Lekha dodi

Kabbalat shabbat ("Welcoming of the Sabbath"), a ritual developed by the kabbalists
of Safed in the sixteenth century, is one of the most musically rich synagogue services.
Its highlight is the opening hymn, Lekha dodi by Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz (Turkey, c.
1505-1584) that is sung to many different melodies in each Jewish community. The
Western Sephardi tradition, however, has adhered to one melody with several variants,
one of which is sung by Abraham Lopes Cardozo in this recording with the first two
stanzas of the poem. This melody, whose variants are documented at the different
Spanish-Portuguese Jewish centers, already appears in musical notation (without the
text-underlay) in a cantor's manual from Amsterdam dating from the second half of
the 18th century. The manuscript, which is now located at the Jewish National and
University Library (8 ° Mus 2), was the manual of Joseph b. Isaac Sarphati who served
as hazzan in Amsterdam between 1743 and 1772. The same melody is also registered in the
Aguilar-De Sola collection (1857: 5, no. 7). Lopes Cardozo's version is slightly different
from the original Amsterdam melody, reflecting the style of choral arrangements that were
customary at the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue in New York City, A fixed feature of his performance, probably stemming from the choral arrangement, is the extension of the
end of each musical phrase by melodic embellishment and the blurring of the pulse.