Background

 

The International Conference of Christians and Jews, meeting in Seelisberg (Switzerland) in August 1947, adopted 10 recommendations with the aim of gradually overcoming the age-old misunderstandings and traditional hostility between Christians and Jews and creating, instead, an attitude of mutual respect, friendliness and lenience.

Some years later, in order to promote these aims, "Judeo-Christian Amity" groups came into being, seeking to establish relations based on spiritual brotherhood and peace.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the existence of "Judeo-Christian Amity", on Sunday 11 March 2001 a concert of Psalms and liturgies sung in the Jewish, Catholic, Protestant and Russian-Orthodox traditions was organized at the Geneva Conservatory by the Association of Friends of Jewish Music, AMJ. The three choral groups, in addition to performing their own respective repertoires, also joined together in singing, in Hebrew, two works by Salomone Rossi Ebreo, an Italian composer of the 17th century:

ˇ Adon Olam, a religious poem (piyout) thought to have been written by the Spanish poet and philosopher Salomon Ibn Gabirol (11th century)

ˇ Psalm 146, Halelujah.

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Jewish Liturgies

Numerous written sources- the Bible, the Talmud, the Qumran manuscripts, the writings of Flavius Josephus and rabbinic literature - give us precious indications about the musical practices in ancient Israel. Unfortunately, musical documents remain a rarity before the end of the 18th century. We have the list of musical instruments used in the Temple of Jerusalem, a detailed description of the way religious services were celebrated, including the composition of choral and orchestral groups, but we do not know what the Hebrews sang, even though singing is among the musical forms most frequently referred to in the Bible. One of the mainstays of the religious service was the reading of the sacred books, cantillated in accordance with an orally-transmitted tradition. Following the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jews took their musical traditions with them to the new communities they founded in the East and in the West.

Their cantillation, originally the same for all Jews, underwent the influence of their new environment, the vocal expression of the Sefardim reflects the imprint of Arabic music, while that of the Ashkenazim is marked by Western music. The religious service was structured by the reading of biblical texts: the Shema, the Hallel, the Tefila (central prayer); the recitation of Psalms, with the participation of the congregation; and the cantillation of biblical texts.

An innovation in the service ocurred with the appearance of the hazan (cantor); it was his role to lead the congregation in the singing of the prayers and piyoutim, religious poems which were at first ornamental additions to the prayer but which gradually came to be used as a an artistic part of the proceedings at public or private ceremonies. The piyoutim were composed by poet-cantors (paytanim) of whom some became famous.

In 1918 and again in 1965, folios from a collection of synagogal chants dating back to the 12th century were found in Cairo; they contained the musical notation for Biblical cantillation and two piyoutim, and were attributed to Obadiah, the Norman proselyte.

The piyoutim are in the style of Western Medieval monodic chants. As for the cantillation of the five Biblical verses, it goes back to a very ancient tradition, the melody preserved to our own day through the oral tradition of the Jewish communities in Syria, Djerba, Aleppo, Baghdad, and Italy. The fact that this Biblical cantillation has been faithfully handed down through oral transmission over more than eight centuries after its notation indicates that it was already a very ancient Jewish tradition at the time it was noted down by Obadiah in the first half of the 12th century. It has been suggested that the melodies of the piyoutim show a kinship with the Gregorian repertoire.

Historical facts as well as a comparison of the respective repertories show incontrovertibly that the early Church borrowed a great deal from the Synagogue. In fact, the early Church recruited its cantors from among Jewish converts; and as it was the cantor who performed the ornate psalmody, following the reading of the sacred text, it is not surprising that the Gregorian "traits and graduals" are even now so similar to the melismatic psalmody of the synagogue, not because of a melodic resemblance (these chants are not in the Gregorian repertoire) but because the style of composition is the same.

It was from cantillation that the whole vast and diversified musical repertory of the Jews developed: synagogal monodic and polyphonic music, Ashkenazic and Sephardic; the Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish, Judeo-Arabic folk songs; compositions such as those of Salomone Rossi Ebreo and Judeo-baroque works of the 18th century; Hassidic chanting and instrumental klezmer music; and music of Judeo-Moroccan, Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Turkish folklore. In the so-called 'learned music' written by major composers there are often borrowings from the traditional Jewish legacy as in the works by Engel, Gnessin, Mahler, Bloch, Schönberg, Milhaud, Bernstein and others, as well as in the music of Israel, which embraces all musical areas and genres.

Henri Milstein

 

Russian Orthodox Liturgical singing

The Bulgaro-Byzantine orthodox chant was heir to many vocal traditions: the singing of the Greeks (transmitted through the Mediterranean world's Hellenistic civilisations in late Antiquity) of Syrians, of the Hebrews, (psalms and synagogal chants). It was imported into ancient Rus (the antecedent of Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine) during the christening of Vladimir, prince of Kiev, in 988.

Originally sung in unison by male voices, it evolved over time and in the 15th-16th century became the chant of Russian liturgy known as znamen (i.e. neumatic, from znamia, neume).

The Russian liturgical singing was thereafter exposed to a variety of influences: Polish, Ukrainian, Italian, German; it became poliphonic and adapted to mixed voices but remained 'a cappella' (without instruments).

Towards the middle of the 19th century, in line with the slavophile trend, there was a move to go back to the origins. Today, it is this thousand-year-old legacy on which the parishes' tradition rests: during the religious services it is this historic heritage that is sung, more often than not without regard for chronological order.

Alexander Diakoff.

Psalm singing in the Christian tradition

The singing of Psalms in the Christian tradition is first mentioned around the year 200 in an apocryphal text. During the 4th century we note an increasing practice of psalm-singing, during vigils, at morning and evening services, during mass, at processions and funerals. Documents mention the response form: a soloist sings the versets of a psalm alone, but the assembly responds briefly, usually with "hallelujah".

Later, the response might be a line or even an entire verse of the psalm.

The Huguenot psalms were the result of the continuous contacts between French musicians exiled in Switzerland and the Strasbourg traditions exported by Calvin. The repertoire of the Reformed Church includes the One-Hundred-Fifty Psalms, translated by Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze, which are like hymns. At the time of the Reformation, the faithful used to sing the entire sequence of psalms with all the stanzas, twice a year (preferably in one voice).

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