NEW CD :Italian Jewish Musical Traditions CD

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New Release***On Sale**$18.98 Shipping included within the US***New Release

                                On Sale Through March 25

This Cd includes a 50 page booklet with detailed notation in English, Hebrew 
and a where aprapos, Italian.

"Italian Jewish Musical Traditions-From the Leo Levi Collection".
Selection and Commentaries by (list memeber) Francesco Spagnolo!!


This CD contains a large selection of Italian liturgical and paraliturgical 
songs from field recordings made in the 1950's. It is published by the Jewish 
Music Research Centre at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in cooperation 
with the National Music 

Academy in Rome, Italy.

Below our address and ordering instructions, you will find a VERY detailed 
description of this CD with a list of all the selections and artists by  
Francesco Spagnolo. 

We are offering "Italian Jewish Musical Traditions" at this sale price 
through March 25 for all credit card orders.  
We accept Visa & Mastercard.
Simon
Hatikvah Music
323) 655-7083


The Jews of Italy and Their Music


The recordings collected by Italian-Israeli ethnomusicologist Leo 

Levi throughout the 1950's constitute a unique testimony to the 

wealth of Italian Jewish musical traditions. The first and only 

extensive aural documentation of a fascinating cross-cultural world, 

these melodies take the listener on a musical journey across Jewish 

Italy, painting the portrait of a lost world. In synagogues and in 

private homes, in liturgy and in life-cycle celebrations, in Hebrew 

and Judeo-Italian languages, tunes for the cantillation of the Bible 

and the Passover Hagaddah, melodies for prayers, Psalms and piyyutim 

(liturgical poems) were, and some still are, sung by the Jews 

throughout Italy. Most of this orally transmitted heritage was lost 

over the first half of the 20th century, and can only be heard in 

recordings.


Never before the creation of the State of Israel, did Jews of so many 

varied origins live together, and in such a stimulating (even if at 

times threatening) environment as they did in the land they called in 

Hebrew I-Tal-Yah, "Island of Divine Dew". A crossroad in world 

culture, Italy has been in over two thousand years a haven for 

several layers of immigration from the four corners of the Diaspora. 

This has allowed the persistence and co-existence of peculiar 

Italian, Sephardi (or Spagnoli) and Ashkenazi (or Tedeschi) 

identities, rituals and traditions. It all happened at the dawn of 

the Modern Era within the Renaissance ghettos, and continued during 

the Emancipation (19th century) and up to the present. Distinct 

Judeo-Italian dialects, foods, customs, and melodies were created 

over time, bearing the influence of the communities where they 

originated, even after Yiddish and Ladino had been abandoned as 

spoken languages. Thus, Jewish Italy is both as a time capsule, where 

ancient Jewish cultural traits have been preserved, as well as a 

"laboratory of Modernity", where such traits were adapted to 

constantly changing conditions. Italian Jews successfully mediated 

their way amongst tradition, diversity, religious conflicts, 

emancipation, cosmopolitanism and multi-culturalism, all at the very 

heart of Christianity.


Italy's own peculiar history is indeed reflected in its Jewish 

melodies. Each community developed a style of synagogue song 

according to its origins. Some groups retained the ancient Italian 

minhag (ritual), which differs from the Sephardi and the Ashkenazi 

ones especially in the cantillation of the Torah (Hebrew Pentateuch) 

and in the pronunciation of Hebrew. The Italian Prayer Book presents 

a number of textual variants - many of which pre-date other minhagim 

- along with locally composed piyyutim. At the same time, Jews who 

immigrated to Italy over time kept their original (Sephardi, 

Ashkenazi) rituals, but adapted them to the Jewish and non-Jewish 

Italian musical environment and often adopted the local pronunciation 

of Hebrew. In all communities, the impact of Italian art and popular 

music has been tremendous: folk tunes, as well as Italy's most 

celebrated music, Opera and bel canto vocal style, have been 

incorporated into the liturgy. Some Jewish melodies created in Italy 

were disseminated throughout the Diaspora, where they are still sung 

even if their origin has been forgotten. Due to migrations, 

persecutions and assimilation, many musical traditions extant until 

before World War 2 are now lost. Yet, the contemporary Italian Jewish 

community of less than thirty thousand people, with its local 

differences and currents, still retains its multicultural world in 

their music.


