קריאת פיוטי מרקה בשבת בפי השומרונים

The work of the fourth-century Samaritan poet Marka, in Samaritan Aramaic, represents a prominent and form-giving element in the liturgy. This study explores the Sabbath cantillation of "adeq alinan maran attau adbararek alama" and the group called "Maraka's twelve stanzas". The verse structure greatly influences the musical structure, and is therefore analysed first. Conventional notation and even phonographic and photo-electric analysis are inadequate for the "untempered" Samaritan melos. Its basis is the centre-tone, with affixes, infrafixes and suprafixes. There are two cantillation styles: "light" -mainly syllabic, and "heavy"- melismatic. In the "light" style, the ambitus is a fourth or fifth: intonation and tempo are relatively stable. In the "heavy" style, the ambitus reaches or exceeds the octave: intonation and tempo are unstable. In both, the melody often "reaches over" to the subsequent verse and pauses within the verse or even the single word. Initium-motives are descendent. The cantillation is elaborated by the interpolation of three kinds of filler- syllables or word- extentions. In performance, the "right and left" antiphony produces the distinctive Samaratarian polyphony.