bear Jewish titles. Most of these were written before World War II. Some contain motifs borrowed directly from biblical cantillation modes, synagogue prayer modes and fixed chants. Others, without quoting directly from traditional sources, reflect many of the typical traits of Jewish sacred music, for example, the accentuation of short motifs into extended phrases, the use of Near Eastern scales, the microtonal inflection of melody, quasi-improvisational recitatives, frequent changes of metre and tempo, irregular phrase lengths, abrupt gestures and extremes of mood and range.
To dub Bloch a ‘Jewish composer’ would, however, be to oversimplify his complex musical and philosophical identity. The articles and letters he wrote at different periods of his life indicate many shifts in his attitude to composition. It would be misleading to discount the enormous influences of his teachers and the great masters from the turn of the 20th century, such as Bruckner, Debussy, Mahler, Musorgsky and Richard Strauss, as well as his strong affinities with plainchant, Renaissance, Classical, neo-classical and neo-romantic styles, and Swiss, American and Chinese folk idioms.
In many ways the music of composers such as Darius Milhaud and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco paint a similar picture. Both came from traditional backgrounds – Milhaud from one of the oldest Jewish families in the South of France, and Castelnuovo-Tedesco from old Italian Sephardi families. Both contributed a vast oeuvre to the mainstream repertory at the same time as writing a sizeable number of works with Jewish titles, utilizing directly and indirectly the traditional melodic materials of their respective locales.
Although a number of composers of Jewish descent had already settled in the USA during the 19th century, there was comparatively little Jewish art music activity there until the advent of the 20th century, when waves of refugees arrived, fleeing the pogroms in eastern Europe, and later the darkening political situation in Central and western Europe during the 1920s and 30s. Composers – many of whom were closely involved with the International Society for Contemporary Music – found the USA a land of enormous potential: the big cities were cosmopolitan, and the financial rewards were considerable. Advances in technology made recording and broadcasting ever more attractive media for the dissemination of new works and the gulf between liturgical and non-liturgical styles rapidly became narrowed as mainstream Jewish composers began to write religious works (such as ‘Sacred Services’) to be performed not only in the synagogue but also as concert pieces in churches and concert halls.
This was the perfect environment in which the polar Jewish values of tradition and individualism could flourish. There was room for all composers to express themselves as classically or progressively, as ethnically or internationally as they chose. This was the ‘new emancipation’ and led to far-reaching musical developments in Jewish music after World War II.
Jewish music, §V, 2: Art and Popular Music in Surrounding Cultures: The Christian world
In 1933 the persecution of Jews intensified with the coming to power of National Socialism in Germany and became the norm following the Nuremberg racial laws in 1935. Along with the confiscation of Jewish businesses, assets and property, came the gradual exclusion of Jews from cultural life. Under the Nazi concept of entartete Musik (‘degenerate music’), all works by Jewish composers, and works by non-Jewish composers whose style was perceived as tainted by ‘non-Aryan’ influences, were banned. Jewish musicians remaining in Germany were permitted to establish all-Jewish performance societies (Jüdische Kulturbunde) for exclusively Jewish audiences, but by 1939 these gradually dissolved with the mass deportations of Jews from Germany and the occupied nations to ghettos and concentration camps.
In the ghettos of Łódz, Warsaw and Kraków, and in the fashionable apartments of Vienna, Berlin and Prague, some preservation of human values through art was treasured. Of particular significance is the repertory of original songs created in the ghettos and partisan outposts of occupied Europe. Written mostly to Yiddish texts, and often employing Polish and Russian popular melodies, there were songs documenting ghetto life, satirical songs and ballads, work songs and prayer songs. They served to remind singers and their listeners of a less troubled past, encouraged the toleration of present conditions and expressed hope for freedom. In the Vilna ghetto, the poet and partisan Hirsh Glik wrote songs with heroic messages of survival of the spirit. His marching song ‘Zog nit keynmol az du geyst dem letstn veg’ (‘Never say that you have reached the final road’) became the anthem for Jewish resistance fighters and has since been adopted by some denominations for use within the Jewish High Holy Day service. An important figure in the music folklore of the Holocaust is Shmerke Kaczerginski (1908–54), a poet and political activist who in 1943 escaped the Vilna ghetto to join the Jewish underground. He wrote and collected songs both during and after the war, and his anthology Lider fun di getos un lagern (‘Songs of the Ghettos and Camps’, 1948) is the most comprehensive collection of Yiddish songs from the Holocaust period.
Musical activity continued in the concentration and extermination camps, initiated officially by the Nazis and clandestinely by the prisoners. The Nazis used music as an additional instrument in their machinery of destruction, to deceive, pacify, humiliate and dehumanize their victims. They formed orchestras and bands from the prisoners and forced them to play. Auschwitz, for example, boasted six orchestras and Treblinka had a rich musical life with an orchestra, conducted for a while by Artur Gold (1897–1943). Camp orchestras played cheerful tunes to ‘welcome’ new arrivals, to anaesthetize musically victims being marched to the ‘bath house’, and to help to marshal the prisoners, accompanying them as they marched to and from work. This music may have given sustenance to otherwise tortured, starved and enslaved people and perhaps brought courage and calmed their last moments, but it was also regarded by prisoners as an insult and a deception. For the Jews playing in the orchestras, however, music was a lifeline, protecting them from the immediate death sentence imposed on all Jews under Nazism. The orchestra was a relative haven, with privileges and benefits, but survival was not guaranteed and the members had to stay in favour: they were kept alive only because they could provide a service to Nazism. Another characteristic of the camps was compulsory singing. Each camp had its special anthem; ironically two Austrian Jews composed the official Buchenwald hymn, unknown to the camp administration. Prisoners were forced to stand and sing for hours in all weathers, and anti-Semitic songs were specially composed for Jews, for example, ‘O Du mein Jerusalem’. In Auschwitz, Jews had no choice but to sing this song again and again during roll calls, during exercises or whenever the Nazis fancied.
Cultural activity among the prisoners was forbidden and punishable by death. However, despite the risks, prisoners strove to preserve some small part of humanity. They formed clandestine chamber groups, sang and composed songs and arranged secret concerts in prisoner barracks. The women in Ravensbrück organized a cultural life for themselves and in Dachau concerts were performed in a disused latrine. In Buchenwald the German Communist Rudi Arndt, who was the senior block inmate despite his yellow star, encouraged gifted inmates to write poems and songs and succeeded in forming a string quartet that played Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven. Martin Rosenberg (d 1942), a professional conductor before the war, organized a secret chorus of Jewish prisoners while he was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen. According to Aleksander Kulisiewicz (also a prisoner at Sachsenhausen), in 1942 Rosenberg also wrote a parody of the old Yiddish folksong ‘Tsen brider’ (‘Ten brothers’), in which the brothers are murdered in the gas chambers (Kulisiewicz, Polskie piešni obozowe, 1939–1945, unpublished). In Majdanek, a simple song by an unknown Polish poet became the inmates’ unofficial anthem, full of yearning and with the unspoken message of freedom. Making music encouraged solidarity among the prisoners, was a means of escaping reality and, most significantly, was a form of resistance.
While musical activity – including opera, symphonic, and choral concerts – took place and in some instances flourished for a time in the larger Polish and Lithuanian ghettos (e.g. Warsaw, Łódz, Kraków, Vilna and Kovno), few original art compositions created during this period have survived. Today one can only read contemporaneous accounts of works performed in their respective ghettos by composers such as Dawid Beigelman (1887–1945) of Łódz, or Vladimir (Wolf) Durmashkin (1914–44) of Vilna. The losses to Jewish music and to Polish music brought about by the German occupation and Nazi genocidal policies are of course incalculable. Of composers, the briefest necrology might mention (in addition to Beigelman and Durmashkin): Dawid Ajzensztadt (1890–1942); Zygmunt Bia‘ostocki (d 1942); Mordecai Gebirtig (1877–1942); Israel Glatstein (1894–1942); Jakub Glatstein (1895–1942); Jósef Koffler (1896–1943); Joachim Mendelson (1897–1943); Marian Neuteich (1906–43); Nochem Shternheim (1879–1942); Izrael Szajewicz (1910–41), each of whom had made their mark in the realm of classical, popular, choral, theatre, film, or folk music. Signs that these and other once prominent figures are being reclaimed by scholars and the public include the recent (1997) appearance in Polish translation of Isachar Fater's 1970 study in Yiddish, Maciej Golab's full-scale study of Koffler (Jósef Koffler, Kraków, 1995), and the thriving market for ‘nostalgia music’ in post-communist Poland.
The most valuable case study of music inspired, performed and composed by Jews was in Terezín (Theresienstadt). This north-west Bohemian garrison town was used as a transit camp, where Jews were sent by the thousands between 1941 and 1944 before being transported east to extermination camps. Although it was a concentration camp, the Germans allowed the Jews to administrate autonomously everything connected with life there. Terezín was unique in that its inhabitants enjoyed a freedom of cultural life denied to other Jews throughout occupied Europe. Initially, music was forbidden and remained an underground activity, but in 1942 when the Germans realized its potential propaganda value they not only sanctioned it with the establishment of ‘Freizeitgestaltung’ (the administration of free time activities) but also encouraged it. Terezín was presented officially to a delegation of the International Red Cross in 1944 as a paradise ghetto sheltering its inhabitants from the ravages of the war, thus camouflaging the extermination of European Jewry from world awareness. Soloists, chamber music ensembles (especially string quartets), orchestras and choruses flourished, with performances of recitals, concerts, light music, cabarets, oratorios and even operas. Two particularly ambitious undertakings by the conductor Raphael Schächter were Smetana's The Bartered Bride and Verdi's Requiem, demonstrating the determination of the human spirit to triumph over adversity. Although not everyone was psychologically or physically in a position to care about these activities, the performances were still popular and programmes were often repeated up to a dozen times.
Among the composers who spent time in Terezín, five significantly active ones were Viktor Ullmann, Pavel Haas, Hans Krása, Karel Ancerl and Gideon Klein. Ullmann in particular produced a rich collection of works; with administrative permission, he was able to devote himself entirely to music, organizing concerts, writing reviews and articles, lecturing and composing. Especially noteworthy works composed in Terezín were Ullmann's last three piano sonatas, his third quartet and the opera allegory of the Third Reich Der Kaiser von Atlantis; Haas's Study for strings and Four Songs on Texts of Chinese Poetry; Krása's several pieces for string trio and the Terezín version of his children's opera Brundibar, performed more than 50 times and one of the most popular works in the ghetto; and Klein's piano sonata and string trio. These men also wrote original and/or arrangements of folksongs in Hebrew, Yiddish, Czech, Slovak and other languages for the many amateur choirs. Cabarets in Czech by Karel Švenk and in German by Martin Roman were appreciated and light music was performed in various venues, among them the ghetto coffeehouse, including quartet pieces by Egon Ledeč and František Domažlický and a Serenade by Robert Dauber for violin and piano. A number of specifically Jewish works were written, including settings of liturgical Hebrew texts, especially by Zikmund Schul (1916–44). Terezín was also teeming with professional musicians, many of whom survived to resume active careers, including the bass Karel Berman and the pianist Edith Kraus.
The rich and abundant musical life in Terezín, together with the other arts, maintained a level of spirituality, culture and human value in the ghetto, despite rampant disease, hunger, death and social tensions. The quality of the music composed in Terezín has often been questioned and, while it cannot be said that there was a ‘Terezín style’, certain elements clearly indicate the abnormal environment in which this music was created. There are musical quotations with clearly symbolic significance for listeners familiar with their original contexts, and vocal texts from both general literature and ghetto poets full of meanings relating to the realities of ghetto life. The music and musical life at Terezín for all its physical and informational isolation during its four years of existence, cannot wholly be viewed as separate from the previous worlds in which its prisoners lived. Whether considering the Schoenbergian-Stravinskian-Janáčekian compositional influences of its composers, the diversified tastes of its audiences and the often highly developed accomplishments of many of its artists, Terezín was an incredibly horrible, often intriguing and always intense experience, painful in the extreme and yet, for some, enriching and memorable. Ullmann summed it up, both practically and philosophically when he proclaimed ‘it must be emphasized that Theresienstadt has served to enhance, not to impede, my musical activities, that by no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon, and that our endeavour with respect to Arts was commensurate with our will to live’. In the 1980s and 90s, the music of Terezín, along with pre-war compositions by Ullmann, Haas, Krása and Klein and works by other composers, not in the ghetto but equally ostracized by National Socialist policies (including Erwin Schulhoff), has not only become well-known from scholarly research and publications of the music, but has also been justly reintegrated into international concert repertory. Without this activity, an important part of 20th-century music (especially Czech music), whose authors were brutally eradicated, might have been lost altogether.
Jewish music, §V, 2: Art and Popular Music in Surrounding Cultures: The Christian world
In 1945 the world Jewish population stood at about two-thirds its pre-war total. At the time, North America became home to the largest number of Jews, and composers tried to come to terms with the trauma of the Holocaust in various ways.
Among these perhaps the most celebrated was Arnold Schoenberg, who wrote his own libretto for A Survivor from Warsaw (1947), a dramatic cantata describing the final battle of the ghetto and culminating in a proclamation of the shema‘ (the Jewish ‘Credo’). Among other Jewish works from this period were his Hebrew setting of Psalm cxxx Mima'amakim (‘Out of the depths’, 1950) for six-part unaccompanied mixed choir based on a traditional hasidic chant, and ten psalm settings published posthumously. Unlike Bloch, Schoenberg became involved in the Zionist movement and expressed his political views vigorously in published pamphlets as well as in private correspondence.
