The Cantorial Fantasia of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

This study proposes to present the outlines of a significant but forgotten chapter in synagogue chant.  The aspect of cantorial music here considered forms part of the solo performed by the precentor or Cantor in the communities of Western Asheknaz (the lands near the Rhine and Upper Danube).  It began to appear as written music from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards. Even before that period cantorial art is known to have acquired a certain individualism and virtuosity that supplemented and countered the usual manner of improvising traditional tunes.  The genuine homophony of synagogue chant was challenged by environmental influences such as chordal progression, major-minor-tonality, and contemporary figurative ornamentation.  Apart from entirely new inventions and tunes of long standing, two ways of realizing and elaborating traditional material are recognized in the early cantorial manuscripts: free variation, and a more restrained kind of improvisation which is the subject of this investigation.  The former takes a traditional motive and unfolds it by means of variation and connecting figures in contemporary taste; it is composed of symmetrical phrases in strict time.  The other genre of composition extends a complete tune of liturgical importance by the insertion of new phrases and whole new sections between the traditional motives, and is always in the free rhythm; these creations consist of several parts and deserve to be considered accomplished and artful compositions in a very specific style.

The category of synagogue song we shall illustrate and analyse may be called a Cantorial Fantasia on traditional melodies – the term fantasia being taken in its general signification of a composition in free form, with a strong touch of improvisation.  This special branch of cantorial art has not yet received due attention nor has it been described.  As far as is known from written music, it flourished in the eighteenth century synagogue and was still being performed during the first half of the nineteenth century; its last offshoots were recorded about 1885 and 1900.  The most outstanding Cantorial Fantasias became widely known, were performed by many cantors, and are recorded in several variants which show the signs of changing time and taste.