Leo Levi


Leo Levi (Casale Monferrato, 1912- Jerusalem 1982) was the first 

scholar who devoted his research to the Italian Jewish oral musical 

traditions. Yet, his role within the field of Jewish ethnomusicology, 

as well as in the development of ethnomusicology in Italy, remains to 

be fully recognized. The grandson of a Rabbi, he was an uomo di 

lettere of wide-ranging interests. His plan to devote a dissertation 

to the Italian synagogue song was frustrated by the rise of Fascism 

and anti-Semitism in Italy. During his student years in Turin, he was 

arrested twice under the charge of engaging in subversive activities. 

A fervent Zionist, he promptly changed his major to Botany and 

settled in Palestine in 1936.


Since the emancipation edict of 1848, Italian Jewry had been - 

perhaps unconsciously - overlooking its own heritage, striving to 

integrate within Italy's mainstream culture. Levi's interest must 

then be seen as groundbreaking, as it proved to be at the end of the 

War when traditional Jewish culture seemed forever lost. He 

immediately returned to Italy and secured solid relations with the 

main figures in ethnomusicology (e.g. Giorgio Nataletti) at the newly 

founded (1948) Centro Nazionale Studi di Musica Popolare (CNSMP, now 

Archivi di Etnomusicologia) at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa 

Cecilia in Rome. A socialist, Levi connected with the interest for 

the "music of the people" that permeated the new wave of 

Marxist-oriented Italian culture of the time. A Jew deeply attached 

to tradition and to the practice of Judaism, he became the first 

Italian scholar to research a broad spectrum of liturgical musical 

traditions, Jewish and Christian. Levi became part of the 

ethnographic team of the CNSMP and was granted access to the 

facilities of the RAI-Italian National Radio as a partner in the 

documention of Italy's folklore. Between 1954 and 1959 he contacted 

almost fifty informants, professional hazanim (synagogue cantors) and 

other culture bearers. In over eighty recording sessions Levi 

assembled seventy-two audio reels, for a total of circa 1000 recorded 

items. These recordings bear the testimony -- in most cases, the only 

account -- of twenty-seven liturgical traditions preserved in the 

Jewish communities of over twenty Italian cities. RAI personnel 

inventoried each session following Levi's notes, and the recordings 

were subsequently kept at the Roman Archives. As soon as the National 

Sound Archives were found in Jerusalem (1964), he secured there a 

copy of the reels, and worked as Research Fellow at the Jewish Music 

Research Center.


Levi also carried on an impressive amount of independent fieldwork 

throughout the 1960's -- at times in collaboration with Italy's 

leading ethnomusicologist Roberto Leydi -- documenting a variety of 

Christian (chiefly non-Catholic) liturgical repertoires, as well as 

Jewish liturgical and folk songs across the Mediterranean and in 

Central and Eastern Asia. While most of his fieldwork still needs to 

be assessed, the "Italian collection" has undergone recent study, as 

its value in documenting Italy's Jewish liturgical song is 

unparalleled. Leo Levi's recordings allow us to draw a picture of the 

country's Jewish musical traditions prior to their loss: a musical 

memory from the ones who carried it.


This CD


The present selection is an anthology of Leo Levi's previously 

unreleased recordings from the original reels kept at the Archivi di 

Etnomusicologia of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome 

and at the National Sound Archives in Jerusalem. In order to assess 

each item, Levi's handwritten notes were matched with the inventories 

and catalogues made in Italy and in Israel since the 1950's. All 

retrieved data underwent a scrutiny that included the examination of 

printed and manuscript prayer books of individual communities, and of 

musical and literary sources, the investigation of local historical 

background information, and interviews with surviving informants 

and/or their relatives. Levi's fieldwork was aimed at documenting a 

very large and diverse repertoire, with restricted means and in 

extremely limited time. Thus, most items in his Collection are only a 

few minutes, or seconds, long. This enabled to present a choice of 

forty-two pieces (less than five percent of the whole!) varying in 

ritual, location and musical content, and sung by twenty-eight 

different performers.