Whereas Schoenberg submitted traditional Jewish melos to his evolving principles of serialism, Leonard Bernstein chose to develop a more tonally based American Jewish symbiosis. Prime examples of this approach are to be found in his symphonies entitled Jeremiah, The Age of Anxiety and Kaddish (all of which contain elements of biblical cantillation and synagogal prayer chant), the Chichester Psalms (in Hebrew), the ballet The Dybbuk (including references to kabbalistic numerology), Halil for flute and orchestra, and the prayer Hashkivenu for cantor, mixed choir and organ. There are representations of the traditional blasts of the shofar in his operetta Candide, and his Mass – a theatre piece for singers, players and dancers – combines Jewish and East Asian thought with Catholic ritual. He and 29 others composers – including Milhaud, Weill, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and the non-Jewish Roy Harris – participated in a project entitled ‘Synagogue Music by Contemporary Composers’ in which 38 works for the Sabbath Eve Service were commissioned by Cantor David Putterman of New York's Park Avenue Synagogue.
Many composers working in the field of synagogue music, particularly within the Reform and Conservative denominations, have written complete Sabbath and Festival services, for ritual purposes as well as for the concert hall, inspired by the early pioneering Sacred Services of Bloch and Milhaud. Traditional Jewish modality has been adapted to the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and textural conventions of the 20th century. In addition, there has been an ever-increasing proliferation of biblical cantatas, oratorios, psalm settings, concert arias, folksong arrangements, operas, stage works, ballets, symphonies, concertos, suites, overtures, tone poems and rhapsodies that directly or indirectly reflect Jewish life and society, history and dispersal, religion and philosophy.
The list of American Jewish composers who have attained international recognition since the second part of the 20th century is formidable. Among the many prominent individuals who forged new paths were Hugo Weisgall, one of the USA's most successful opera composers, who also wrote for the synagogue (Evening Liturgies, 1986–96), as did Miriam Gideon, the doyenne of American Jewish women composers. Lazar Weiner pioneered the Yiddish art song. Herman Berlinski is at the forefront of Jewish organ music, both as composer and performer. Steven Reich, who with Philip Glass placed minimalism firmly on the agenda of the late 20th century, acknowledges his Jewish heritage in Tehillim (‘Psalms’). The jazz idiom is integral to liturgical settings by Kurt Weill (Kiddush) and Charles Davidson (And David Danced before the Lord). Avant-garde techniques, including electro-acoustic music, have been developed by composers such as Yehudi Wyner in their settings of ancient texts.
Numerous musicians of Jewish birth in the United Kingdom have felt moved, to a greater or lesser extent, to express their cultural or religious heritage in their works: George Benjamin, Brian Elias, Erika Fox, Alexander Goehr, Kyla Grunebaum, Joseph Horovitz, Wilfred Josephs, Malcolm Lipkin, Robert Saxton, Ronald Senator, Malcolm Singer, are among the vanguard of the modern generation. Significant repertories of new Jewish music are being produced in the large diaspora centres of South America, Australia and South Africa, as well as the newly revived communities on the western European continent.
In the 19th century, the most important synagogue composers paid homage to the great exponents of mainstream culture. The musical idiom of Louis Lewandowski of Berlin, for example, could be described as Mendelssohnian, and that of Salomon Sulzer of Vienna as Schubertian. Since the early 20th century, however, Jewish composers in many countries have explored the interface between tradition and innovation, and have been establishing themselves as mainstream composers in their own right. They attend conferences at universities, conservatories and seminaries around the world at which issues such as the notion of ‘universality’ vis-à-vis the role of ‘ethnicity’ in the life and work of the creative artist are energetically explored.
In conclusion, it may be premature to discern a consistent pattern in the music of Jewish composers, who have participated continuously and consistently only for the last 200 years in a musical tradition that has existed in the West for a millennium. Indeed, it may be more appropriate not to seek uniformity, but rather the opposite. Such composers have already shown themselves to be flexible enough to absorb serialism and electro-acoustic techniques, Near Eastern traditions, and the shofar as a melody instrument. Given the blossoming of confidence in its cultural identity that has largely superseded the desolation of the mid-20th century, why should Jewish art music not further celebrate its vitality in an ever-expanding multiplicity of intercultural idioms?
Jewish music, §V, 2: Art and Popular Music in Surrounding Cultures: The Christian world
Life in Russia was harsh for Jews in the latter half of the 19th century. From 1869 onwards they were emigrating at the rate of about 4000 every year. Following the assassination of the relatively liberal Tsar Aleksandr II and the accession of the less benevolent Aleksandr III, pogroms and draconian new legislation became for many the last straw. The provision of cheap transport to the USA, the prospect of freedom and the ‘promise’ of a good income in the goldene medine (Yiddish: ‘golden land’) were irresistible to poor and frightened Jews. The fact that many had to suffer the pain of separation from their families in the ‘old country’, and were forced to function as little more than slave labourers in the sweatshops of New York's Lower East Side, did not inhibit endless waves of desperate emigrants from seeking a new life.
By 1900, about half a million east European Jewish refugees had arrived in North America, and of the one and a quarter million who reached the USA between 1900 and 1924, the vast majority remained in New York, their port of entry. The culture shock was overwhelming for these mainly Orthodox Jews coming into daily contact with the vast and varied minority groups that comprised the city's population, then as today.
Gradually, however, they and their children began to take an active part in the cultural life of the metropolis. Many, having been cantors or traditional folksingers, gravitated towards the Yiddish theatres on the Lower East Side for their entertainment. Two of the most famous songs of the inter-war period were Jack Yellen's ‘A yiddishe mame’ (1925) – as immortalized by Sophie Tucker – and Sholom Secunda's ‘Bay mir bistu sheyn’ (1933) – made famous by the Barry Sisters. These and many others like them had a deep impact upon American popular taste at large. But gradually the fascination that some Jews felt for the unfamiliar cultures on their doorstep led them to investigate different ethnic, social and religious themes. The most clearly identifiable pre-existing musical traditions were those of the English settlers from the 17th century, the Irish from the 18th, the black Americans from the 18th and 19th, and the Italians from the 19th. The two main creative outlets for assimilated Jewish composers were Tin Pan Alley and the Broadway musical.
Since about 1885, New York had been the focal point for the popular music industry. A new generation of ambitious publishers made energetic use of the latest techniques in market research to select the most commercially viable music and to bring it to the attention of an enthusiastic public. ‘Tin Pan Alley’ was situated on West 28th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway. Crowded buildings housed hundreds of offices, each with its own ill-tuned piano. The owner of a particularly well-known emporium favoured the sound of piano strings wound in silver paper – hence the name of the district. In the heyday of printed sheet music, thousands of songs were produced in a steady stream; and by 1900 about 100 composers could boast sales of a million copies each.
Before 1910 the Tin Pan Alley idiom was prevalent, but thereafter a small number of talented composers dominated the scene with long series of songs in individual and immediately recognizable styles. Although a few of Irving Berlin's earliest songs (c1909–12) contain Jewish references, some of his best-known pieces show the influence of the wider world (White Christmas and Easter Parade). This may be seen as a metaphor for the general ethos adopted by most Tin Pan Alley composers, who wanted to be identified as American rather then Jewish. Many both espoused and rejected the heritage of their birth, on the one hand following the Jewish observance of important life-cycle events, and on the other marrying a non-Jewish spouse. Very few of their songs expressed a Jewish content, whereas many reflected a Jewish context: the home, the family and emigration from the native homeland.
The composers who became successful on Tin Pan Alley also wrote musicals for Broadway. Similarities in family background and experience allowed for many creative partnerships: composers worked closely with lyricists, librettists, directors, orchestrators, choreographers, set designers, stage technicians, actors and musicians. Although Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin and Kurt Weill were the sons of cantors, they and many other such as Leonard Bernstein, Oscar Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers and Sigmund Romberg, preferred black American, Puerto Rican, Mid-West, Scottish, French, Siamese, Chinese, Malaysian and Polynesian scenarios and musical material – in thoroughly westernized guises – as vehicles for their exploration of issues such as urban violence, class struggle and the American Dream. However, research into George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess has revealed the presence in ‘It ain't necessarily so’ of certain Ashkenazi prayer motifs used during the traditional barekhu blessing before and after the chanting of the Bible. And phrases resembling those of the synagogal adonai malakh mode may be detected, for example, in ‘Porgy, I's your woman now’. Since Gershwin served his apprenticeship with the important Yiddish theatre composers Abraham Goldfaden and Joseph Rumshinsky at the National Theater on Second Avenue (see above, §IV, 2(iii) (b)), it is hardly surprising that youthful impressions and influences should have found their way into several of his mature works. However, a projected operetta for the Yiddish theatre in collaboration with Sholom Secunda, and a proposed opera on the subject of The Dybbuk for the New York Metropolitan Opera, never reached fruition.
Traditional Jewish modal structures and linguistic forms are also to be found throughout Jerry Bock's Fiddler on the Roof (1964), one of the few Broadway musicals to confront specifically Jewish issues. This work is based on a set of short stories by the celebrated Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem. The Mixolydian flavour of the opening theme of ‘If I were a rich man’ and the ambiguity between major and minor 3rds throughout the song recall the salient characteristics of the adonai malakh mode, and the use of certain repeated syllables reflects a practice typical of the hasidic Jews.
The close relationships between the improvisational elements in jazz and in the cantorial recitative, between the syncopated rhythms of jazz and klezmer music, and between the ethos of subjugation to be found in black American and Jewish lyrics alike, all point to an immediate affinity linking the traditions that the east European immigrants brought with them and those they found on arrival.
In the 1920s Tin Pan Alley expanded in two directions: in its original form, to 42nd and 50th Streets in New York; and, with the development of the film industry, to Hollywood. The first film to be produced with a continuous soundtrack was The Jazz Singer (1927). It featured Al Jolson, the son of an immigrant Lithuanian rabbi and cantor, and the music included many traditional Jewish cantorial recitatives. The Jewish presence in the music of the film studio has been preserved by numerous composers, notably, Erich Walter Korngold in the early part of the 20th century and Maurice Jarre in more recent times.
From simple beginnings the structure, melody and harmony of Tin Pan Alley songs became more and more complex: superimposed upon triads were 7ths and 9ths, added 2nd and 6ths, augmented and diminished chords, remote modulations and elements drawn from the classical and jazz composers of the time. The genre possessed a resilience that enabled it to survive the Wall Street Crash and two World Wars. Contemporary artists such as Bob Dylan, and Simon and Garfunkel are among the many direct heirs of the Jewish popular music tradition.
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O. Keel and C. Uehlinger: Göttinnen, Götter und Gottessymbole: neue Erkenntnisse zur Religionsgeschichte Kanaans und Israels aufgrund bislang unerschlossener ikonographischer Quellen (Freiburg, 1992)
J. Braun: ‘Archaeo-Musicology and Some of its Problems: Considerations on the State of the Art in Israel’, La pluridisciplinarité en archéologie musicale, ed. C. Homo-Lechner (Paris, 1994), 139–48
A. Caubet: ‘La musique du Levant au bronze récent’, ibid., 129–35
J. Braun: ‘Die Musikikonographie des Dionysoskultes im römischen Palästina’, Imago musicae, viii (Lucca, 1995), 109–34
I. Finkelstein: ‘The Date of the Settlement of the Philistines in Canaan’, Tel-Aviv, xxii (1995), 213–39
R. Randhofer: Psalmen in einstimmigen vokalen Überlieferungen: eine vergleichende Untersuchung jüdischer und christlicher Traditionen, i–ii (Frankfurt, 1995)
I. Beit-Arieh: ‘Edomite Advances into Judah’, Biblical Archaeological Revue, xxii/6 (1996), 28–36
Z. Weiss and E. Netzer: Promise and Redemption (Jerusalem, 1996)
J. Braun: ‘Musical Instruments’, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, ed. E.M. Meyers (New York, 1997), iv, 70–79
J. Braun: ‘The Lute and Organ in Ancient Israel and Jewish Iconography’, Festschrift Christoph-Hellmut Mahling zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. A. Beer and others (Tutzing, 1997), i, 163–88
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(v) Iraqi (Babylonian) and Kurdish
(ix) 20th-century developments
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A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräish-orientalischer Melodienschatz, vi: Der Synagogengesang der deutschen Juden im 18. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1932/R, Eng. trans., 1933/R)
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I.L. Mombach: Ne’im zemiroth Israel: the Sacred Musical Compositions of Mombach (London, 1881)
A. Baer: Baal t’fillah: oder ‘Der pratischer Vorbeter’: vollständige Sammlung der gottesdienstliche Gesänge und Recitative der Israeliten (Leipzig, 2/1883/R)
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A. Friedmann: Schir lisch’laumau: Chasonus … für das ganze liturgische Jahr (Berlin, 1902)
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A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, vii: Der traditionellen Gesänge der süddeutschen Juden (Leipzig, 1932/R; Eng. trans., 1933/R)
A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, viii: Der Synagogengesang der osteuropäischen Juden (Leipzig, 1932/R; Eng. trans., 1933/R)
A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, x: Gesänge der Chassidim (Leipzig, 1932/R; Eng. trans., 1933/R)
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I. Alter: The Sabbath Service: the Complete Musical Liturgy for the Hazzan (New York, 1968)
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A.Z. Idelsohn: Jewish Music in its Historical Development (New York, 1929/R)
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A.Z. Idelsohn: ‘The Kol Nidre Tune’, Hebrew Union College Annual, viii–ix (1931–2), 493–509
F.L. Cohen, D.M. Davis and S. Alman: The Voice of Prayer and Praise: a Handbook of Synagogue Music for Congregational Singing (London, 3/1933)
A.Z. Idelsohn: ‘Parallels Between the Old-French and the Jewish Song, AcM, v (1933), 162–8; vi (1934), 15–22
A.Z. Idelsohn: ‘The Mogen Ovos Mode: a Study in Folklore’, Hebrew Union College Annual, xiv (1939), 559–74
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H. Avenary: ‘The Cantorial Fantasia of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’,Yuval, no.1 (1968), 65–85
H. Avenary: ‘The Concept of Mode in European Synagogue Chant’, Yuval, no.2 (1971), 11–21
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H. Avenary: The Ashkenazi Tradition of Biblical Chant Between 1500 and 1900: Documentation and Musical Analysis (Tel-Aviv, 1978)
J. Frigyesi and P. Laki: ‘Free-Form Recitative and Strophic Structure in the Hallel Psalms’, Orbis musicae, vii (1979–80), 43–80
J.A. Levine: ‘Toward Defining the Jewish Prayer Modes’, Musica judaica, iii (1980–81), 13–41
S. Vigoda: Legendary Voices: the Fascinating Lives of the Great Cantors (New York, 1981)
M. Wohlberg: ‘Significant Aspects of the Ashkenazi Hazzanic Recitative’, Proceedings of the World Congress on Jewish Music: Jerusalem 1978, ed. J. Cohen (Tel–Aviv, 1982)
J. Laki-Frigyesi: ‘Modulation as an Integral Part of the Modal System in Jewish Music’, Musica judaica, v (1982–3), 53–71
