Re: Sephardic instrumental music

[Mjspudic <Mjspudic...>]

Hello Hankus,
    In reference to your reading of the Walter Salmen's "Yiddishe Musikanten 
un Tentzer," [Juedische Musikanten und Taenzer, Innsbruck, Edition Helbling, 
1991, I like the Yiddish ring to the title, maybe one should translate it 
fully into Yiddish] I just took a look at my copy, and as an "Amerikaner" 
with some grounding in German, it sounds like the major point was well 
understood.  Beginning on page 25 there is a discussion about how the first 
Jews arrived in Europe in the wake of a large Roman imperium that spread in 
contiguous fashion throughout much of Europe.  He then goes on to mention a 
crucial date, 1095, the year of the first crusade and its aftermath, one  
that included severe pogroms that drove Jews out of the central parts of the 
towns.  And among other things, Jews were not allowed to carry weapons, enter 
into matrimony with Christians, and Salmen even states that they were not 
allowed to sing in the open.  He mentions that a further part of the 
declassification [deklassifizierung]  process (I would call it dehumanization 
process) was the enforced wearing of a hat in the shape of a horn, and the 
restricted profession of a "handler" was proscribed.  "Such restrictive 
conditions were to be sure not the most supportive for the unfolding of a 
rich minstrel culture,"  as Salmen aptly summarizes the situation.

    Without any distinction as to what parts of Europe were being referred to 
in his stating the above, in the next paragraph, Salmen goes on to mention 
specifically Spain as a location where the conditions were especially 
favorable for the unfolding of a Sephardic-Jewish culture alongside the 
development of Christian and Islamic counterpart cultures, a blossoming which 
of course came to a sudden end in 1492.  Salmen quotes an earlier Spanish 
source on jongleur culture [R. Menendez Pidal, Poesia juglaresca y juglares, 
Madrid, 1924, p.139) which points out  the oldest narrative and pictorial 
documents giving testimony to "judios con vihuelas, or juglares" stemming 
from the Iberian peninsula.  Salmen quotes from this source the example of  
Toledo, in which all three religions took part in a festival in 1139.  There 
is further mention of an ensemble in the pay of the Castilian Sancho IV, and 
in 1293 there is mentioned in the roster aside from the 12 Christians and 13 
"moros" also a Jewish musician.  Other examples are given and Salmen mentions 
further that most of the Jewish musicians played string instruments, and that 
they received tax privileges, as well as certain types of property, even 
estimable financial subsidies, and in the case of a situation in Zaragoza in 
1399, they were granted incorporation (the word is "Eingliederung" which I 
guess infers cohabitation rights) into the royal family, signifying a very 
high social standard. That entire document is quoted in Latin, (see "Beilage 
6," page 153, part of an appendix in Salmen's study), but there is no 
translation into a vernacular language and I'm afraid my Latin leaves too 
much to be desired.  
dayn daytsh-leyender khavr in nu york,

Michael Spudic 

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