Re: Tr: Amour Exil in English

[Joel Bresler <jbresler...>]

Hi, please let us know how the concert is received, and if you commit this 
repertoire to a CD or CS recording. Also, was the Dutch book commercially 
released, and if so, what is the citation?

BTW, while the TEXTS of these songs can be ancient (at least the Romances, 
not nearly so often for the other genres) the MUSIC is virtually always if 
not always of a much, much later origin. There has never been even ONE 
Sephardic melody definitively traced back to a peninsular melody (though of 
course it gets pretty tangled since the Sephardim never completely "lost 
touch" with the music of the peninsula since crypto-Jews and others were 
emigrating constantly over the centuries. And also, the Sephardim in N. 
Africa were of course much closer to the peninsula than were those in the 
Eastern Ottoman lands.)

But I'll let Judith C. comment if she likes; this is one of her areas of 
expertise.

G'mar hatimah tovah,

Joel

At 10:36 PM 10/3/00 +0200, you wrote:
>HELLO!  SHALOM!
>      We propose a concert of Jewish music; sefarad songs with the 
> group   AMOUR-EXIL. Corinne Galland - diatonic accordion and voice, 
> Bertrand Graz-violin, Annabelle Hes-¹cello, Bernard Rambaud-guitar and 
> percussion .
>
>                                              AMOUR-EXIL
>  XVth century Sefarad songs , Mediterranean and 
> central
>                                            European music
>      We came across these melodies by chance. A book found in an 
> attic,written in Dutch and containing scores and texts in Ladino, 
> revealed to us this unexpected treasure. Wonder struck, we decided to try 
> out some of these songs, adapting them to our instruments and our musical 
> taste.
>      The songs, originally from Andalusia, speak of  love  longing and 
> exile. The texts are in Ladino, an ancient Spanish spoken by Jews in XVth 
> century Spain.This dialect  later spread to North Africa and much of the 
> Mediterranean area and beyond, following the expulsion of the Jews by 
> Queen Isabella in 1492. Into exile they carried these melodies, lamenting 
> the loss of  their beloved Spain.
>      The influence of other cultures, especially that of Arab music, is 
> apparent in these songs. One  recognizes certain melodic modes and 
> rhythms and a recitative style  widely used in north Africa.
>      The repertoire of Amour-Exil  also includes music from central 
> Europe, which seem to answer, like an echo from the other side of the 
> continent, to these long lost melodies.
>      The  soul and the heart are essentially alike everywhere. From one 
> land to another these melodies seem to provoke in one a profound sense of 
> humanity. It is this feeling that we wish to share with our audience.
>
>Contact: haggai (at) wanadoo(dot)fr
>Annabelle Hes
>Gorze
>71520  Saint Point
>France
>Phone: (33)(0)3 8550 5062



Joel Bresler
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