H. Avenary: Kantor Salomon Sulzer und seine Zeit: eine Dokumentation (Sigmaringen, 1985)
A. Zimmermann: B’ron Yahad: Essays, Research and Notes in Hazzanut and Jewish Music (Tel-Aviv, 1988) [in Heb.]
I. Adler, ed.: Hebrew Notated Manuscript Sources up to circa 1840: a Descriptive Catalogue with a Checklist of Printed Sources, RISM, B/IX/1 (1989)
J.A. Levine: Synagogue Song in America (Crown Point, IN, 1989)
M. Slobin: Chosen Voices: the Story of the American Cantorate (Urbana, IL, 1989)
B. Tarsi: ‘Tonality and Motivic Interrelationships in the Performance Practice of Nusach’, Journal of Synagogue Music, xxi/1 (July 1991), 5–27
G. Goldberg: ‘Jewish Liturgical Music in the Wake of Nineteenth-Century Reform’, Sacred Sound and Social Change: Liturgical Music in Jewish and Christian Experience, ed. L.A. Hoffman and J. Walton (Notre Dame, IN, 1992), 59–83
A. Zimmermann: Sha‘arei Ron: the Cantorate in [Rabbinic] Responsa (Tel-Aviv, 1992) [in Heb.]
D. Ellenson: ‘A Disputed Precedent: the Prague Organ in Nineteenth-Century Central European Legal Literature and Polemics’, Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute, xl (1995), 251–64
D.J. Katz: ‘A Prolegomenon to the Study of the Performance Practice of Synagogue Music Involving M’shor’rim’, Journal of Synagogue Music, xxiv/2 (1995), 35–79
E. Schleifer: ‘Current Trends of Liturgical Music in the Ashkenazi Synagogue’, World of Music, xxxvii/1(1995), 59–72
D. Polnauer: ‘Beitrag zur Legende der Mi-Sinai Melodien’, Udim, xviii (1997)
G. Goldberg: Maier Levi of Esslingen: a Small-Town hazzan in the Time of the Emancipation and his Cantorial Compendium, (diss., Hebrew U. of Jerusalem, in preparation)
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Anonymous: ‘Musikalischer Anhang zum Aufsätze der Ritus der portugiesischen Synagogue’, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, i/5 (1837), 10–17
S. Naumbourg, ed.: Zemiroth Yisrael: chants religieux des Israélites (Paris, 1847–64/R)
E. Aguilar and D.A. de Sola, eds.: The Ancient Melodies of the Liturgy of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews (London, 1857)
A. de Villers, ed.: Offices hebraïques: rite oriental appelé communément rite portugais (Paris, 1872)
S. Naumbourg, ed.: Recueil de chants religieux et populaires des Israélites (Paris, 1874)
J.S. and M. Cremieux, eds.: Zemirot Israel: chants hebraïques suivant le rite des communautés israélites de l’ancien Comtat Venaissin (Marseilles, 1887)
M. Rosenspier, ed.: Schir hakawod (Varna, 1888)
J. Bauer and I. Lowit, eds.: Schir hakawod (Vienna, 1889)
F. Consolo, ed.: Libro dei canti d’Israele: antichi canti liturgici del rito degli Ebrei spagnoli (Florence, 1892)
H. Léon: ‘Prières et chants traditionnels’, Histoire des juifs de Bayonne (Paris, 1893/R), 301–14
S. David, ed.: Musique religieuse ancienne et moderne en usage dans les temples consistoriaux israélites de Paris (Paris, 1895)
M. Gaster, ed.: The Book of Prayer and Order of the Service according to the Custom of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews (Oxford, 1901–6)
M. Cohen-Linaru, ed.: Tehillot Israel (Paris, 1910)
S. Foy, ed.: Recueil des chantes hebraïques anciennes et modernes du rite sefardi dit portugais en usage dans le communauté de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1928/R)
I. Cauly: Culegere de melodii religioase traditionale (Bucharest, 1936)
L.M. Kramer and O. Gutman, eds.: Kol sheherit Israel: Synagogal Melodies (New York, 1942)
H.M. Krieg, ed.: Eighteen Spanish Liturgical Melodies of the Portuguese Israelitish Community, Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1952) [incl. transcriptions by J.H. Pimentel]
H.M. Krieg, ed.: Spanish Liturgical Melodies of the Portuguese Israelitish Community, Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1954)
O. Camhy, ed.: Liturgie sephardie (London, 1959)
M.J. Benharoche-Baralia, ed.: Chants traditionnels en usage dans la communauté sephardie de Bayonne (Biarritz, 1961)
I. Levy, ed.: Antología de la liturgia judeo-española (Jerusalem, 1964–80)
D. Ricardo, ed.: Ne’im zemirot: the Melodies of the Portuguese Community in Amsterdam (Rishon Letsion, 1975)
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S. Abitbol-Mayost, ed.: The Jewish Music of Fez (Ottawa, 1992)
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Anonymous: ‘Die Ritus der portugiesischen Synagogue’, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, ii (1838), 42–4, 53–6, 62–3, 65–8, 75–6
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A.Z. Idelsohn: ‘Die Makamen in der hebräischen Poesie der orientalischen Juden’, Monatschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, lvii (1913), 314–25
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G. Bedarida: ‘Un intermezzo di canzioni antiche da ascoltarsi quand’e Purim composto da Eliezer teen David’, Rassegna mensile di Israel, iii (1928), 271–302
A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, v: Gesänge der marokkanischen Juden (Leipzig, 1929/R)
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R. Lachmann: Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Isle of Djerba (Jerusalem, 1940); repr. in the original Ger. and with musical transcriptions as Gesänge der Juden auf der Insel Djerba, ed. E. Gerson-Kiwi (Jerusalem, 1978)
H. Schirmann: ‘The Function of the Hebrew Poet in Medieval Spain’, Jewish Social Studies, iii (1954), 235–52
D. and T. de Sola Pool: An Old Faith in the New World: a Portrait of Shearith Israel, 1654–1954 (New York, 1955), esp.145–51
L. Levi: ‘Canti tradizionali e tradizioni liturgiche giudeo-italiane’, Rassegna mensile di Israel, xxiii (1957), 403–11, 435–45
H. Avenary: ‘The Sephardic Intonations of the Bible, Amsterdam, 1699’, Judaisme sephardi, xxi (1960), 911–13
H. Avenary: ‘Manginot qedumot le-fizmonim sefaradim’ [Ancient melodies for Sephardic songs], Osar yehudei sefarad, iii (1960), 149–53
A. Lopes Cardozo: ‘The Music of the Sephardim’, The World of the Sephardim, ed. D. de Sola Pool, R. Patai and A. Lopes Cardozo (New York, 1960), 37–71
A. Herzog: The Intonation of the Pentateuch in the Heder of Tunis (Tel-Aviv, 1963)
I. Adler: La pratique musicale savante dans quelques communautés juives en Europe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1966)
J. Eisenstein: The Liturgical Chant of Provençal and West Sephardi Jews in Comparison with the Song of Troubadours and the Cantigas (diss., Hebrew Union College, New York, 1966)
M. Gorali: ‘Yesirato ha-piyyutit-musiqalit shel R. Emmanuel Hay Ricchi’ [The poetic and musical works by R. Emmanuel Hay Ricchi], Taslil, vi (1966), 14–20
I. Adler: ‘The Rise of Art Music in the Italian Ghetto’, Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. A. Altmann (Cambridge, MA, 1967), 321–65
Y. Ratzhabi: ‘The Gentile Melody in Song and Piyyut’, Taslil, vi (1967), 8–13 [in Heb.]
H. Avenary: ‘Ha-shir ha-nokhri ke-maqor hashra’ah le-Yisrael Najara’ [The foreign song as a source of inspiration in R. Israel Najara’s poetry], World Congress of Jewish Studies IV: Jerusalem 1965 (Jerusalem, 1968), ii, 383–4
H. Anglès: ‘La musique juive dans l’Espagne médiévale, Yuval, no.1 (Jerusalem, 1968), 48–64
S. Kaludova: ‘Sur la poésie et la musique des Juifs de la peninsule balkanique du 15e à 20e siècle’, Etudes balkaniques, vi (1970), 98–123
H. Avenary: ‘Cantos españoles antigos mencionados en la literature hebrea’, AnM, xxv (1971), 67–79
H. Avenary: Hebrew Hymn Tunes: the Rise and Development of a Musical Tradition over a Span of Eight Centuries (Tel-Aviv, 1971) [in Heb.]
L. Landman: The Cantor: an Historical Perspective: a Study of the Origin, Communal Position and Function of the Hazzan (New York, 1972)
L. Levi: ‘Greece: Musical Traditions of Greece and the Balkans’, Encyclopaedia judaica, ed. C. Roth (Jerusalem, 1971–2/R, 2/1982)
L. Levi: ‘Italy: Musical Tradition’, ibid.
A. Shiloah: ‘Africa, North: Musical Traditions’, ibid.
A. Shiloah: ‘Aleppo: Musical Tradition’, ibid.
I. Adler: Musical Life and Traditions of the Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam in the XVIIIth Century (Jerusalem, 1974)
I. Adler, ed.: Hebrew Writings Concerning Music in Manuscripts and Printed Books from Geonic Times up to 1800, RISM, B/IX/2 (1975)
J. Eisenstein: ‘Medieval Elements in the Liturgical Music of the Jews of Southern France and Northern Spain’, Musica judaica, i (1975–6), 33–51
H. Avenary: ‘Ha-lehanim be-qoves shirim mi-yavan mi-yesodo shel Shelomo Mevorakh, Ms. Jerusalem 80 421’ [The melodies in a song collection from Greece by Shelomo Mevorakh], Sefunot, xiii (1978), 197–213
M.R. Kanter: Traditional Melodies of the Rhymed Metrical Hymns in the Sephardic High Holiday Liturgy: Comparative Study (diss., Northwestern U., IL, 1978)
A. Shiloah: ‘The Symbolism of Music in the Kabbalistic Tradition’, World of Music, xx/3 (1978), 56–69
M.R. Kanter: ‘High Holyday Hymn Melodies of the Portuguese Synagogue of London’, Journal of Synagogal Music, x/1 (1980), 66–79
D. Sabbah: Le chant religieux chez les marocains d’Israel (thesis, U. of Montreal, 1980)
M.R. Kanter: ‘Traditional High Holy Day Melodies of the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam’, JMR, iii (1981), 223–57
A. Petrović: ‘Sacred Sephardi Chants in Bosnia’, World of Music, xxiv/3 (1982), 35–48
A. Shiloah: ‘The Antiquity of Musical Tradition’, The Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage, ed. I. Ben-Ami (Jerusalem, 1982), 405–11
G. Suliteanu: ‘Situation de la musique populaire et de la liturgie synagogale chez les Juifs sepharades de Bucarest’, The Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage I: Jerusalem 1978, ed. I. Ben-Ami (Jerusalem, 1982), 421–88
I. Adler: ‘Creation and Tradition in the Chant of the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam’, Pe‘amim, xix (1984), 14–28 [in Heb.]
G. Ganvert: La musique synagogale à Paris à l’époque du premier temple consistorial (1822–1874) (diss., U. of Paris, 1984)
M. Nulman: ‘The Shirah Melody in the Ashkenazic and Sephardic Traditions’, Journal of Jewish Music and Liturgy, vii (1985), 12–21
A. Shiloah: ‘The Music of the Jewish Communities in Greece and Turkey and its Relation to Byzantine Music’, Musica antiqua VII: Bydgoszcz 1985, 247–56
A. Amzallag: Modal Aspects in the Singing of Bakashot by Moroccan Jews (diss., Hebrew U., Jerusalem, 1986) [in Heb.]
H. Avenary: ‘Persistence and Transformation of a Sephardi Penitential Hymn’, Yuval, no.5 (Jerusalem, 1986), 181–232
A. Shiloah: ‘The Influence of Kabbala in the Development of Hebrew Liturgical Hymns in Muslim Countries’, Mi-qedem umi-yam, ii (1986), 209–15 [in Heb.]
A. Shiloah: Hemshekhiyut u-temurah ba-masoret ha-musiqalit shel yehudei sepharad [Continuity and change in the Sephardi Jewish musical heritage] (Jerusalem, 1986) [Eng. summary]
I. Adler: ‘La pénétration de la musique savante dans les synagogues italiennes au XVIIe siècle: le cas particulier de Venise’, Gli ebrei a Venezia, secoli XIV–XVIII: Venice 1983, ed. G. Cozzi (Milan, 1987), 527–35
M.D. Angel: ‘The American Experience of a Sephardi Synagogue’, The American Synagogue: a Sanctuary Transformed, ed. J. Wertheimer (Cambridge, 1987), 153–69
M. Benayahu: ‘Da‘at hakhmei italiya ‘al ha-neginah be-‘ugav ba-tefillah’ [Opinions of Italian rabbis on playing the organ in the service], Asufot, i (1987), 265–318
D. Harrán: ‘Salamone Rossi: Jewish Musician in Renaissance Italy’, AcM, lix (1987), 46–64
E. Seroussi: Schir Hakawod and the Liturgical Music Reforms in the Sephardic Community in Vienna ca. 1880–1925 (diss., UCLA, 1988)
E. Seroussi: ‘Sacred Song in an Era of Change: Musical Reforms in Sephardic Synagogues in Austria and the Balkan States’, Pe‘amim, xxxiv (1988), 84–109 [in Heb.]
