Re: Origins of Italian Tish'a B'Av trope

[richard_wolpoe <richard_wolpoe...>]

Dear Barak,
        I cannot answer your many questions, but I can tell you that in Breuer's
and other German Kehillos
1)  Every Kino is read aloud in theri entirety.  Some have responosive readings 
such as Oy li Oyvai li or besteisi mimitstroyim etc.   
2)  The leader alternates.  The first Kinnos are said by the Rav, then the 
Chazzan, then by the leading baalei batim.  And a few important ones get back to
the Rav (eg Eili Tziyon)
3)  Many kinos have their own peculiar niggun.  some share a particalulr niggun.
 Others are recisted with a special tisho b'ov recitation.

4)  Eicho is lained at night with trope in a fashion similar to the Poish 
Ashkenaz minhog.

 I hope this helps

Rich Wolpoe

(brother of Susan Wolpoe)


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Origins of Italian Tish'a B'Av trope 
Author:  <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org > at tcpgate
Date:    2/25/98 1:19 PM


Yidn!
        This discussion of nusachim and folks origins etc. raises a question. 
Two-
and-a-half years ago, I attended Tish'a B'Av services at the synagogue in Rome 
(the one on the Tiber, near Lungotevere di Cenci, in the old Ghetto).  It was 
quite a moving experience, and ironic because it is the only time I have been 
to Tish'a B'Av services or heard Megillat Eicha (Lamentations, or Come Mai in 
Italian, if memory serves) read aloud.  The trope for Eicha was in the 
Mixolydian mode, which was extremely haunting, mainly because it was almost 
the major, but wasn't quite; in addition, the cantor did a call and response 
with the congregation at the end of every pasuk, and, because they switched 
off cantors every now and then, each new person inadvertently raised the key a 
half-step each time he began.  (It started in a B tonic and ended up in an E- 
flat tonic.)  This accidental modulation seemed to give more of an urgency to 
to the questioning of God expressed in Eicha.
        But anyway, my question is, where does this trope come from?  Is it
exclusively Judeo-Italian?  Sephardic?  Ashkenazic?  (In the general sense of 
those terms.)  Is it sung in the same mode in the U.S.?  I am curious, because 
it's a great melody, and it would be a shame if it was strictly Judeo-Italian 
and unheard outside Italy, as their Jewish community is quite small.
        Does anyone know?  A shainen dank.

-Barak Tulin