Re: Spanish "Saeta"

[W.H. Phillips <wphillip...>]

>On Mon, 10 Nov 1997 18:17:52 -0500, Joel Bresler <jbresler (at) ultra(dot)net> 
>wrote:
>
>>I was recently reading a book about the Golden Age of Spain, and it
>>asserted that the Spanish Saeta derives from the Jewish Kol Nidre prayer.
>>Can anyone confirm or deny?
>

We can emphatically deny any derivation of Saeta from Kol Nidrei. Saeta
("arrow") is not a particular melody; it's a type of extemporized hymn to or
about the Virgin Mary. My impression is that saetas are a gypsy utterance.
While Moshe correctly describes the state of affairs in Andalusia following
the expulsion, I believe flamenco - and saetas - owe more to Gujarat (or
wherever the Gypsies originally came from) than to Judaea. However the
improvisatory technique, grounded in canonical modes, really does invite
comparison with the art of the hazan. The Moriscos (coerced converts from
Islam) had music like this too.

Jews were in Iberia from Roman times, and Celts were there even earlier.
They're still very visible (and audible) in Galicia and Asturias with their
pipes and drums, leaping dances and an unseemly (to other Spaniards) tribal
enthusiasm for horses and beer. If the two peoples had arrived at the same
time there might have arisen a Judaeo-Celtic analogue of Ladino ... "Yn Iach
i Ti, Sion!"  ;)

[a horrid linguistic groaner, but no worse than the challah bakers' "gluten
shabbos"]