I. Adler, ed.: Hebrew Notated Manuscript Sources up to circa 1840: a Descriptive Catalogue with a Checklist of Printed Sources, RISM, B/IX/1 (1989)
D. Harrán: ‘Tradition and Innovation in Jewish Music of the Later Renaissance’, JM, vii (1989), 107–30
D. Harrán: ‘Cultural Fusions in Jewish Musical Thought of the Later Renaissance’, In cantu et in sermone: for Nino Pirrotta, ed. F. Della Seta and F. Piperno (Florence, 1989), 141–54
E. Seroussi: Mizimrat Qedem: the Life and Music of R. Isaac Algazi from Turkey (Jerusalem, 1989)
E. Seroussi: ‘A Hassidic Exemplum in a Judeo-Spanish Homily from the Early 19th Century: a New Source on “Secular” Music in Synagogal Singing’, Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore, xi–xii (1989–90), 21–138 [in Heb.]
E. Seroussi: ‘Written Evidence and Oral Tradition: the Singing of Hayom Harat Olam in Sephardi Synagogues’, Musica judaica, xi/1 (1989–90), 1–26
M. Benayahu: ‘Rabbi Yisrael Najara’, Asufot, iv (1990), 203–84 [in Heb.]
E. Seroussi: ‘Rabbi Yisrael Najara: me‘ssev shirat ha-qodesh aharei gerush sefarad’ [Rabbi Israel Najara: moulder of Hebrew sacred song after the expulsion from Spain], Asufot, iv (1990), 285–310
E. Seroussi: ‘The Turkish Makam in the Musical Culture of the Ottoman Jews: Sources and Examples’, Israel Studies in Musicology, v (1990), 43–68
M.R. Kanter: ‘Leitmotifs in the Sephardic High Holy Day Liturgy’, Journal of Synagogue Music, xxi/2 (1991), 33–52
E. Seroussi: ‘Between the Eastern and Western Mediterranean: Sephardic Music after the Expulsion from Spain and Portugal’, Mediterranean Historical Review, vi (1991), 198–206
R. Flender: Hebrew Psalmody: a Structural Investigation (Jerusalem, 1992)
E. Seroussi: ‘The Ancient Melodies: on the Antiquity of Music in the Sephardic Liturgy’, Pe‘amim, l (1992), 99–131 [in Heb.]
E. Seroussi and T. Beeri: ‘R. Joseph Shalom Gallego ba‘al imrei no‘am: hazzan salonikai be-amsterdam be-reshit ha-me’ah ha-17’ [R. Joseph Shalom Gallego, author of Imrei no‘am: a cantor from Saloniki in early 17th-century Amsterdam], Asufot, vi (1992), 87–150
A. Shiloah: ‘The Development of Jewish Liturgical Singing’, Moreshet sepharad: the Sephardi Legacy, ed. H. Beinart (Jerusalem, 1992), 423–37
I.J. Katz: ‘The Sacred and Secular Musical Traditions of the Sephardic Jews in the United States’, Sephardim in the Americas: Studies in Culture and History, ed. M.A. Cohen and A.J. Peck. (Tuscaloosa, AL, 1993), 331–56
E. Seroussi: ‘El legado español en la musica sefardí: estado de la cuestión’, Proyección histórica de España en sus tres cultural: Castilla y León, América y el Mediterráneo, ed. E.L. Sanz (Valladolid, 1993), iii, 569–78
E. Seroussi: ‘La musica sefardí en el Imperio Otomano: nuevas fuentes literarias’, Actes del Simposi internacional sobre cultura sefardita: Barcelona 1993, ed. J. Ribera (Barcelona, 1993), 279–94
E. Seroussi: ‘On the Beginnings of the Singing of Bakkashot in 19th-Century Jerusalem’, Pe‘amim, lvi (1993), 106–124 [in Heb.]
E. Seroussi: ‘Yggaleh kevod malkhutekha: Musical Remarks on a Poem by R. Israel Najara Sung by the Sabbateans’, Tarbiz, lxii (1993), 361–79 [in Heb.]
A. Shiloah: ‘The Jews of Spain and the Quest for Cultural Indentity’, RdMc, xvi (1993), 380–84
R. Tasat: The Cantillation and the Melodies of the Jews of Tangier, Morocco (diss., U. of Texas, 1993)
A. Petrović: ‘Cultural Factors Affecting Changes in the Musical Expression of the Sephardi Jews in Yugoslavia’, History and Creativity: Proceedings of Misgav Yerushalayim’s Third International Congress: Jerusalem 1988, ed. T. Alexander and others (Jerusalem, 1994), 273–84
E. Seroussi: ‘Two Spanish-Portuguese “Cantorial Fantasias” from Hamburg (1838)’, Die Sefarden in Hamburg: zur Geschichte einer Minderheit, ed. M. Studemund-Halévy and P. Koj (Hamburg, 1994), 171–84
E. Seroussi: Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue Music in Nineteenth-Century Reform Sources from Hamburg: Ancient Tradition in the Dawn of Modernity (Jerusalem, 1996) [in Heb.]
E. Seroussi: ‘La musique andalouse-marocaine dans les manuscrits hébraïques’, Perception et réalités au Maroc: relations judéo-musulmanes au Maroc: Marrakech and Paris 1995, ed. M. Abitbol (Paris, 1997), 283–94
E. Seroussi: ‘Rabbi Israel Moshe Hazzan on Music’, Haham Gaon Memorial Volume, ed. M.D. Angel (New York, 1997), 183–95
E. Seroussi: ‘Ottoman Classic Music among the Jews of Saloniki’, Ladinar: mehqarim ba-sifrut, ba-musiqah uba-historyah shel dovrei ladino, ed. J. Dishon and S. Refael (Tel-Aviv, 1998), 79–92 [in Heb.]
D. Harrán: Salamone Rossi: Jewish Musician in Late Renaissance Mantua (Oxford, 1999)
E. Seroussi: ‘The Liturgical Music of the Sephardi Jews: East and West’, Judeo-Spanish Studies X: London 1997, ed. A. Benaim (London, 1999), 289–98
E. Seroussi: ‘Livorno: a Crossroads in the History of Sephardic Religious Music’, Jews Around the Mediterranean, 1550–1850, ed. M. Orfali and E. Horowitz (Ramat Gan, forthcoming)
A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, i: Gesänge der jemenischen Juden (Leipzig, 1914/R; Eng. trans., 1925/R)
A.Z. Idelsohn: ‘Yehudei Teiman shiratam u-neginatam’ [The Jews of Yemen, their poetry and music’, Reshumot, i (1918), 3–66
J. Kapah: Halikhot Teiman [Customs of the Yemen] (Jerusalem, 1961)
U. Sharvit: ‘The Role of Music in the Jewish Yemenite “Heder”’, Israel Studies in Musicology, ii (1980), 33–49
U. Sharvit and Y. Adaqi: A Treasury of Jewish Yemenite Chants (Jerusalem, 1981)
U. Sharvit: ‘The Musical Realization of Biblical Cantillation Symbols in the Jewish Yemenite Liturgy’, Yuval, no.4 (1982), 179–210
U. Sharvit and S. Arom: ‘Plurivocality in the Liturgical Music of the Jews of San’a (Yemen)’, Yuval, no.6 (1994), 34–67
A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, ii: Gesänge der babylonischen Juden (Leipzig, 1922/R; Eng. trans., 1923/R)
E. Albeg: Rinat yehesqel, hoberet alef, kerekh alef vehu sefer shirim utishahoth [Songs of Ezekiel, book 1, volume 1: book of songs and praises] (Jerusalem, 1926–7)
S. Mansour, ed.: Sefer shirim [Book of songs] (Jerusalem, 1953–4)
E. Gerson-Kiwi: ‘The Music of the Kurdistani Jews: a Synopsis of their Musical Styles’, Yuval, no.2 (1971), 59–72
E. Gerson-Kiwi: ‘Kurdistan: Musical Tradition’, Encyclopaedia judaica, ed. C. Roth (Jerusalem, 1971–2/R, 2/1982)
N.A. Stillman: The Jews of Arab Lands: a History and Source Book (Philadelphia, 1979)
A. Shiloah: ‘The Arabic Concept of Mode’, JAMS, xxxiv (1981), 19–42
E.N. Musleah: Kol Zimra: the Sound of Song (New York, 1983)
A. Shiloah: The Musical Traditions of Iraqi Jews (Or Yehuda, 1983)
S. Manasseh: ‘Who will Blow the Shofar? a Case Study of a Thoqe’a’, Bulletin of the ICTM, UK Chapter, no.11 (1985), 21–40
Y. Avishur: Shirat ha-nashim: shirei ‘am be-‘aravit-yehudit shel yehudei ‘iraq [Women’s folksongs in Judeo-Arabic from Jews in Iraq] (Or Yehuda, 1987) [with Eng. summary]
E. Gabbai: Hibbat piyyut [Collection of religious verse] (Jerusalem, 1988)
S. Manasseh: ‘Variation and Stability in Shbahoth: Songs of Praise of the Babylonian Jews’, Ethnomusicology: Cambridge 1989, 231–51
Y. Avishur: Ha-hatunah ha-yehudit be-baġdad ubi-vnoteiha [The Jewish wedding in Baghdad and its filiations] (Haifa, 1990–91) [with Eng. summary]
N.A Stillman: The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (Philadelphia, 1991)
R. Flender: Hebrew Psalmody: a Structural Investigation (Jerusalem, 1992)
N.A. Stillman: Sephardi Religious Responses to Modernity (Luxembourg, 1995)
S. Manasseh: ‘Magical Musical Pilgrimages: Bus Tours with Iraqi Jews in Israel’, International Conference on Jewish Music I: London 1994, ed. S. Stanton and A. Knapp (London, 1997), 79–94
S. Manasseh: ‘Religious Music Traditions of the Jewish Babylonian Diaspora in Bombay’, Musical Outcomes of Jewish Diasporas in East and Southeast Asia, ed. M. Kartomi and A.D. McCredie (forthcoming)
Babylonian Biblical Chants: Victory Songs of Israel, perf. E.H. Albeg, Folkways FR 8930 (n.d.) [LP]
Shīr ushbahoth [Songs and praises], perf. Hibbah (Jerusalem, 1980s) [8 cassettes]
Shirat ha-shbahoth shel yehudei ‘iraq [Songs of praise of the Jews of Iraq], coll. Y. Avishur and N. Twaina, Or Yehuda (1987) [cassette]
Ha-hatunah ha-yehudīt be-bagdad [The Jewish wedding in Baghdad], ed. Y. Avishur, Or Yehuda ( 1987) [videotape]
The Musical Tradition of Iraqi Jews, ed. A. Shiloah and Y. Avishur, Or Yehuda (1987) [videotape]
The Musical Heritage of Iraqi Jews, coll. A. Shiloah and Y. Avishur, Or Yehuda (1988) [LP]
Seder pesah ke-minhag yehudei bavel [Passover Seder according to the custom of the Jews of Babylon], ed. Z. Yehuda (Or Yehuda, 1995) [videotape]
J. Finn: The Jews in China: their System, their Scriptures, their History (London, 1843)
A. Neubauer: ‘Jews in China’, Jewish Quarterly Review, viii (1896), 123–39
M.N. Adler: ‘Chinese Jews’, Jewish Quarterly Review, xiii (1901),18–41
A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, iii: Gesänge der persischen, bucharischen und daghestanischen Juden (Berlin, 1922/R)
W.C. White: The Chinese Jews: Compilations of Matters Relating to the Jews of Kaifeng Fu (Toronto, 1942)
A.I. Simon: The Songs of the Jews from Cochin and their Historical Significance (Cochin, 1947)
E. Gerson-Kiwi: ‘The Bards of the Bible’, SMH, vii (1965), 61–70
L.D. Loeb: ‘Hazanut in Iran’, Journal of Synagogue Music, i/3 (1968), 3–6
E. Gerson-Kiwi: ‘Juifs à l’Extrême-Orient: les juifs chinois’, Encyclopédie des musiques sacrées, ed. J. Porte (Paris, 1968–70)
L.D. Loeb: The Jews of Southwest Iran: a Study of Cultural Persistence (diss., Columbia U., 1970)
W.J. Fischel: ‘The Literary Creativity of the Jews of Cochin on the Malabar Coast’, Jewish Book Annual, xxviii (1970–71), 25–31
R. Lowenthal: ‘China’; ‘Kaifeng’; ‘Shanghai’, Encyclopaedia judaica, ed. C. Roth (Jerusalem, 1971–2/R, 2/1982)
A. Herzog: ‘India: Musical Traditions’, Encyclopaedia judaica, ed. C. Roth (Jerusalem, 1971–2/R, 2/1982)
D.D. Leslie: The Survival of the Chinese Jews: the Jewish Community of Kaifeng (Leiden, 1972)
J. Spector: ‘Shingli Tunes of the Cochin Jews’, AsM, iii/2 (1972), 23–8
J. Spector: ‘Jewish Songs from Cochin, India with Special Reference to Cantillation and Shingli Tunes’, World Congress of Jewish Studies V: Jerusalem 1969, iv (Jerusalem, 1973), 245–66
D. Kranzler: Japanese, Nazis and Jews: the Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai, 1938–1945 (New York, 1976)
L. Loeb: Outcaste: Jewish Life in Southern Iran (New York, 1977)
I.J. Ross: Cultural Stability and Change in a Minority Group: a Study of the Liturgical and Folk Songs of the Jews of Cochin, India (diss., Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, 1977)
I.J. Ross: ‘Cross-Cultural Dynamics in Musical Traditions: the Music of the Jews of Cochin’, Musica judaica, ii/1 (1977–8), 51–72
M. Pollak: Mandarins, Jews and Missionaries: the Jewish Experience in the Chinese Empire (Philadelphia, 1980)
M. Slobin: ‘Aspects of Bukharan Jewish Music in Israel’, Yuval, no.4 (Jerusalem, 1982), 225–39
M. Walerstein: ‘The Cochini Jewish Wedding of the Malabar Community of India in Israel’, The Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage I: Jerusalem 1978, ed. I. Ben-Ami (Jerusalem, 1982)
Y. Mazor: The Role of Traditional Music in the Wedding of Georgian Jews (thesis, Bar-Ilan U., 1983)
A. Netzer: ‘Sacred and Secular Music among the Jews of Iran’, Pe‘amim, xix (1984), 163–81 [in Heb.]
J. Spector: ‘Yemenite and Babylonian Elements in the Musical Heritage of the Jews of Cochin, India’, Musica judaica, vii/1 (1985–6), 1–22
R. Krut-Moskovich: ‘The Role of Music in the Liturgy of Emigrant Jews from Bombay: the Morning Prayer for the Three Festivals’, AsM, xvii/2 (1986), 88–107
S.W. Neugebauer: Journalisten im Shanghaier Exil, 1939–49 (Salzburg, 1987)
M. Zand: ‘Bukharan Jews’, Encyclopaedia iranica, ed. E. Yorshater (London, 1989), 531–45
R. Musleah: Songs of the Jews of Calcutta (New York, 1991) [incl. cassette]
T. Levin: The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia (and Queens, New York) (Bloomington, IN, 1996)
A. Knapp: ‘The Current State of Research into the Religious Music of the Kaifeng Jews’, Chime, nos.12–13 (1998), 109–15
Y. Kohai-Boas: The Reading of Lamentations and of the Kinot of the Ninth of Av by the Jews of Mashad in Israel (thesis, Bar-Ilan U., 1998) [in Heb.]
