"Hatikvah"/"La Montovana" FAQ

[Hope Ehn Dennis Ehn <ehn...>]

I guess it's time to post again this musicological history of the 
"Hatikvah" tune. I don't remember how long ago I did the research, but it 
was sometime before June, 1997. I don't think anyone has made any 
discoveries since that would change the facts presented here.

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The first known appearance of the "HaTikvah" tune was in an intermedio of
1608, performed during celebrations of a Gonzaga wedding in Mantua.
Several composers collaborated on the music for this performance: they
were Claudio Monteverdi, his brother Giulio Cesare Monteverdi, Giovanni
Gastoldi, and Salamone Rossi. 

Which composer used the tune is not known, although the fact that there
are other tunes also called by some version of the name "Mantovana," and
that some of them are known to be by Gastoldi, is suggestive. (The
lutenist James Tyler attributes it to Gastoldi on stylistic grounds, and
that seems plausible to me.) There is no evidence that this music was a
setting of a pre-existent tune rather than a new composition -- we simply
don't know. 

The tune became very popular: it was used for Italian madrigals (Cataneo),
solo songs ("Giuseppino"), guitar settings (Pico), instrumental settings
in Renaissance style (Zanetti, Giamberti, anonymous), violin divisions
[i.e., variations] (anonymous), trio sonatas (Marini), and was published
in England in Playford's collections of country dances. It is not known
where Smetana (1824-1884) got the tune, but he seems to have believed that
it was a Czech folk tune. 

It is also not known for sure where Naftali Herz Imber (1856-1909) got the
tune, to which he wrote only the words (being a poet, not a composer).
Edith Gerson-Kiwi, in "Grove" (Vol. 9, p. 359), refers to the tune as a
"Romanian folksong." It is quite possible that Imber simply took the tune
from the "Moldau" movement of Smetana's "Ma Vlast" (composed in 1874), and
no evidence whatsoever that he did not do so. 

Hope Ehn                                 <ehn (at) world(dot)std(dot)com>

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Dennis and Hope Ehn are 2 different people sharing one account.
Hope is the author of "On-Line Resources for Classical & Academic Musicians."
Dennis does programming (mostly C++).
PLEASE don't get us confused!                                 :-)
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