Sephrdc-music-msg - 9/19/09 Period music of the Sephardic Jews. NOTE: See also the files: Jews-msg, Khazars-msg, Spain-msg, fd-Jewish-msg, guitar-art, music-bib, p-songs-msg, story-sources-msg, dates-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 17:17:18 -0700 From: "Stephen Higa" To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Introduction (& spiel about music...) Elonwen: > Oh lovely! I don't know much about the Mediterranean music, but I'd love to > learn! I know quite a lot about the medieval music of Scandinavia and > especially Finland. Old Finnish music is great, filled with the coldness and > darkness of the winter, you can really feel the rough life. Cool! Quite the opposite of Mediterranean music, which I might say is thoroughly soaked with sun and warmth... > For anybody interested I recommend the album "Suden Aika" from Tellu and the > early recordings of Hedningarna (Kaksi and Tr=E4d). Thank you! I shall definitely check those out... For Se=F1or Rhodri, some recordings of Sephardic music: First, of course, most songs in the Sephardic folk repertoire you hear on most recordings have not been proven to have existed before the expulsion (1492). The only clues we have relate to the lyrics, in that many songs across Sephardic communities have similar texts, and relatives have been discovered in Spain today. However, the melodies are widely variant and seem to be influenced somewhat by the "host" culture, whether Morocco, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, or the Americas... 1. two recordings by Altramar, Iberian Garden Vol.1 and 2--They include an example of a 12th c. Hebrew muwashshah (sung poem), an 11th c. reshut (pre-liturgical religious poem), and an 11th/12th c. piyyut (religious poem). Since no music has yet been found for these genres in genuine medieval documents, Altramar formulates their own melodies based on contemporary musical descriptions and the modern traditions in these genres. Their liner notes are just as enjoyable as the music! They also include some lovely examples of re-created medieval Arabo-Andalusian music...And all are very convincing. They really do their homework. 2. La Rondinella has produced three wonderful and moving recordings of Sephardic folk songs. Here, they aren't going for that "early music" feel you're trying to stay away from--rather, they present the songs more like European folk music, unlike the groups who imagine the songs as pseudo-Arab music. The simple arrangements, featuring only guitar and the lovely alto of Alice Kosloski on most, sometimes introducing renaissance and folk bowed strings, recorders, or simple percussion. The instrumentalists sometimes join in with vocal harmonies on the refrains. It doesn't sound as if they are trying to present the songs the way they might have sounded if indeed they'd existed before the expulsion, but they nevertheless capture the spirit and beauty of the music better than any other recording I've yet heard. Very haunting. Try giving them a listen on Amazon.com if you have RealPlayer. 3. Sarband brings out the Arabic qualities of the music. A few songs are convincing, and the vocalists are for the most part sufficiently believable (i.e., no bel canto). They include the only two songs in my (limited) knowledge ("Calvi, calvi" and "Ea Judios") that have been documented as medieval (15th c.). I don't own any of their CDs, so I don't know if they know this (I haven't seen their liner notes)--but these songs were the two examples in an article I read about secular Jewish music in medieval Spain in a book on Medieval Jewish music I found in our music library. 4. Two artists not in the "early music" field but the world music field (why do I keep accidentally typing "fiend??") are Ruth Yaakov and Judy Frankel. Yaakov demonstrates how the Sephardic and Balkan musical traditions merged in Greece, and Frankel brings out the Spanish qualities. I don't own any of their CDs, but have heard portions of them. Yaakov's voice seems very proficient in the Balkan folk idiom, and Frankel's voice is lyrical and sweet. 5. I haven't checked out the Boston Camerata's "The Sacred Bridge" yet, but Joel Cohen has never ceased to amaze me with his other recordings. So it's worth a try. This CD is subtitled "Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe" and includes some pieces by a 13th c. Jewish trouvere (!). More recordings than you'd ever want to know about, I know. :) Moshe ibn Yishma'el -------------------------------------------------------------- "Foldatz ed e leujaria quar part vostres mandamens vos am, pero per nuls sens ma foudat no'm camiaria." --Berenguer de Palol (12th c.) Edited by Mark S. Harris Sephrdc-music-msg Page 3 of 3