E. Seroussi and B. Davidoff: ‘On the Study of the Musical Traditions of the Jews of Afghanistan’, Pe‘amim, lxxix (1999), 159–70 [in Heb.]
P. Eliyahu: The Music of the Mountain Jews (Jerusalem, 1999)
E. Seroussi: The Singing of the Sephardi Piyyut in Cochin (India) (Ramat Gan, 2000) [in Heb.]
S. Manasseh: ‘Religious Music Traditions of the Jewish Babylonian Diaspora in Bombay’, Musical Outcomes of Jewish Diasporas in East and Southeast Asia, ed. M. Kartomi and A.D. McCredie (forthcoming)
Hazanout: chants liturgiques juifs, ed. S. Arom, Inédit MCM 260005 (1989) [H. Touma: Hazanout:Jewish Religious Vocal Music [sound recording (Inédit, 1989)]
Bukhara: Musical Crossroads of Asia, Smithsonian Folkways CD SF 40050 (1991) [incl. notes by. T. Levin and O. Matyakubov]
Central Asia in Forest Hills, NY: Music of the Bukharan Jewish Ensemble Shashmaqam, Smithsonian Folkways CD SF 40054 (1991) [incl. notes by T. Levin]
K.K. Shelemay: Music, Ritual, and Falasha History (East Lansing, MI, 1986)
S. Kaplan and S. Ben-Dor: Ethiopian Jewry: an Annotated Bibliography (Jerusalem, 1988)
K.K. Shelemay: A Song of Longing: an Ethiopian Journey (Urbana, IL, 1991)
S. Kaplan: The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia: from Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century (New York, 1992)
K.K. Shelemay and P. Jeffery: Ethiopian Christian Liturgical Chant: an Anthology (Madison, WI, 1993–7) [incl. CD]
O. Tourny: ‘Structures litaniques singulières dans la musique des Juifs d’Ethiopie’, Ndroje balendro: musiques, terrains et disciplines: textes offertes à Simha Arom, ed. V. Dehoux and others (Paris, 1995), 147–60
O. Tourny: Systèmatique de la musique liturgique des Juifs d’Ethiopie (diss., U. of Paris, 1997)
Religious Music of the Falashas (Jews of Ethiopia), coll. W. Leslau, Ethnic Folkways FE 4442 (1951) [reissued Folkways/Smithsonian 04442]
Falasha Liturgical Music, coll. K. Kaufman [Shelemay], Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana U. (1973)
The Falashas, rec. 1973, dir. M. Levin, Ergo Media Cat. 107 (1987) [videotape]
Ethiopia: the Falasha and the Adjuran Tribe, coll. L. Lerner, Ethnic Folkways FE 4355 (1975) [reissued Folkways/Smithsonian 04355]
Israel, II: les Juifs d’Ethiopie, coll. P. Toureille, Ocora 558 670, HM 57 (1986)
Liturgies juives d’Ethiopie, coll. F Gründ, F. Alvarez-Pereyre and S. Arom, Auvidis W 260013 (1990)
Siddur ha-tefilot ke-minhaġ ha-yehudim ha-qara’im [The Book of Prayers according to the custom of the Karaite Jews] (Ramla, 1964)
J. Hirshberg: ‘Musical Tradition as a Cohesive Force in a Community in Transition: the Case of the Karaites’, AsM, xvii (1986), 46–68
M. El Koudsi: The Karaite Jews of Egypt (New York, 1987)
J. Hirshberg: ‘Musiqa ke-gorem be-liqqud ha-qehillah ha-qara’it be-San Francisco’ [Music as a unifying factor in the Karaite community of San Francisco], Pe‘amim, xxxii (1987), 66–81
R. Kollender: ‘Tefillat ha-selihot ve ha-musiqah shelah be qehillot ha-qara’im be-yisrael’ [The penitence liturgy and its music among the Karaites of Israel], Pe‘amim, xxxii (1987), 82–93
J. Hirshberg: ‘The Role of Music in the Renewed Self Identity of Karaite Jewish Refugee Communities from Cairo’, YTM, xxi (1989), 36–56
J. Hirshberg: ‘Radical Displacement, Post-Migration Conditions, and Traditional Music’, World of Music, xxxii/3 (1990), 68–89
R. Kollender: Meqomah shel ha-musiqah ba-liturgia shel ‘adat ha-yehudim ha-qara’im be-yisrael [The role of music in the Karaite liturgy in Israel], (diss., Bar-Ilan U., 1991) [in Heb.]
N. Schur: History of the Karaites (Frankfurt, 1992)
J. Hirshberg and R. Granot: ‘Mishkhei zeman be-shirat ha-ma‘aneh shel ha-yehudim ha-qara’im: herġel o herġel shehu teva‘?’ [Duration in the responsorial singing of Karaite Jews: custom or nature?], Pe‘amim lxxvii (1999), 69–89
Qoves mi-shirei ha-yahadut ha-qara’it [A compilation of songs of Karaite Judaism], arr. J. Ben-Shabat, perf. Makhelat Ahva Ashdod [Ashdod Ahva Choir],Ahva Community Centre, Ashdod, (1998)
Y. Braun: ‘Studies in the Jerusalem-Sephardi Melos’, Pe‘amim, xix (1984), 70–87 [in. Heb.]
U. Sharvit: ‘Diversity Within Unity: Stylistic Change and Ethnic Continuity in Israeli Religious Music’, AsM, xvii (1986), 126–46
E. Seroussi: ‘New Directions in the Music of the Sephardi Jews’, Modern Jews and their Musical Agendas, ed. E. Mendelsohn (New York, 1993), 61–77
M. Kligman: ‘Modes of Prayer: the Canonization of the Maqamat in the Prayers of the Syrian Jews in Brooklyn, New York’, World Congress of Jewish Studies XI: Jerusalem 1993, ed. D. Assaf (Jerusalem, 1994), ii, 259–66
H. Roten: ‘The Musical Liturgical Repertoire of the Jews of Bordeaux and Bayonne: Present State of Research’, ibid., ii, 243–50
E. Barnea: ‘Music and Cantillation in the Sephardi Synagogue’, Musical Performance, i/2 (1997), 65–79
M. Kligman: Modes of Prayer: Arabic Maqamat in the Sabbath Morning Liturgical Music of the Syrian Jews in Brooklyn (diss., New York U., 1997)
H. Roten: Les traditions musicales judéo-portuguaises en France: Bordeaux, Bayonne, Paris (diss., U. of Paris, 1997)
Studies
E. Koskoff: ‘Contemporary Nigun composition in an American Hasidic Community’, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, iii/1 (Los Angeles, 1978), 153–73
K.K. Shelemay: ‘Music in the American Synagogue: a Case Study from Houston’, The American Synagogue: a Sanctuary Transformed, ed. J. Wertheimer (Cambridge, 1987), 395–415
L. Bodoff: ‘Innovation in Synagogue Music’, Tradition, xxiii (1988), 90–101
M. Slobin: Chosen Voices: the Study of the American Cantorate (Urbana, IL, 1989)
C. Weissler: Making Judaism Meaningful: Ambivalence and Tradition in a Havurah Community (New York, 1989)
S. Adler: ‘Sacred Music in a Secular Age’, Sacred Sound and Social Change: Liturgical Music in Jewish and Christian Experince, ed. L.A. Hoffman and J.R. Walton (Notre Dame, IN, 1992), 289–99
B. Schiller: ‘The Hymnal as an Index of Musical Change in Reform Synagogues’, ibid., 187–212
J. Summit: ‘I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy? Identity and Melody at an American Simhat Torah Celebration’, EthM, xxxvii (1993), 41–62
E. Schleifer: ‘Current Trends of Liturgical Music in the Ashkenazi Synagogue’, World of Music, xxxvii/1 (1995), 59–72
D. Mermelstein: ‘Is Popular Culture Defining Synagogue Music?’, Reform Judaism, xxiv/3 (1995–6), 42–50
K. Kligman: ‘Modes of Prayer: Arabic Maqamat in the Sabbath Morning Liturgical Music of the Syrian Jews in Brooklyn’ (diss., New York U., 1997)
K.K. Shelemay: Let Jasmine Rain Down: Song and Remembrance Among Syrian Jews (Chicago, 1998)
Recordings and videotape
‘Yamim Noraim’ [Days of Awe], highlights, Music for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, coll. S. Adler, Transcontinental Music Publications (1995) [5 CD set]
In the Beginning, perf. Debbie Friedman, Tara Publications CO=DFR-30D
Shalom Rav, various perfs. incl. Cantor Jeff Klepper and Rabbi Dan Freelander, Tara Publications CS#Co-KBS=40C
Great Cantors of the Golden Age, The National Center for Jewish Film, Brandeis U., Tara Publications, VD#CA-VAR-92V (1990)
(vi) Yiddish and Central European languages
(vii) Composed song and Yiddish theatre
(viii) Central and South Asian languages
S.M. Ginsburg and P.S. Marek, eds.: Yevreyskiye narodneïye pesni v Rossii [Jewish folksongs in Russia] (St Petersburg, 1901/R)
A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz (Leipzig, 1914–32/R; Eng. trans. of vols.i–ii, vi–x, 1923–33/R) [HoM]
J. Schönberg: Die traditionellen Gesänge des israelitischen Gottesdienstes in Deutschland (Nuremberg, 1926)
A. Nadel: Semirot shabbat: die häuslischen Sabbatgesänge (Berlin, 1937)
R. Lachmann: Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Isle of Djerba (Jerusalem, 1940); repr. in the original Ger. and with transcriptions as Gesänge der Juden auf der Insel Djerba, ed. E. Gerson-Kiwi (Jerusalem, 1978)
R. Rubin: A Treasury of Jewish Folksong (New York, 1950)
I.J. Katz: Judeo-Spanish Traditional Ballads from Jerusalem: an Ethnomusicological Study (New York, 1972–5)
M. Slobin: Tenement Songs: the Popular Music of the Jewish Immigrants (Urbana, IL, 1982)
M. Slobin, ed.: Old Jewish Folk Music: the Collections and Writings of Moshe Beregovski (Philadelphia, 1982)
A. Shiloah: The Musical Traditions of Iraqi Jews (Or Yehuda, 1983)
P.V. Bohlman and M. Slobin, eds.: ‘Music in the Ethnic Communities of Israel’, AsM, xvii/2 (1986) [special issue]
Y. Avishur: Shirat ha-nashim: shirei ‘am be-‘aravit-yehudit shel yehudei ‘iraq [Women’s folk songs in Judeo-Arabic from Jews in Iraq] (Or Yehuda, 1987) [with Eng. summary]
K.K. Shelemay: ‘Together in the Field: Team Research among Syrian Jews in Brooklyn, New York’, EthM, xxxii/3 (1988), 369–84
W. Salmen: ‘…denn die Fiedel macht das Fest’: Jüdische Musikanten und Tänzer vom 13. bis 20. Jahrhundert (Innsbruck, 1991)
P.V. Bohlman: ‘Die Vorstellung vom Judentum in der “Schönen Jüdin”’’, Deutsche Volkslieder mit ihren Melodien: Balladen, ed. J. Dittmar, (Freiburg, 1992), 79–81
G. Flam: Singing for Survival: Songs of the Lodz Ghetto, 1940–45 (Urbana, IL, 1992)
H. Nathan, ed.: Israeli Folk Music: Songs of the Early Pioneers (Madison, WI, 1994)
P.V. Bohlman: ‘Jüdische Volksmusik’: eine europäische Geistesgeschichte (Vienna, forthcoming)
M. Ravina: ‘Manginoth Yehudei Teiman’ [Jewish Yemenite songs], Miteman Letsiyon, (Tel-Aviv, 1938), 194–216
J. Spector: ‘On the Trail of Oriental Jewish Music: among the Yemenites’, The Reconstructionist, xviii (1952), 7–12
E. Gerson-Kiwi: ‘Women’s Songs from the Yemen: their Tonal Structure and Form’, The Commonwealth of Music in Honor of Curt Sachs, ed. G. Reese and R. Brandel (New York, 1965), 97–103
Y. Ratzabi: ‘Form and Melody in the Jewish Song of Yemen’, Taslil, viii (1968), 15–22
U. Sharvit: ‘On the Role of Arts and Artistic Concepts in the Tradition of Yemenite Jewry’, Pe‘amim, x (1981), 119–30
U. Sharvit and Y. Adaqi: A Treasury of Jewish Yemenite Chants (Jerusalem, 1981)
U. Sharvit and E. Yaacov: ‘The “Hallelot” of the Jews of Huggariyah and those of Central Yemen’, Pe‘amim, xix (1984), 130–62
A. Bahat: ‘The “Hallelot” in the Yemenite Diwan’, Yuval, no.5 (1986), 139–68
U. Sharvit: ‘The Music and its Function in the Traditional Singing of the Qasid: “Abda’ birabbi di kalaq”’, Yuval, no.5 (1986), 192–234
Y. Shay: The Music in the Wedding of the Habani Jews (diss., Bar-Ilan U., 1998)
S.J. Mansour, ed.: Sefer shirim [Book of songs] (Jerusalem, 1953–4 [5714])
S. Khayyat: ‘Arabic Folk Songs among the Iraqi Jews’, Folklore (1983), 7–13
A. Shiloah: The Musical Traditions of Iraqi Jews (Or Yehuda, 1983)
Y. Avishur: Shirat ha-nashim: shirei ‘am be-‘aravit-yehudit shel yehudei ‘iraq [Women’s folk songs in Judeo-Arabic from Jews in Iraq] (Or Yehuda, 1987)
Y. Avishur: Ha-hatunah ha-yehudit be-baġdad ubi-vnoteiha [The Jewish wedding in Baghdad and its filiations] (Haifa, 1990–91)
S. Manasseh: ‘Daqqaqat: Jewish Women Musicians from Iraq’, International Council for Traditional Music: London 1990, 7–15
S. Manasseh: ‘A Song to Heal your Wounds: Traditional Lullabies in the Repertoire of the Jews of Iraq’, Musica judaica, xii (1991–2), 1–29
Y. Avishur: Shirat ha-gvarim: shirei ‘am be-‘aravit-yehudit shel yehudei ‘iraq [Men’s folksongs in Judeo-Arabic from Jews in Iraq] (Or Yehuda, 1994)
A. Shiloah: Music in the World of Islam (Detroit, 1995)
The Musical Heritage of Iraqi Jews, ed. A. Shiloah and Y. Avishur, Or Yehuda (1988) [LP]
Shir u-shbahoth [Songs and praises], perf.Hibbah, Jerusalem (1980s) [cassette]
Ha-hatunah ha-yehudīt be-bagdad [The Jewish wedding in Baghdad], ed. Y. Avishur, Or Yehuda (1987) [videotape]
Shīrat ha-gvarīm: shirei ‘am be-‘aravit-yehudit shel yehudei ‘iraq [Men’s folksongs in Judeo-Arabic from Jews in Iraq], ed. Y. Avishur, Or Yehuda(1995) [videotape]
Seder pesah ke-minhag yehudei bavel [Passover Seder according to the Jews of Babylon], dir. Z. Yehuda, Or Yehuda, (1995) [videotape; incl. Eng. summary]
A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, v: Gesänge der marokkanischen Juden (Berlin, 1929/R)
R. Lachmann: Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Isle of Djerba (Jerusalem, 1940); repr. in the original Ger. and with musical transcriptions as Gesänge der Juden auf der Insel Djerba, ed. E. Gerson-Kiwi (Jerusalem, 1978)
E. Gerson-Kiwi: ‘Migrating Patterns of Melody among the Berbers and Jews of the Atlas Mountains’, JIFMC, xix (1967), 16–22
