Italian Jewish Musical Tradition CD is out!

[Francesco Spagnolo <yuval.italia...>]

Dear friends,

I am happy to announce that the CD I've been working on for the past
few years is finally published, and available through a few on-line
stores.

It contains 42 different tunes from over 20 different local
tradition, presenting Italian, Italian-Ashkenazi and Italian-Sephardi
melodies for synagogue services, Sabbath zemirot, and various
holidays and festive occasions. Most of the pieces are in Hebrew (but
note the different pronunciations!), although several are sung in
Judeo-Italian. The music varies in origin from ancient Jewish
melodies to Opera arias, folk tunes and songs...

Below I am sharing with you excerpts from the liner notes, which
accompany the CD and present commentaries for each of the pieces in
the selection. Although they form quite a long e-mail message, they
are only a small part of the research I am continuing to carry on.
Feel free to contact me on or off list for further information.

Some of you will definitely find interest in the oral renditions of
melodies that had already been transcribed by Benedetto Marcello in
the 18th century. Others will hopefully learn new lyrics and melodies
for Passover, Purim, Weddings, Circumcisions. Cantors in the list may
become interested in new tunes for the different Services. I hope
that we will all share the beauty, the variety and the subtleties of
these songs.

The publication is part of an AMAZING series, edited by Edwin
Seroussi, Director of the Jewish Music Research Center at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem: there is much to be praised about their
work! But it is also the result of an unprecedented collaboration
between this institution and the National Music Academy in Rome,
where the original recordings are kept. Thus, it has an academic
value, but was conceived to get people curious, and excited! I hope
we have succeeded.

Finally, I am hopeful that the CD will bring new light upon the
figure of Leo Levi, the musicologist who single-handedly carried on
the research that allows us to listen to all of this today. He has
been forgotten for many years, and his courage -- a true form of
Resistance to the horrors of the war -- deserves to be celebrated. I
have certainly been luckier than him, since many people have
encouraged, helped and supported me all along in rescuing this
repertoire from oblivion. Some of them -- especially cantor and
singer Sharon Bernstein -- have taught me that this music can be
alive again!


Best wishes -- and buon ascolto!,
Francesco




Anthology of Music Traditions in Israel, 14
edited by Edwin Seroussi


Italian Jewish Musical Traditions
From the Leo Levi Collection (1954-1961)

Selections and Commentaries by Francesco Spagnolo
(Yuval Italia, mailto:yuval (at) powerlink(dot)it)



Jerusalem - Roma, 2001
Jewish Music Research Center, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Roma

© and P 2001, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
e Fondazione Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Roma




The CD comes in a box with a booklet either in English/Hebrew or
Italian/Hebrew, with an introduction to the traditional Italian
Jewish music repertoires, and commentaries for each of the 42 tracks
presented in the selection.

Available through the Jewish Music Research Center at the Hebrew
University mailto:jmrc (at) cc(dot)huji(dot)ac(dot)il
Featured in La Giuntina's web site http:www.giuntina.it and at
Hatikva Music http:www.hatikva.com




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. A large portion 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. 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. 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 Italian Jewish oral musical
tradition. 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.

After WWII, he immediately returned to Italy to work 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
documenting Italy's folklore.

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, allowing 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.

The 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. 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 Judeo-Italian
dialects, and a hymn for the Jewish emancipation [tr. 42].



Content (Each track is fully described in the CD booklet)

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 and Shavu'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)








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the  Italian Center for the Study of Jewish Music

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