The content follows a liturgical order, beginning with the Shabbat 

(Sabbath) and the High Holy Days and continuing with the various 

Festivals and holidays, following the Jewish calendar. The last 

sections include liturgical songs and piyutim for the "life cycle" 

(birth, circumcision and wedding). All songs are performed 

unaccompanied by solo voice or by small groups in the traditional 

style (although from the 19th century and until the early 1950's, 

several pieces were sung in a polyphonic setting, accompanied by the 

organ). All the performers (except tr. 5 and 41) are men, and were 

identified by Levi as carriers of the tradition of their respective 

communities. All texts are in Hebrew, except for some Passover and 

Purim songs [tr. 24-27, 35-36] sung in the local Jewish dialects, and 

a hymn for the Jewish emancipation [tr. 42].




Content


Shabbat and Torah Readings

1. Mizmor ledavid (Casale Monferrato, Ashkenazi)

2. Lekhah dodi (Torino, Italian)

3. Yigdal (Pitigliano, Italian)

4. Qiddush (Roma, Italian)

5. Tzur mishelo akhalnu (Ferrara, Italian)

6. En kamokha baelim adonay (Gorizia, Ashkenazi)

7-9. Torah readings: Bereshit (Gen. I) -- 7. Roma, Sephardi; 8. 

Torino, Italian; 9. Pitigliano, Italian

10. Qaddish --- Hamavdil (Ferrara, Ashkenazi)

11. Havdalah (Roma, Italian)


High Holy Days

12. Kol berue (Padova, Italian)

13. Ahot qetanah (Trieste, Sephardi)

14. Shofet kol haaretz (Venezia, Ashkenazi)

15. 'Alenu (Asti, Apam)

16. Hon tahon (Venezia, Sephardi)

17. Kol nedarim (Torino, Italian)

18. Birkat kohanim (Alessandria, Italian)

19. El nora 'alilah (Firenze, Sephardi)

20. 'Et sha'are ratzon (Torino, Italian)


Passover andShavu'ot

21. Betzet yisrael (Ferrara, Italian)

22. Yigdal (Venezia, Ashkenazi)

23. Qiddush 'erev pesah (Trieste, Ashkenazi)

24. 'Avadim hayinu -- Schiavi fummo (Ancona, Italian)

25. Chad gadiah -- E venne il signor padre (Firenze, Italian)

26. Jé rivà 'l lüu (Moncalvo, Apam)

27. Che volera, che intendera (Siena, Italian)

28. Hallel (Ps. 117-118, Livorno, Sephardi)

29. Yigdal (Gorizia, Ashkenazi)


Simhat Torah

30. Mashiah wegam eliah (Siena, Italian)

31. Amen amen amen shem nora (Ancona, Sephardi)

32. Shalom lekha dodi (Firenze, Sephardi)


Hannukah and Purim

33. Berakhah -- Ma'oz tzur (Verona, Ashkenazi)

34. Megilat Esther (Est. I:1-5, Casale Monferrato, Ashkenazi)

35. Akh zeh hayom qiwiti/Fate onore al bel Purim (Livorno, Sephardi)

36. Barekhu/Wal viva, viva nostro Burino (Livorno, Sephardi)


Nascite, circoncisioni e matrimoni

37. Yehi shalom behelenu (Trieste, Sephardi)

38. Bar Yohai (Roma, Sephardi)

39. Arze levanon yifrahu (Padova, Italian)

40. Qehi kinor (Casale Monferrato, Ashkenazi)

41. Haleluyah (Ferrara, Italian)


42. L'emancipazione israelitica (Casale Monferrato, Ashkenazi)



Performers

Fernando Belgrado (32); Geremia Mario Castelnuovo (27, 30); Eliezer 

Cohen (18); VItalianoo Colombo (39); Angelo Conegliano (21); Raul 

Elia (24, 31); Cesare Eliseo (7); Giacomo Farber (6); Florio Foa 

(15); Moise Foa (26); Umberto Genazzani/Hizqiyahu Nitzany (19); Guido 

Heller (14, 22); Angelo Hirsch (40); Dario Israel (13); Leone Leoni 

(10); Leo Levi (29); Paolo Nissim (12); Salvatore Osmo (23, 37); Aldo 

Perez (2, 8, 17, 20); Bruno Polacco (16); Fernando Procaccia (25); 

Angelina Rocca (5, 41); Azeglio Servi (3, 9); Alessandro Segre (1, 

34, 42); Cesare Tagliacozzo (4, 11, 38); Elio Toaff (35, 36); Simone 

Sacerdoti (28); Mario Volterra (33)



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