E. Gerson-Kiwi: ‘The Jews of the Altas Mountains: their Folk Life and Folk Music’, Taslil, vii (1967), 140–44 [in Heb.]
I. Ben-Ami: ‘Jewish Musicians and Folk Bands in Morocco’, Taslil, x (1970), 54–8 [in Heb.]
I. Ben-Ami: ‘Shabbat Hanadneda: a Moroccan Jewish Wedding Song’, Taslil, xi (1971), 197–9 [in Heb.]
A. Shiloah: ‘Africa, North: Musical Traditions’, Encyclopaedia judaica, ed. C. Roth (Jerusalem, 1971–2/R, 2/1982)
I. Ben-Ami: ‘La Qsida chez les juifs Marocains’, Le Judaisme Marocain: études ethno-culturelles (Jerusalem, 1975), 105–19
Y. Stillman: ‘The Art of a Moroccan Folk Poetress’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, cxxviii/1 (1978), 65–89
Y. Stillman: ‘The Art of Women’s Songs in Morocco’, Judaisme d’Afrique du Nord, ed. M. Abitbol (Jerusalem, 1980), 163–71 [in Heb.]
I. Ben-Ami: ‘The Ziara and Hillula Songs’, Ha’aratsat ha-kedoshim be-kerev Yehude Maroko [Saint veneration among the Jews in Morocco] (Jerusalem, 1984), 99–146 [in Heb.]
R. Davis: ‘Songs of the Jews on the Island of Djerba: a Comparison between two Surveys: Hara Sghira (1929) and Hara Kebira (1978)’, Musica judaica, vii (1984–5), 23–33
A. Eilam-Amzallag: ‘Recent Change in Moroccan Jewish Music’, Mi-qedem umi-yam, iv (1991), 145–64 [in Heb.]
J. Chetrit: Written Judeo-Arabic Poetry in North Africa: Poetic, Linguistic and Cultural Studies (Jerusalem, 1994) [in Heb.]
R. Menéndez Pidal: ‘Catálogo del romancero judío-español’ Cultura española, iv (1906), 1045–77; v (1907), 161–99; repr. in Los romances de América (Buenos Aires, 1948), 101–83
M. Manrique de Lara: ‘Romances españoles en los Balkanes’, Blanco y negro, xxvi (1916), 1285ff
A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, iv: Gesänge der orientalischen Sefardim (Berlin, 1923/R)
A. Hemsi: Coplas sefardíes (Chansons judéo-espagnoles) (Alexandria and Paris, 1932–73) [see E. Seroussi and others, eds.: Alberto Hemsi: Cancionero sefardí (Jerusalem, 1994)]
A. de Larrea Palacín: Romances de Tetuán: cancionero judío del norte de Marruecos (Madrid, 1952)
M. Alvar: Endechas judeo-españoles (Granada, 1953, 2/1969) [incl. transcr. by M.T. Rubiato]
M.J. Bernardete: Hispanic Culture and Character of the Sephardic Jews (New York, 1953)
A. de Larrea Palacín: Canciones rituales hispano-judías (Madrid, 1954)
L. Algazi: Chants séphardis (London, 1958)
I. Levy: Chants judéo-espagnols (London and Jerusalem, 1959–73)
H. Avenary: ‘Ancient Melodies for Sephardic Hymns of the Sixteenth Century’, Tesoro de los judios sefardíes, iii (1960), 149–53 [in Heb.]
M. Attias: Romancero sefaradi (Jerusalem, 1961) [in Heb. and Sp.]
E. Gerson-Kiwi: ‘On the Musical Sources of the Judaeo-Hispanic Romance’, MQ, l (1964), 31–43
H. Avenary: ‘Ha-shir ha-nokhri ke-maqor hashra’ah le-Yisrael Najara’ [The foreign song as a source of inspiration in R. Israel Najara’s poetry], World Congress of Jewish Studies IV: Jerusalem 1965 (Jerusalem, 1968), ii, 383–4
P. Bénichou: Romancero judeo-español de Marruecos (Madrid, 1968) [incl. ballad tunes transcr. by L. Algazi, D. Devoto, D. Berdichevsky and J. Bathori]
R. Menéndez-Pidal: Romancero hispánico (Hispano-Portugués, americano y sefardí) (Madrid, 1968)
M. Alvar: Cantos de boda judeo-españoles (Madrid, 1971) [music transcr. by M.T. Rubiato]
S.G. Armistead and J.H. Silverman: The Judeo-Spanish Chapbooks of Yakob Abraham Yoná (Berkeley, 1971)
H. Avenary: ‘Cantos españoles antiguos mencionados en la literatura hebrea’ AnM, xxv (1971), 167–79
M. Attias: Cancionero judeo-españoles (Jerusalem, 1972) [in Heb. and Sp.; music. transcr. by Ya‘acob Mazor]
I.J. Katz: Judeo-Spanish Traditional Ballads from Jerusalem: an Ethnomusicological Study (New York, 1972–5)
I.J. Katz: ‘The “Myth” of the Sephardic Musical Legacy from Spain’ World Congress of Jewish Music V: Jerusalem 1969 (1973), iv, 237–43
E.N. Alberti-Kleinbort: ‘Romances tradicionales en Latinoamérica: algunos ejemplos sefardíes y criollos’ Comunidades judías de Latinoamerica, ed. J. Kovadloff (Buenos Aires, 1977), 252–69
S.G. Armistead: El romancero judeo-español en el Archivo Menéndez Pidal: catálogo-índice de romaces y canciones (Madrid, 1978)
S.G. Armistead, J.H. Silverman and I.J.Katz: ‘Judeo-Spanish Folk Poetry from Morocco (the Boas-Nahón Collection)’ YIFMC, xi (1979), 59–75
R. Benmayor: Romances judeo-españoles de Oriente: nueva recolección (Madrid, 1979) [incl. ballad tunes transcr. by J.H. Mauleón]
I.J. Katz: ‘Manuel Manrique de Lara and the Tunes of the Moroccan Sephardic Ballad Tradition: Some Insights into a Much-Needed Critical Edition’, El romancero hoy: nuevas fronteras, ed. A. Sánchez Romeralo, D. Catalán and S.G. Armistead Madrid, 1979), 75–87
I.J. Katz: ‘Stylized Performance of a Judeo-Spanish Traditional Ballad: La mujer engañada’, Studies in Jewish Folklore: Chicago 1977, ed. F. Talmage (Cambridge, MA, 1980), 181–200
E. Romero and L. Carracedo: ‘Las coplas sefardíes: categorías y estado de la cuestión’, Actas de las Jornadas de Estudios Sefardíes, ed. A. Viudas Camarasa (Cáceres, 1981), 69–98
I.J. Katz : ‘The Enigma of the Antonio Bustelo Judeo-Spanish Ballad Tunes in Manuel L. Ortega's Los hebreos en Marruecos (1919)’, Musica Judaica, iv (1981–2), 33–67
I.J. Katz : ‘The Musical Legacy of the Judeo-Spanish Romancero’, Hispania Judaica, ed. J.M. Sola-Solé, S.G. Armistead and J.H. Silverman (Barcelona, 1982), ii, 45–58
M. Querol Gavaldá : ‘Fuentes folklóricas de los cantos sefardíes’, Revista internacional de sociología, lxii/2 (1984), 675–89
S.G. Armistead, J.H. Silverman and I.J. Katz: Judeo-Spanish Ballads from Oral Tradition: I. Epic Ballads (Berkeley, 1986)
A. Bahat: ‘Les contrafacta hébreux des romanzas judéo-espagnoles’, RdMc, ix (1986), 141–68
J.R. Cohen : Judeo-Spanish Songs in the Sephardic Communities of Montreal and Toronto: Survival, Function, and Change (diss., U. of Montreal, 1988)
J. Etzion and S. Weich-Shahak: ‘The Music of the Judeo-Spanish Romancero: Stylistic Features’, AnM, xliii (1988), 1–35
J. Etzion and S. Weich-Shahak: ‘The Spanish and the Sephardic Romancero: Musical Links’, EthM, xxxii (1988), 173–209
I.J. Katz: ‘Contrafacta and the Judeo-Spanish Romancero: a Musicological View’, Hispanic Studies in Honor of Joseph H. Silverman, ed. J.V. Ricapito (Newark, DE, 1988), 169–87
S. Weich-Shahak : Judoe-Spanish Moroccan Songs for the Life Cycle. Cantares judeo-españoles de Marruecos para el ciclo de la vida (Jerusalem, 1989)
S. Weich-Shahak : ‘Sefardi-Jewish Songs for Berit Milla’, Dukan, xii (1989), 167–80
S. Weich-Shahak : ‘Las canciones sefardíes y el ciclo de la vida (repertorio judeo-español de Oriente y Occidente)’, Revista de dialectología y tradiciones populares, xliv (Madrid, 1989), 139–60
J.R. Cohen : ‘Musical Bridges: the Contrafact Tradition in Judeo-Spanish Song’, Cultural Marginality in the Western Mediterranean, ed. F. Gerson and A. Percival (Toronto, 1990), 121–8
A. Petrović : ‘Correlation between the Musical Content of Jewish-Sephardic Songs and Traditional Muslim Lyrics Svedalinka in Bosnia’, World Congress of Jewish Studies X: Jerusalem, (Jerusalem, 1990), 165–72
E. Seroussi : ‘The Turkish Makam in the Musical Culture of the Ottoman Jews: Sources and Examples’, Israel Studies in Musicology, v (1990), 43–68
S. Weich-Shahak: ‘The Bosnian Judeo-Spanish Musical Repertoire in a Hundred Year Old Manuscript’, Jb für musikalische Volks- und Volkerkunde, xiv (1990), 97–122
E. Seroussi: and S. Weich-Shahak: ‘Judeo-Spanish Contrafacta and Musical Adaptations: a Perspective from Oral Tradition’, Orbis musicae, x (1990–91), 164–94
E. Seroussi : ‘Between the Eastern and Western Mediterranean: Sephardic Music after the Expulsion from Spain and Portugal’, Mediterranean Historical Review, vi (1991), 198–206
P. Dorn : Changes and Ideology: the Ethnomusicology of Turkish Jewry (diss., Indiana U., 1992)
I.J. Katz : ‘Pre-Expulsion Tune Survivals among Judeo-Spanish Ballads? a Possible Late Fifteenth-Century French Antecedent’, Hispanic medieval Studies in Honor of Samuel G. Armistead, ed. E.M. Gerli and H.L. Sharrer (Madison, WI, 1992), 173–92
I.J. Katz : ‘The Music of Sephardic Spain’, Musical Repercussions of 1492, ed. C. Robertson (Washington, DC, 1992), 97–128
E. Romero : Bibliografía analítica de ediciones de coplas sefardíes (Madrid, 1992)
J.R. Cohen : ‘Sonography of Judeo-Spanish Song (Cassettes, LP's, CD's, Video, Film)’, Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review, xv/2 (1993), 49–55
J. Etzion and S. Weich-Shahak: ‘“Family Resemblances” and Variability in the Sephardic Romancero: a Methodological Approach to Variantal Comparison’, JMT, xxxvii (1993), 267–309
I.J. Katz : ‘The Sacred and Secular Music Traditions of the Sephardic Jews in the United States’, Sephardim in the Americas: Studies in Culture and History, ed. M.A. Cohen and A.J. Peck (Tuscaloosa, AL, 1993), 331–56
E. Seroussi: ‘El legado español en la música sefardí: estado de la cuestión’, Proyección histórica de España en sus tres culturas: Castilla y León, América y el Mediterráneo, ed. E.Lorenzo Sanz (Valladolid, 1993), ii, 569–78
E. Seroussi: ‘Sephardic Music: a Bibliographic Guide with a Checklist of Notated Sources’, Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review, xv/2 (1993), 56–61
S. Weich-Shahak : ‘Coplas sefardíes: enfoque poético-musical’, RdMc, xvi/3 (1993), 1597–610
S.G. Armistead, J.H. Silverman and I.J. Katz: Judeo-Spanish Ballads from Oral Tradition: II. Carolingian Ballads, 1: Roncesvalles, (Berkeley, 1994)
I.J. Katz : ‘Legado musical de la diaspora sefardí: comprendiendo una tradición en términos de su pervivencia’, Judíos sefardíes, conversos:la expulsión de 1492 y sus consecuencias, ed. A. Alcalá (Valladolid, 1996), 365–92
