10. ''Divertissement'' for a Circumcision at the Comtat Venaissin: Canticum hebraicum

For soloists, 4-part choir and orchestra (text: anonymous and liturgical)

I. Prelude: Ashir le-eli "I shall sing for my God", duo and ritournelle; nismebah yahad "We shall sing together", Air for bass, duo and ritournelle
II Shelah tishbi "Send us the Tishbite", choir, Bourree and Rigaudon
Ill. Prelude; Yeled hay-yulad "Let the child be born under good auspices", Air for tenor; trio; choir; Gavotte and choir.

The Canticum hebraicum by Louis Saladin is undoubtedly one of the most captivating compositions of the entire repertory of Hebrew art music in the 17th-18th centuries.

Towards the end of the 17th century, a Jewish notable of one of the "Four holy communities" of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin in Southern France, in anticipation of a birth that he clearly hoped would be male, and wished to celebrate with particular pomp, commissioned a local composer - Louis Saladin - to set to music certain religious poems, for performance during the rejoicings that traditionally took place in celebration of such an event.

Saladin produced a composition for soloists choir and orchestra, in the genre of a divertissement. The work was highly esteemed by the members of the community where it was performed. Most certainly the first performance was followed by others. In the course of time its use became generalized, but only the last part, containing the liturgical text (yeled hay-yulad), was retained. Gradually the work was stripped of its polyphonic and orchestral parts and turned into a monodic, anonymous traditional chant. In this form we find it, in the last third of the 18th century, rooted in the tradition of the community and preserved in the local collection of special prayers, the Seder haq-qunteres.