Seroussi, E. Music in Medieval Ibero Jewish Society

HISPANIA JUDAICA BULLETIN
Articles, Reviews, Bibliography and Manuscripts on Sefarad

Editors: Yom Tov Assis and Raquel Ibez-Sperber
No 5 5767/2007
The Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society
Edwin Seroussi
Describing the days immediately preceding the expulsion of the Jews from Spain
in 1492, the chronicler Andrs Bernldez recounts with vivid terms in his Historia
de los Reyes Catlicos Dn Fernando y Da Isabel the scenes seen on the road from
Castile to the ports of departure: E los rabes los ivan esforando e hazan cantar
a las mugeres y mancebos, e taer panderos e adufes por alegrar la gente, e as
salieron de Castilla.1
Music stands out as a very characteristic activity of the Spanish Jews throughout
the medieval period. As the passage by Bernldez underscores, at the most debasing
point of their millenary odyssey in the Iberian Peninsula, they found solace in the
performance of their songs. Not in vain the Judeo-Spanish romance La expulsin
de los judos de Portugal, still chanted in the 20th century by Sephardic Jews in
North Africa, mentions music-making as a distinctive marker of Hispanic Jewish
culture:
Ya me salen a encontrar tres leyes a maravilla,
Los cristianos con sus cruces, los moros a la morisca,
Los judos con sus vihuelas que la ciudad estruja.
Now three marvelous religions come out to welcome me
The Christians with their crosses, the Moors with their Moorish garb,
The Jews with their vihuelas that made the city ring.2
Given the importance of music in the life of the Iberian Jews, a discussion of the
musical culture of the Spanish Jews in the medieval period is warranted, even
though Sephardic musical culture, in its contemporary sense, consolidated in
the aftermath of the expulsions from Spain and Portugal in the late 15th century.
Certainly, Sephardic music as it unveils before our eyes (or rather our ears)
through the oral traditions recorded mostly during the second half of the 20th
1
A. Bernldez, Historia de los Reyes Catlicos Dn Fernando y Da Isabel, Sevilla 1870.

Quoted in B. Vincent, 1492: El ao admirable, transl. A. Gil Ambrona, Barcelona
1992, p. 45.
S. G. Armistead, The Memory of Tri-Religious Spain in the Sephardic Romancero,
in Encuentros and Desencuentros: Spanish-Jewish Cultural Interaction throughout
History, C. Carrente Parrondo et alii eds., Tel Aviv 2000, pp. 267268.
[Hispania Judaica *5
5767/2007]
Edwin Seroussi
century, has its roots in the music of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula prior to their
expulsion in 1492. Yet, as we shall observe later, the extent of this link between
the Sephardic musical present and its past has been a constant matter of scholarly
debate. Moreover, this bond is the object of yearning of contemporary audiences
who nurture the idea of the uninterrupted link with the remote Iberian past as a
foremost attribute of present-day Sephardic music. In spite of the strong evidence
concerning the deep changes that occurred in the Sephardic music tradition after
1492, the Iberian Jewish heritage is still cherished as the most enduring among the
medieval music cultures of Al-Andalus. As Reynolds carefully asserts: Modern
traditions of Sephardic Ladino song offer a glimpse of a popular musical tradition
descended, albeit remotely, from the time of Islamic rule in Spain.3
It is clear that we will never be able to retrieve the sounds of the music of the
Jews of Spain (nor has it been our research goal to do so), and thus the music
of Sephardic Spain remains somewhat of an enigma.4 Nonetheless, features of
this music can be gleaned from extant literary sources. This study is, therefore, a
limited attempt to portray aspects of the musical culture of the Jews in Spain that
emerge with relative clarity from the scanty documentation available about Jewish
music in Spain prior to 1492. These features illuminate our understanding of the
extent to which post-exilic Sephardic music is or is not a continuation of medieval
Iberian Jewish music.
Reconstructing the Past: Methodological Problems

Reconstructing the Iberian past of Sephardic music has been an elusive task
marked by the obvious reality that all available documentation about music among
Jews in medieval Iberia derives from circumstantial literary sources. Another
strategy used by scholars was to trace echoes of the distant musical past in the
surviving oral traditions. Both approaches display, each in its own way, the deep
belief of researchers and modern Sephardic cultural activists that something from
that remote past can be retrieved by means of a comparative literary analysis of
fragmentary sources mixed with a profound, essentialist perception that continuity
is the hallmark of cultural authenticity.
Medieval literary sources about the music of the Jews in medieval Spain can be
divided into two types: external and internal. Studies based on external sources are
3
4
D. Reynolds, Music, in The Literature of Al-Andalus, M. R. Menocal, R. P. Scheindlin

