The Music of the Mountain Jews

[Klezcorner <Klezcorner...>]

We have just received a shipment of some of the most unusual and fascinating
Jewish Music I have ever heard.
Since this is all new to me , I will quote from the accompanying booklet.

"The Music of the Mountain Jews"

The term Mountain Jews is a general designation for the Jews dwelling in the
eastern Caucasus(Azervbaijan, Chechnya, Daghestan, and Kavbardino-Balkar). It
appears for the first time in the Russian language (gorsky yevrey) during the
first half of the 19th Century, when the Russian Empire conquered eastern
Caucasus. The Mountain Jews called themselves "Juhur". Linguistically, the
language of the Mountain Jews, Juhuri, is related to Northern Iranian dialects
of Persian, reflecting the geographical origin of this Jewish tribe. Through
the ages, these Jews absorbed Azeri and Hebrew words into their local language
which eventually evolved into the present Juhuri or Judeo-Tat. After the
conquest of the Caucasus by the soviets, Russian became the 2nd language of
the Jews. The Judeo-Tat language was originally written in Hebrew
characters:in  1929 the Latin alphabet, and afterwards in a Cyrillic based
alphabet were adopted.
The present recordings includes examples of different genres of litergical,
folk and instrumental music of the Mountain Jews. This music was recorded on
location among the Jewish communities of the Caucasus and more recently among
those who immigrated to Israel in large numbers after 1989.

This recording includes four musical genres of the Mountain Jews: liturgical,
folk song, dance and Azeri music (Mugham). The close relations between Jews
and Muslims in eastern and northern Caucasus throughout the past 500 years are
particularly reflected in the instrumental music of the Jews; these two
groups[ share repertoires, musical instruments, musical genres and actual
performances. In mixed villages it was common for Jews to invite Muslims to
their celebrations and vice versa. It was customary for Muslims to engage
Jewish Musicians for their festivities.

 The musical instruments on these performances include; 
Aziatskay Grmoshka ( Asian accordion)
Balaban-"a diatonic double-reed oboe" (called "duduk" in Armenian)
Zurnov-also a double-reed oboe
Komoncha-"a spike fiddle of four strings...the player holds the instrument on
his knees, perpendicular to his body, moving the instrument sideways in order
to create special effects.
Tar-the Caucasian version of the plucked longneck lute of ancient Persian
origin.
Ghovol-called "nagara" in Azeri- is a cylindrical drum consisting of a wooden
frame and two membranes. Also called "tap" in northern Caucasus.

The booklet accompanying this CD consists of 16 pages in English, and 7 pages
in Hebrew. This is an EXCELLENT recording!

Another Cd in this series is called "Ottoman Hebrew Sacred Songs" performed by
Samuel Benaroya, sung without any musical instrumentation.

Simon
Hatikvah Music



.

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+