By their very nature, catalogues and inventories of manuscripts are factual and succinct, composed of dry lists of names, titles, textual and musical incipits, folio numbers, concordances, variant spellings and other similarly 'inspiring' bits of information. Bits is indeed apt, for these dry bones, usually made even direr by a complex and barely decipherable mass of unfamiliar, 'unfriendly' abbreviations, are merely the stuff from which the historical and musical story may be reconstructed. Yet, as every library mole knows, next to the incomparable thrill of actually holding and studying a centuries-old original manuscript, contrary to their uninviting appearance, such inventories may in fact provide many hours of exciting intellectual stimulation, of detective work fueled by numerous guesses, many of them of the category politely called 'educated,' but not a few also of the 'wilder' variety.

What Israel Adler has provided us with in Hebrew Notated Manuscript Sources - RISM (Adler 1989) is a treasure house of opportunities for a lifetime of such excitements. With its 230 manuscripts containing 3798 items and 4251 melodic incipits there is no question that for the first time ever the grounds of Jewish musical manuscript sources have been surveyed, mapped and presented with a sophistication, precision and comprehensiveness destined to open a new era in the scholarly study of the field.

Our main source of information as regards the musical events at the Jewish community of Casale Monferrato during the years 1732-1735 is based on Ms. Ginzburg 807 at the Lenin State Library in Moscow. The manuscript contains three musical scores for ceremonies on hos'ana rabbah. Each ceremony contained two parts; part A: a series of instrumental and liturgical pieces, and part B: a cantata or a cantata-quasi-oratorio, whose libretto was written especially for the occasion. The present article describes in detail the above mentioned manuscripts and concordant sources of the cantatas, it then probes into the questions of the authors of the texts, the place of performance and the initiator of the events.

The author of the libretti of two cantatas is identified as S.H. Jarach, whereas Joseph Hayyim Chezighin (G.V. Clava) who was believed to be the author of the texts and the composer of the music, is now regarded as the initiator of the events and probably also compiler and editor of the music. The events took place in Casale Monferrato on hosa'na rabbah of 1732, 1733 and 1735 and not in Vercelli in 1733, 1734 and 1736 as was formerly believed.

A detailed description of the music follows, in which the relationship of the music in part A to Tedesco liturgical melodies is examined. A special effort is made to identify the sources and the structure of the scores, since these may be regarded as pasticcio combinations.

'The Testament of Job' is one of the Greek-language pseudepigrapha belonging to the same genre as the twelve patriarchal testaments. It has come down to us primarily in three manuscripts (their sigla are given in parentheses): (ME) Messina, San Salvatore 29, fols. 35b-41b; 1307 CE. (Pn) Paris, B.N. gr. 2658, fols. 72a-97a; eleventh century. (Rvat) Rome, Vat. gr. 1238, fols. 340a-349b; thirteenth century.

The unique collection of medieval writings from the Cairo Genizah is an inexhaustible source of information on almost every branch of science and art. Through it, modern research has been able to draw a fairly detailed picture of family life, education, public affairs, commerce, medicine, poetry and learned studies in the Jewish community of old Cairo (Fostat) and other towns of medieval Egypt. Research workers specializing in this field have developed such a feeling of intimacy with the life and manners of that remote community that they have acquired the habit of speaking familiarly of the 'Genizah Folk.'

Modern research has failed to add substantially to our knowledge of the Arab author Abu l-Salt (1067-1134) or of his works, which include a treatise on the science of music. The information available continues to be based mainly on the records of the old Arab biographers and bibliographers. Thus H.G. Farmer only repeats the contemporary evidence on Abu l-Salt's extraordinary gift for instrumental performance and composition, and his theoretical writings on music. An extensive musical treatise of his has come down to us in a Hebrew translation, but not in the original, and its contents and character have remained practically unnoticed by modern research. The present writer has already had the privilege of supplying firsthand information based upon an examination of that text. In accordance with the Talmudic saying 'If you have started performing a task - then complete it,' and in response to an invitation by the editors of Yuval, the full text of this unique manuscript will be given here together with a translation and critical notes.

In Yuval 1968 (pp. 147) Israel Adler published the Hebrew text of this treatise together with a French translation and a detailed commentary. From the musicological point of view this study is of excellent quality. Having now been invited by Adler to contribute my own view on the 'how-when-and-where' of the genesis of this treatise, I hesitated for a long time, because I knew that the carrying-out of this request would be an exceedingly time-consuming task. What we have before us in the Paris manuscript, which is the only record of this treatise, is not the authentic text by Juda ben Isaac but a later version, in which we find traces of alterations, omissions and additions by copyists; furthermore, Juda himself carried out an adaptation of his Latin sources.

One can formulate the provenance of the Parisian manuscript version as follows:

1. Sources

2. Adaptation (Juda Ben Isaac)

3. Copyists (?)

4. Copy in Paris, B.N. Heb. 1037

Between the 'sources' on the one hand and the adaptions by Juda and the copyists on the other hand lies a century or two. It is clear, then, with what care one has to proceed, and what painstaking and laborious work is demanded in order to reach a conclusion on the origins of this Hebrew treatise. The result of my study of the problem will be discussed in two parts: (A) a summary of the many separate data; (B) the historical argumentation based on these separate data.

Il s'agit du dernier texte d'un recueil de trois textes hébraïques de théorie musicale conservés dans le Ms. Hébreu 1037 de la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris. On trouvera dans le precedent volume de Yuval la description détaillée de ce recueil. Il suffira ici de rappeler brièvement que le manuscrit dont les trois parties furent copiées par un scribe italien professionnel après le milieu du XVe siècle, et probablement au milieu du XVIe siècle, comporte – en dehors du texte publié ici – une traduction hébraïque anonyme du traité arabe de musique d'Abi'l Salt (1068-1134), don’t la publication est prévue par notre ami Hanoch Avenary, et une adaptation hébraïque d'un traité anonyme latin que nous avons publée dans le volume précédent de Yuval.