S. Weich-Shahak : ‘Tipología de canciones tradicionales judeo-españolas: tres generos poético-musicales sefardíes’, Donaire,no.6 (1993), 85–91
J.R. Cohen : ‘Judeo-Spanish (“Ladino”) Recordings’, Journal of American Folklore, cii (1999), 530–40
I.J. Katz : ‘The Romances of Dora Ayach: Larache 1916 – Casablanca 1962’, Jewish Culture and the Hispanic World: Essays in Memory of Joseph H. Silverman, ed. S.G. Armistead, M.M. Caspi and M. Baumgarten (Berkeley, forthcoming)
I.J. Katz : Manuel Manrique de Lara and the Judeo-Spanish Ballad Tradition (forthcoming)
Ballads, Wedding Songs and Piyyutim of the Jews of Tetuan and Tangier, coll. and ed. H. Yurchenko, Folkways FE 4208 (1983)
Cantares Judeo Españoles de Marruecos para el ciclo de la vida, coll., transcr. and ed. S. Weich-Shahak, Jerusalem (1989)
Rabbi Isaac Algazi: Cantorial compositions, piyyutim and Judeo-Spanish songs, ed. E. Barnea and E. Seroussi, Jerusalem, Renanot (1991)
Cantares y romances tradicionales sefardíes de marruecos, coll. and ed. S. Weich-Shahak, Tecnosaga, SA (1991)
Romancero Panhispánico: Antología Sonora, ed. J.M.F. Gil, Centro de Cultura Tradicional y Junta de Castilla León (1992)
Cantares y romances tradicionales sefardíes de Oriente, coll. S. Weich-Shahak, Tecnosaga, SA (1993)
Chants judeo-espagnols de la Mediterranée orientale, coll. B. Aguado and D. Gerassi, Inédit, W 260054, Maison des Cultures du Monde (Paris, 1994)
Jewish Spanish Songs from Thessaloniki, Orient Music, LC 3592 - RIEN CD 14 (Berlin, 1998)
H. Loewe: Lieder-Buch für jüdische Vereine (Berlin, 1894)
S.M. Ginsburg and P.S. Marek, eds.: Evreiskie narodnye pesni v Rossii [Jewish folksongs in Russia] (St Petersburg, 1901/R)
M. Rosenfeld: Lieder des Ghetto (Berlin, 1902)
M. Taich: Arbeyter Lider [Workers’ songs] (Warsaw, 1906) [in Yiddish]
K. Glaser, ed.: Blau-Weiss Liederbuch (Berlin, 1914)
A. Eliasberg: Ostjüdische Volkslieder (Munich, 1918)
P. Nettl: Alte jüdische Spielleute und Musiker (Prague, 1923)
M. Grunwald: Mattersdorf (Vienna, 1924–5)
J. Schönberg: Die traditionelle Gesänge des israelitischen Gottesdienstes in Deutschland (Nuremberg, 1926)
A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, ix: Der Volksgesang der osteuropäischen Juden (Leipzig, 1932/R; Eng. trans., 1933/R)
A.Z. Idelsohn: Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz, x: Gesänge der Chassidim (Leipzig, 1932/R; Eng. trans., 1933/R)
J. Schönberg: Shireh Eres yisrael [Songs of Palestine] (Berlin, 1938)
Y.-L. Cahan: Shtudis vegn yidisher folks-shaffung [Studies in Yiddish folklore] (New York, 1952) [in Yiddish]
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H. Pollack: Jewish Folkways in Germanic Lands (1648–1806) (Cambridge, MA, 1971)
R. Rubin: Voices of a People: the Story of Yiddish Folksong (Philadelphia, 1979)
M. Slobin: Tenement Songs: the Popular Music of the Jewish Immigrants (Urbana, IL, 1982)
M. Slobin, ed.: Old Jewish Folk Music: the Collections and Writings of Moshe Beregovski (Philadelphia, 1982)
C. Vinaver: Anthology of Hassidic Music (Jerusalem, 1985)
J. Jacobsen and E. Jospe, eds.: Das Buch der jüdischen Lieder (Augsburg, 1988); repr. of Hawa naschira! (Frankfurt, 1935)
P.V. Bohlman: ‘Die Volksmusik und die Verstädterung der deutsch-jüdischen Gemeinde in den Jahrzehnten vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg’, Jb für Volksliedforschung, xxxiv (1989), 25–40
W. Salmen: ‘…denn die Fiedel macht das Fest’: jüdische Musikanten und Tänzer vom 13. bis 20. Jahrhundert (Innsbruck, 1991)
F. Freund, F. Ruttner and H. Safrian, eds.: Ess firt kejn weg zurik … : Geschichte und Lieder des Ghettos von Wilna, 1941–1943 (Vienna, 1992)
M. Lemm, ed.: Mordechaj Gebirtig: jiddische Lieder (Wuppertal, 1992)
P.V. Bohlman: ‘Musical Life in the Central European Village’, Modern Jews and their Musical Agendas, ed. E. Mendelsohn (New York, 1993), 17–39
H. Nathan, ed.: Israeli Folk Music: Songs of the Early Pioneers (Madison, WI, 1994)
P.V. Bohlman: ‘Musik als Widerstand: jüdische Musik in Deutschland, 1933–1940’, Jb für Volksliedforschung, xl (1995), 49–74
O. Holzapfel and P.V. Bohlman: The Folk Songs of Ashkenaz (Madison, WI, in press)
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J.M. Rumshinsky: Klangen fun meyn lebn [Sounds from my life] (New York, 1944)
A. Weisser: The Modern Renaissance of Jewish Music: Events and Figures, Eastern Europe and America (New York, 1954)
A. Holde: Jews in Music: from the Age of Enlightenment to the Mid-Twentieth Century (New York, 1959)
P. Moddel: Joseph Achron (Tel-Aviv, 1966)
I. Fater: Yidishe muzik in polyn tsvishn bayde velt-milkhomes [Jewish music in Poland between the two World Wars] (Tel-Aviv, 1970)
A. Soltes: Off the Willows: the Rebirth of Modern Jewish Music (New York, 1970)
R. Rubin: Voices of a People: the Story of Yiddish Folksong (New York, 1973)
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N. Sandrow: Vagabond Stars (New York, 1977)
M. Slobin: ‘The Evolution of a Musical Symbol in Yiddish Culture’, Studies in Jewish Folklore: Chicago 1977, ed. F. Talmage (Cambridge, MA, 1980), 313–30
V. Secunda: Bei mir bist du schön: Life of Sholom Secunda (Weston, CT, 1982)
M. Slobin: Tenement Songs: the Popular Music of the Jewish Immigrants (Urbana, IL, 1982)
I. Heskes: The Resource Book of Jewish Music (Westport, CT, 1985)
S.B. Cohen: ‘Yiddish Origins and Jewish-American Transformations’, From Hester Street to Hollywood (Bloomington, IN, 1986)
M. Yardeini: Vort un klang [Words of music] (New York, 1979; Eng. trans., abridged, 1986)
E.G. Mlotok: Mir trogn a gezang! Favorite Songs of Our Generation (New York, 1987)
E.G. Mloteck and J. Mlotek: Pearls of Yiddish Song (New York, 1988)
I. Heskes, ed.: The Music of Abraham Goldfaden: Father of Yiddish Theater (New York, 1990)
I. Heskes: Yiddish American Popular Songs, 1895–1950 (Washington, DC, 1992)
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J. Braun: ‘Jewish Art music and Jewish Musicians in the Soviet Union, 1917–1950s’, Verfemte Musik: Dresden 1993, 125–34
M. Caplan: ‘Raisins and Almonds: Goldfaden’s Glory’, Judaism, xlii/2 (1993)
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A.I. Simon: The Songs of the Jews from Cochin and their Historical Significance (Cochin, 1947)
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E. Gerson-Kiwi: ‘Vocal and Folk Polyphonies in the Western Orient in Jewish Traditions’, Yuval, no.1 (1968), 196–9
E. Gerson-Kiwi: ‘The Music of the Kurdistani Jews: a Synopsis of their Musical Styles’, Yuval, no.2 (1971), 59–72
L.D. Loeb: ‘The Jewish Musician and the Music of Fars’, AsM, iv/1 (1972), 3–14
J. Spector: ‘Shingli Tunes of the Cochin Jews’, AsM, iii/2 (1972), 23–8
J. Spector: ‘Jewish Songs from Cochin, India with Special Reference to Cantillation and Shingli Tunes’, World Congress of Jewish Studies V: Jerusalem 1969, iv (Jerusalem, 1973), 245–66
P. Squires: Dance and Dance Music of the Iraqi Kurdish Jews in Israel (thesis, UCLA, 1975)
I.J. Ross: Cultural Stability and Change in a Minority Group: a Study of the Liturgical and Folk Songs of the Jews of Cochin, India (diss., Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, 1977)
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B. Nettl and A. Shiloah: ‘Persian Classical Music in Israel’, Israel Studies in Musicology, i (1978), 142–58
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B.C. Johnson: ‘Cranganore, Joseph Rabban and Cheraman Perumal: the Origin Theme in Cochini Jewish Folklore as Revealed in the Women’s Folksongs’, Pe‘amim, xiii (1982), 71–83 [in Heb.]
P.M. Jussay: ‘The Song of Evarayi’, Pe‘amim, xiii (1982), 84–93 [in Heb.]
A. Netzer: ‘An Isfahani Jewish Folk Song’, Irano-judaica, ed. S. Shaked (Jerusalem, 1982), 180–203
M. Slobin: ‘Notes on Bukharan Music in Israel’, Yuval, no.4 (1982), 225–39
M. Walerstein: ‘The Cochini Jewish Wedding of the Malabar Community in India and Israel’, The Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage I: Jerusalem 1978, ed. I. Ben-Ami (Jerusalem, 1982), 529–50
A. Netzer: ‘Sacred and Secular Music among the Jews of Iran’, Pe‘amim, xix (1984), 163–81 [in Heb.]
A. Shiloah: ‘Impressions musicales des voyageurs européens en Afrique du Nord’, Les relations intercommunitaires juives en méditerranée occidentale: XIIIe – XX siècles, ed. J.L. Miège (Paris, 1984), 275–80
J. Spector: ‘Yemenite and Babylonian Elements in the Musical Heritage of the Jews of Cochin, India’, Musica judaica, vii (1985–6), 1–22
N. Katz and E.S. Goldberg: The Last Jews of Cochin (Columbia, SC, 1993)
P. Eliyahu: The Music of the Mountain Jews (Jerusalem, 1999)
I. Ben-Ami: ‘Jewish Musicians and Folk Bands in Morocco’, Taslil, x (1970), 54–8 [in Heb.]
E. Gerson-Kiwi: ‘The Music of the Kurdistani Jews: a Synopsis of their Musical Styles’, Yuval, no.2 (1971), 59–72
L.D. Loeb: ‘The Jewish Musician and the Music of Fars’, AsM, iv/1 (1972), 3–13
P. Squires: Dance and Dance Music of the Iraqi Kurdish Jews in Israel (thesis, UCLA, 1975)
B. Nettl and A. Shiloah: ‘Persian Classical Music in Israel’, Israel Studies in Musicology, i (1978), 142–58
M. Slobin: ‘Notes on Bukharan Music in Israel’, Yuval, no.4 (1982), 225–39
A. Netzer: ‘Sacred and Secular Music among the Jews of Iran’, Pe‘amim, xix (1984), 163–81 [in Heb.]
A. Shiloah: ‘Impressions musicales des voyageurs européens en Afrique du Nord’, Les relations intercommunitaires juives en méditerranée occidentale: XIIIe – XX siècles, ed. J.L. Miège (Paris, 1984), 275–80
E. Warkow: ‘Revitalization of Iraqi-Jewish Instrumental Traditions in Israel: the Persistent Centrality’, AsM, xvii/2 (1986), 9–31
