Re: "Hatikvah"/"La Montovana" FAQ

[Eliott Kahn <Elkahn...>]

Hope:

Thanks for this thorough survey of the "Hatikvah" melody in instrumental 
sources. RE: vocal/liturgical sources, the earliest notated version of the "Etz 
Hayim" tune--similar to Yigdal, and Hatikvah, with the ascending minor scale up 
to the fifth degree--is in a "manuscript compiled in or before 1827" for the 
Reform Temple in Hamburg. The manuscript, meant to be used as an "appendix to a 
book of four-part German chorales meant for accompanying the religious song 
book ... contains one of the earliest evidences of traditional Sephardi 
liturgical melodies...." (Seroussi, Edwin, SPANISH PORTUGESE SYNAGOGUE MUSIC IN 
NINETEENTH-CENTURY REFORM SOURCES FROM HAMBURG, Jerusalem: Magnes Press; The 
Hebrew University, 1996, 24.)

Seroussi believes that the tune was brought to Hamburg by their cantor David 
Meldola (1780-1861) of the Portugese community of Hamburg. Seroussi continues: 
"All signs appear to indicate that this piece was indeed transmitted from 
Amsterdam to Hamburg in written form, possibly by cantor David Meldola 
himself." (109)

The tune must have been commonly used in Sephardi congregations because it was 
also published  in London by Hazzan David Aaron de Sola (1796-1860) and 
composer Emanuel Aguilar in the 1857 collection, THE ANCIENT MELODIES OF THE 
LITURGY OF THE SPANISH AND PORTUGESE JEWS. De Sola was born in Amsterdam and 
appointed hazzan of the London Sephardi community in 1818. (The collection was 
reprinted by Oxford University Press in 1931 under the title, SPANISH AND 
PORTUGESE JEWS'  CONGREGATIONAL MELODIES).)

Idelsohn postulated that there was a connection between this ascending 
five-note minor motive and the prayer for Tal in the 1857 publication. To my 
recollection, in his JEWISH MUSIC IN ITS HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT, Idelsohn also 
compares the melody to a Spanish hymn to the Virgin Mary.

It would appear we now have a clear idea where the source of the Hatikvah 
melody comes from. Someone who knows more about the eastward migration of 
Sephardi Jews--to Prague perhaps--might fill us in as to where Smetana got HIS 
melody from.

Eliott Kahn


At 03:38 PM 5/3/01 -0400, you wrote:
>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.
>
>--------------------
>
>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>
>
>******************************************************************************
>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!                                 :-)
>******************************************************************************
>

Dr. Eliott Kahn
Music Archivist
Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
3080 Broadway
New York, NY 10027
WK: (212) 678-8076
FAX (212) 678-8998
elkahn (at) jtsa(dot)edu

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