Smits Van Wasberghe, Joseph. "The Treatise on Music Translated into Hebrew by Juda ben Isaac (Paris B.N. Héb. 1037, 22v-27v)." Yuval - Studies of the Jewish Music Research Center, vol. II (1971).
The Treatise on Music Translated into Hebrew by Juda ben Isaac (Paris B.N. Héb. 1037, 22v-27v)
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Abstract
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.