A. Eilam-Amzallag: ‘Recent Change in Moroccan Jewish Music’, Mi-qedem umi-yam, iv (1991), 145–64 [in Heb.]
R. Davis: ‘Piyyut Melodies as Mirrors of Social Change in Hara Kebira, Jerba’, From Iberia to Diaspora, ed. Y.K. and N.A. Stillman (Leiden, 1999), 477–95
P. Eliyahu: The Music of the Mountain Jews (Jerusalem, 1999)
I. Lipayev: ‘Jewish Orchestras’, Russkaya Muzïkal'naya Gazeta (1904), no.4, pp.101–3; no.5, pp.133–6; no.6, pp.169–72; no.8, pp.205–7
W. Kostakowsky: International Hebrew Wedding Music (New York, 1916)
P. Nettl: Alte jüdische Spielleute und Musiker (Prague, 1923)
N. Findeysen: ‘The Jewish Tsimbal and the Lepianski Family of Tsimbalists’, Muzïkal'naya ėtnografiya (1926), 37–44
P. Nettl: ‘Die Prager Judenspielleutenzunft’, Beiträge zur böhmischen und mährischen Musikgeschichte (Brunn, 1927)
A. Logan: ‘The Five Generations’, New Yorker (29 Oct, 1949), 32–51
E. Lifschutz: ‘Merrymakers and Jesters among Jews’, Yivo Annual of the Social Sciences, no.7 (1952), 43–83
J. Stutschewsky: Ha-klezmorim: toldoteihem, orah hayyeihem ve-yeserteihem [The klezmorim: their history, way of life and creations] (Jerusalem, 1959)
I. Rivkind: Klezmorim, pereq be-toldot ha-amanut ha-‘ammamit [Klezmorim: a chapter in the history of folk art, (New York, 1960)
M. Bik: Klezmorim be-Or Gev [Klezmorim in Or-Gev] (Haifa, 1964)
A. Hajdu: ‘Le Niggun Meron’, Yuval, no.2 (1971), 73–113
M. Beregovski: ‘Yidische instrumentalische folksmuzik’, Old Jewish Folkmusic: the Collection and Writings of Moshe Beregovski, ed. M. Slobin (Philadelphia, 1982)
M. Beregovsky: Yevreyskaya narodnaya instrumental'naya muzïka [Traditional Jewish instrumental music], ed. M. Goldin (Moscow, 1987)
W. Salmen: Jüdische Musikanten und Tänzer vom 13. bis 20. Jahrhundert (Innesbruck, 1991)
W.Z. Feldman: ‘Bulgaresca/Bulgarish/Bulgar: the Transformation of a Klezmer Dance Genre’, EthM, xxxviii (1994), 1–35
Y. Mazor and M. Taube: ‘A Hasidic Ritual Dance: the Mitsve Tants in Jerusalemite Weddings’, Yuval, no.6 (1994), 164–224
I. Adler: ‘A la recherche du chants perdus: la redecouverte des collections du “Cabinet” de musique juive de Moisei I. Beregovski’, Ndroje balendro: musiques, terrains et disciplines: textes offertes à Simha Arom, ed. V. Dehoux and others (Paris, 1995)
R. Ottens and J. Rubin: Klezmer-Musik (Kassel, 1999)
H. Sapoznik: Klezmer! Jewish Music from Old World to Our World (New York, 1999)
W.Z. Feldman: ‘Music of the European Klezmer’, Khevrisa: European Klezmer Music (Washington, DC, 2000)
A. Shiloah: ‘The Chapter on Music in Ibn Falaqera’s Book of the Seeker’, World Congress of Jewish Studies IV: Jerusalem 1965 (Jerusalem, 1968), ii, 373–7
E. Capsali: Seder Eliyahu Zuta: the History of the Ottomans and Venice and Chronicle of Israel in the Turkish Kingdom, Spain and Venice (Jerusalem, 1976) [in Heb.]
N. Bouzar-Kasbadji: L’émergence artistique algérienne au XXe siècle (Algiers, 1980)
E. Warkow: The Urban Arabic Repertoire of Jewish Professional Musicians in Iraq and Israel: Instrumental Improvisation and Cultural Change (diss. Hebrew U., Jerusalem, 1987)
A. Teboul: ‘Les musiciens’, Les juifs d’Algérie: images et textes, ed. J.-L. Allouche and others (Paris, 1987), 276–81
J. Taieb: ‘Ya lil, ya lil …’, Les juifs de Tunisie: images and textes, ed. J. Allali and others (Paris, 1989), 200–205
H. Goldberg: Jewish Life in Muslim Libya: Rivals and Relatives (Chicago, 1990)
A.Z. Idelsohn: ‘Richard Wagner ve ha-yehudim’ [Richard Wagner and the Jews], Hashkafa (4 April, 1908)
A. Nadel: ‘Jüdische Musik’, Der Jude, vii (1923), 235–
H. Berl: Das Judentum in Der Musik (Berlin, 1926)
E. Felber: ‘Gibt es eine jüdische Musik?’, Musikblätter des Anbruch, x (1928), 282–7
J. Stutschewsky: ‘Gibt es eine jüdische Musik?’, Mein Weg zur jüdische Musik (Vienna, 1935), 29–34
C. Sachs: ‘Historical Bases of Jewish Music’, Jewish Music Forum, iv/1, (Dec, 1943), 16–17
F. Jacobi: ‘Some Aspects of the Problem of Nationalism in Music’, Jewish Music Forum, vi (Dec, 1945), 4ff
S. Wolpe: ‘Folk Elements in Cultivated Music’, Jewish Music Forum, vii (1946), 6ff
A.M. Rothmüller: ‘On Jewish Music’, The Music of the Jews (London, 1953), 218–27
H. Fromm: ‘What is Jewish Music’, On Jewish Music (New York, 1978), 3–5
E. Werner: ‘Identity and Character of Jewish Music’ World Congress on Jewish Music: Jerusalem 1978, ed. J. Cohen (Tel-Aviv, 1982), 1–14
A. Ringer: Arnold Schoenberg: the Composer as a Jew (Oxford, 1990)
J. Hirshberg: Music in the Jewish Community of Palestine, 1880–1948 (Oxford, 1995)
P. Gradenwitz: The Music of Israel (Portland, OR, 1996)
Editions
F. Rikko, ed.: S. Rossi: Ha-shirim asher li-shelomo: 33 Psalms, Songs and Hymns (New York, 1967–73)
I. Adler, ed.: Hoshna‘na Rabbah in Casale Monferrato 1732 (Jerusalem, 1990)
I. Adler, ed.: Hoshna‘na Rabbah in Casale Monferrato 1733 (Jerusalem, 1992)
D. Harrán, ed.: Salamone Rossi: Complete Works, CMM, c/1–12 (Stuttgart, 1995; vol.13, incl. Ha-shirim asher li-shelomo, forthcoming)
D. Harrán, ed.: Fragmenta polyphonica judaica (in preparation) [incl. works by D. Civita, A. Porto and D. Sacerdote]
Studies
E. Birnbaum: Jüdische Musiker am Hofe von Mantua von 1542–1628 (Vienna, 1893; Eng. trans., 1978)
P. Nettl: ‘Musicisti ebrei del Rinascimento italiano’, Rassegna mensile d’Israel, ii (1926–7), 59–71
I Adler: La pratique musicale savante dans quelques communautés juives en Europe aux XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1966)
I. Adler: ‘The Rise of Art Music in the Italian Ghetto’, Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. A. Altmann (Cambridge, MA, 1967), 321–64
H.C. Slim: ‘Gian and Gian Maria: some Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Namesakes’, MQ, lvii (1971), 562–74
I. Adler: Musical Life and Traditions of the Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam in the XVIIIth Century (Jerusalem, 1974)
I. Adler, ed.: Hebrew Writings Concerning Music in Manuscripts and Printed Books from Geonic Times up to 1800, RISM, B/IX/2 (1975)
I. Adler, ed.: Hebrew Notated Manuscript Sources up to circa 1840: a Descriptive and Thematic Catalogue with a Checklist of Printed Sources, RISM, B//IX/1 (1989)
D. Harrán: ‘Tradition and Innovation in Jewish Music of the Later Renaissance’, JM, vii (1989), 107–30; repr. in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. D. Ruderman (New York, 1992), 474–501
D. Harrán: ‘Jewish Dramatists and Musicians in the Renaissance: Separate Activities, Common Aspirations’, Musicologia humana: Studies in Honor of Warren and Ursula Kirkendale, ed. S. Gmeinwieser, D. Hiley and J. Riedlbauer (Florence, 1994), 291–304; repr. in Leone de’ Sommi and the Performing Arts, ed. A. Belkin (Tel-Aviv, 1997), 27–47
I. Adler: ‘Sheloshah tekasim musikaliyim le-hosha‘na rabbah be-qehilat qasali monferato (1732, 1733, 1735)’ [Three musical ceremonies for Hoshna‘na Rabbah in the community of Casale Monferrato], Yuval, no.5 (1996), 137–51
D. Harrán: ‘“Dum recordaremur Sion”: Music in the Life and Thought of the Venetian Rabbi Leon Modena (1571–1648)’, Association for Jewish Studies Review, xxiii (1998), 17–61
D. Harrán: Salamone Rossi, Jewish Musician in Late Renaissance Mantua (Oxford, 1999)
D. Harrán: ‘Jewish Musical Culture in Early Modern Venice’, The Jews of Venice: a Unique Renaissance Community, ed. R.C. Davis and B. Ravid (Baltimore, MD, forthcoming)
D. Harrán: ‘Salamone Rossi as a Composer of “Hebrew” Music’, Studies in Honour of Israel Adler, ed. E. Schleifer and E. Seroussi (forthcoming)
D. Harrán: ‘From Music to Matrimony: the Wedding Odes of Rabbi Leon Modena (1571–1648)’, World Congress of Jewish Studies XII: Jerusalem 1997, division D, ed. R. Margolin (forthcoming)
D. Harrán: ‘Was Rabbi Leon Modena a Composer?’, The ‘Roaring Lion’: Leon Modena and his World, ed. D. Malkiel (forthcoming)
D. Harrán: ‘Toward Defining the Essence of Jewish Art Music’, Music and Religion, ed. J.M. Benitez (London, forthcoming)
P. Nettl: ‘Judaism and Music’, The Hebrew Impact on Western Civilization, ed. D. Runes (New York, 1951), 363–404
A.M. Rothmüller: The Music of the Jews: an Historical Appreciation (London, 1953)
A. Holde: Jews in Music: from the Age of the Enlightenment to the Mid-Twentieth Century (New York, 1974)
D. Lyman: Great Jews in Music (New York, 1986)
G. Abramson, ed.: The Blackwell Companion to Jewish Culture: from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Oxford, 1989)
J.P. Swain: The Broadway Musical: a Critical and Musical Survey (Oxford, 1990)
I. Heskes: Passport to Jewish Music: its History, Traditions and Culture (New York, 1994)
Studies
Z. Feder: Zamlung fun katset un geto lider (Bergen Belsen, 1946)
M. Gebirtig: S’brent: 1939–1942 (Kraków, 1946)
S. Kaczerginski: Dos gezang funvilner geto (Paris, 1947)
J. Spector: Ghetto- und KZ-Lieder aus Lettland und Litauen (Vienna, 1947)
S. Kaczerginski: Lider fun di getos un lagern [Songs of the ghettos and concentration camps] (New York, 1948)
S. Laks: Musiques d'un autre monde (Paris, 1948; Eng. trans., rev. as Music of Another World, Evanston, IL, 1989/R)
P. Gradenwitz: The Music of Israel: from the Biblical Era to Modern Times (New York, 1949; Ger. trans., 1961; enlarged 2/1996)
I. Lammel and G. Hofmeyer, eds.: Lieder aus den faschistischen Konzentrations-Lagern (Berlin, 1962)
J. Bor: The Terezin Requiem (London, 1963)
I. Fater: Yidishe musik in polyn tvishn nayde vel-milkhomes [Yiddish music in Poland between the World Wars] (Tel-Aviv, 1970; Polish trans. 1997)
M. Bloch: ‘Viktor Ullmann: a Brief Biography and Appreciation’, Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, iii/2 (1979), 151–77
R. Rubin: Voices of a People (Philadelphia, 1979)
F. Fenelon: Playing for Time (London, 1980)
E. Mlotek and M. Gottlieb: We are Here: Songs of the Holocaust (New York, 1983)
S. Kalisch: Yes We Sang! Songs of the Ghettos and Concentration Camps (New York, 1985)
J. Karas: Music in Terezín, 1941–1945 (New York, 1985)
M. Fuks: Muzyka ocalona (Warsaw, 1989)
U.Migdal: Und die Musik spielt dazu (Munich, 1986)
D. Bloch: ‘No One can Rob us of our Dreams: Solo Songs from Terezín’, Israel Studies in Musicology, v (1990), 69–80
D.Bloch: ‘Versteckte Bedeutungen: Symbole in der Musik von Theresienstadt’, Theresienstadt in der Endlösung der Judenfrage (Prague, 1992), 140–49
G. Flam: Singing for Survival: Songs of the Lodz Ghetto, 1940–45 (Urbana, IL, 1992)
H.G. Klein, ed.: Viktor Ullmann: Materialien (Hamburg, 1992)
G. Birkeley: Hitler’s Gift: the Story of Theresienstadt (Boston, 1993)
M. Kuna: Musik an der Grenze des Lebens (Frankfurt, 1993)
L. Peduzzi: Pavel Haas (Brno, 1993)
I. Schultz, ed.: Viktor Ullmann: 26 Kritiken über Musikalische Veranstaltungen in Theresienstadt (Hamburg, 1993)
P. Cummins: Dachau Song: Twentieth-Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper (New York, 1994)
I. Heskes: Passport to Jewish Music: the History, Traditions and Culture (New York, 1994)
D. Bloch: ‘Jewish Music in Terezín; a Brief Survey’, Verfemte Musik: Komponisten in den Diktaturen unseres Jahrhunderts, ed. J. Braun (Frankfurt, 1995), 105–20
M. Slavicky: Gideon Klein: a Fragment of Life and Work (Prague, 1995)
D.Bloch: ‘Viktor Ullmann's Yiddish and Hebrew Vocal Arrangements in the Context of Jewish Musical Activity in Terezín’, Viktor Ullmann die Referate des Symposions Anlösslich des 50. Todestags, ed. H.G. Klein (Hamburg, 1996), 79–86
A. Lasker-Wallfisch: Inherit the Truth, 1939–45 (London, 1996)
J. Stroumsa: Violinist in Auschwitz: from Salonica to Jerusalem, 1913–1967 (Konstanz, 1996)
Recordings
M. Gebirtig: Krakow Ghetto Notebook, Koch International (1994) [CD and booklet, issued by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC]
Rise Up and Fight! Songs of Jewish Partisans, (1996) [CD and booklet, issued by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC]
Hidden History: Songs of the Kovno Ghetto, (1997) [CD and booklet, issued by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC]
Terezín Music Anthology, Koch International Classics (New York/Austria)