ha-tikvah really yigdal

[Judy Fertig <fertig...>]

Dear Hope and Jewish Music Friends:

The "ha-tikvah" tune you speak of is the same as the Yigdal tune,
attributed by Beer in the 18th century to Leon Singer, and known as
"Leoni". Later it was adopted by Christians as the hymn: The God of
Abraham, Praise".  
 
A.Z. Idelsohn considered it a compilation of a Jewish folk motive and a
Spanish-Basque cancio as well as Slavic song.... and he lays it all out in
a table XXVIII of motives on p. 222-225 (Shocken paperback edition) of his
basic musicological work: "Jewish music in its historical development".
Idelsohn considered Yigdal, the Smetana work, the Basque songs, a Polish
folk tune, a Spanich cancio and of course, ...Hatikvah... all essentially
the same tune. 

In a way you are all "right" about the origins... perhaps pieces of it came
from different places......My question is: If Rossi and Monteverdi's
version was a composed, "original" of the tune in 1600's, how did this tune
show up in such diverse places? Didn't  some of these predate S.  de Rossi?
Isn't just as likely that Rossi used a common tune he heard?

To Hope: 
I read someplace that this same "Yigdal" tune was in fact much older and
not of European origin at all... that it likely predates the Babylonian
exile because essential elements of the tune are extant in diverse
communities from Yemen to Roumania... 1) Have you read this? and 2) has
anyone substantiated this claim and do you know a source?


-
Judy Fertig
Reference Librarian
Brandeis University
Goldfarb Library MS045
415 South Street                                phone:(617-736-4705)
Waltham, MA 02254-9110                  email: fertig (at) brandeis(dot)edu