Volume II, 1971

הלשון העברית בימי הביניים טרונה עיון רב. כל מלה שנייה או שלישית של לשוננו בימי הביניים איננו יודעים את היגויה הנכון, שהרי לפי דרך כתיבתנו אנו רושמים עיצורים בלבד, ולכל היותר גם אימות קריאת מועטות כרמזים לתנועות.  אף מלים לועזיות, שמקורן הלועזי יש בו משום עדות להיגוין, טעונות בירור, כי מותנה היגוין בלשון הלועזית שממנה שאולה אותה מלה באותם הדורות ואילו היגוינו כיום הוא לפי לשון לועזית אחרת שממנה לא נשאלה.  בעייה מסוג זה הייתה כרוכה בדיון על המונח ״מוסיקה״.  הספרות שממנה שאולה המלה היא יוונית, שהרי הלשון היוונית היתה הלשון המהלכת בארץ ישראל ובמזרח התיכון בספרות המדעית עד הכיבוש המוסלמי, ואילו היגוי המונח ״מוסיקה״ הננהוג בפינו הוא על פי הלשון הלטינית, שנעשתה הלשון המדעית בימי הביניים באירופה בארצות המערב.  הבייה היא: היגוי המונה הוא – מוסיקה או – מוסיקה (Musica).

The following inquiries will concern themselves with two tasks: (1) to examine the concept of 'national folksong' and its applicability in the instance of the musical tradition of the old Synagogue; (2) the attitude of Western music historians to the question of Jewish influence on early Church music. As will be seen, we are convinced that a purely musical examination of the problem will not yield any truly cogent arguments or proofs. Unlike theology or philosophy, whose ideas may be 'in the air' of a period forming part of the Zeitgeist and its forces, the melodies, rhythms and forms that correspond to such intangible ideas are not 'in the air;' if anything, they are perhaps 'in the earth,' but that is another matter. They constitute part of the various established traditions of a group and were invented, performed, and handed down by individuals known or unknown - by persons, not by the written word or notated sound; for the period with which we are concerned did not possess any musical notation. It will be our task to trace, and if possible to identify the persons or groups of persons who acted as carriers of the liturgico-musical tradition between the institutions of Judaism and Christianity.

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.

Qalonimus ben Qalonimus, philosophe et traducteur provençal bien connu, né à Arles en 1286, a inclu au nombre de ses traductions d'oeuvres scientifiques et philosophiques arabes, le petit ouvrage d'Abu Nasr al-Farabi (m. 950) intitulé Kitab Ihsa' al-'ulum.

Le terme contenu dans le titre sert, en Israël, à désigner un répertoire instrumentaljouant un rô1e considérable au cours des réjouissances de communautésreligieuses: manages, pèlerinages, etc. ... Les airs de ce répertoire se distinguent assez nettement des airs de danse de structure simple qui sont partie courante de ces assemblées et qui accompagnent généralement une ronde collective. Ils sont aussi bien joués par les musiciens que chantés par le public et comportent le plus souyent des paroles. Les airs qui font l'objet de notre étude sont d'unestructure 'musicale plus complexe et ne comportent pas de paroles. Ils sont joués par les musiciens sans accompagnement de chant public, ou exécutés vocalement en solo; ils accompagnent enifn une danse individuelle, bien différente de la ronde hassidique habituelle.

Kurdistan never was a region that developed an independent statehood, defined by physical frontiers and political or educational institutions, and guaranteeing an historical continuity of national schools of thought in sciences or arts. Its more recent political history has demonstrated the inevitable results of decentralization under the sovereignties of several foreign neighbouring countries, including a strong tendency towards linguistic as well as musical dialect formation. It is only natural that the musical traditions of Kurdistan Jews should also have been conditioned by this long historical process, by the multinational and multilinguistic character of their host country. On the other hand, this insecure political condition undoubtedly helped to stabilize and even to heighten the differentiation of variants of musical styles, forms, and melodical intonations.

On the whole, Kurdistan is known as a territory of cultural regression where residues of archaic languages and, parallel to them, of archaic singing and playing have survived the vicissitudes of history. It is certain that many aspects of their expression in speaking as in song preserve some remnants of an early pre-Christian style; in other words, here we seem to have some samples of a living antiquity, doubly interesting in that it is to a considerable extent connected with Jewish history of the biblical period.

By the term 'modal framework' we mean the accepted framework in which a certain musical repertoire is organized, as for instance, the Maqamat in Arab music or the Raga in Indian. Modal frameworks are currently considered to be melodic types, but no exact definition exists of these melodic types. Even the various theories do not present a precise determination of the modal framework and this is even more markedly lacking in performance practice.

The subject of investigation is the Ashkenazi synagogue mode called Adosem malak shtejger after the initial words of Ps. XCIII ('The Lord reigneth'). It may be regarded as the second in significance after the Ahavah rabbah mode, but is better suited to an analysis by its more definite limits of application. The following examination of the Adosem malak mode is based upon a sample of 30 melodies chosen to represent a cross section, i.e., with due consideration given to such variables as may influence the distribution of motives: assignment to different liturgical purposes, synagogal or domestic; origin in different countries or provinces; prose or poetical texts; recitative or 'melody' character of the tune; different period and authorship of notation.

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.