and M. Sells eds., Cambridge 2000, p. 61.
I. J. Katz, The Music of Sephardic Spain: An Exploratory View, C. E. Robertson ed.,
Musical Repercussions of 1492: Encounters in Text and Performance, Washington
and London 1992, p. 103.
[6]

concerned with the participation of Jews in the general musical life of the Iberian
Peninsula, especially in the courts of Muslim and Christian rulers. References to
the activities of Jewish musicians in the non-Jewish society are comparatively
more numerous than references to music in internal Jewish contexts. Possibly, the
presence of performers of Jewish extraction in gentile settings was a feature worth
noticing in courtly documents. Jewish musicians served at the courts of rulers and
of the aristocracy while Jewish wandering musicians and entertainers (whose acts
included other features such as magical illusions) entertained the masses in public
places such as open markets.
In his pioneer study on Jewish musicians in Spain, Angles, in the footsteps of
Menndez Pidal, assembled the names of a remarkable number of Jews mentioned
as music-makers in Christian sources particularly from the 14th century onward.5
Angles valuable study, however, has an apologetic vein, for its subtext fuels the
idea of convivencia, a kind of democratic integration of Jewish musicians at
courts and other public places in medieval Spain. Reality, however, was less than
propitious for the Iberian Jewish musicians who utterly depended on the shifting
whims of their non-Jewish employers and audiences. Katz, in the footsteps of
Angles, pointed out that the Jewish contribution to the musical cultures of
Moslem and Christian Spain was of some signicance. This signicance was
expressed in the role of the Jews as practitioners of local music traditions
and as carriers and transplanters of those traditions as they sought refuge in less
threatening localities, north and south, during the centuries of conict between
Muslim and Christians.6
External sources also include descriptions by non-Jews of musical scenes from
Jewish life, such as the singing in synagogues. Descriptions such as these, however,
must be taken with reservations, for sometimes they display, at best, perceptions
of exotic otherness and, at worse, prejudice against the practice of Judaism.
Precious evidence about the musical practices of the Jews in Spain emerges from
the protocols of the Inquisition, as we shall see below. Sources published in recent
years (e.g. the Hispania Judaica series or the protocols of the Inquisition published
by Haim Beinart and Carlos Carrete Parrondo) offer rst-hand testimonies about
aspects of Sephardic musical culture (e.g. musical instruments in possession of
Jews) and social contexts of musical performance.
Information about musical practices of medieval Spanish Jews is also scattered
5
6
H. Angles, La musique juive dans lEspagne mdival , Yuval I (1968), pp. 4864;
R. Menndez Pidal, Poesia juglaresca y juglares, Madrid 1957 [1924], pp. 139140.
Katz, The Music of Sephardic Spain, pp. 102103. See also the introductory remarks
in A. Shiloah, Round Table IV: The Meeting of Christian, Jewish and Muslim Musical
Cultures on the Iberian Peninsula (prior to 1492), Acta Musicologica 53, 1 (1991), pp.
1420.
[7]
Edwin Seroussi
through the classic historical studies of Iberian Jewry in the Middle Ages by Baer,
Ashtor and Neuman.7 These books were rarely consulted by music scholars.
Although the sources employed by these authors are sometimes difcult to locate,
or their descriptions of Jewish music life are imaginary elaborations based on
incidental pieces of information, they deserve some attention. Also of crucial
importance for musicological research is the detailed study by Simon of mediaeval
commentaries on the Book of Psalms, research which was hardly considered in
musical studies.8 In the face of extant documentation about Jewish musicians in
medieval Spain, Katzs assertion that among the [medieval] Jews the profession
and even the avocation of music was strictly forbidden seems an overstatement.9
Internal sources include documents from within the Jewish communities that
pertain to the practice of music or to ideas about it. Of particular relevance in
this respect are rabbinical responsa on matters such as cantors (e.g. their musical
qualications), the uses of music in the liturgy, and the approach of the religious
authorities to the surrounding non-Jewish musical cultures. Despite the potential
for increasing our understanding of music among the Jews in medieval Spain,
the use of rabbinical responsa is still far from adequate.10 The degree to which
the Jewish involvement in the musical life of the non-Jewish society in medieval
Spain affected the internal musical life of the Jewish communities is a matter that
remains unresolved. Another potentially fruitful source for musical studies about
the Jews from Spain, music iconography, has scarcely been considered.11
The quantity and quality of the literary sources about Jewish music in medieval
Spain vary according to geographical areas and historical periods. There are
more sources about music of the Jews from Catalonia and Aragon than of those
from Castile and Leon. The 14th century appears to be more richly documented
than any previous period in regard to the activities of Jewish musicians in nonJewish contexts. This fact, however, should not be automatically interpreted as
a sign of intensication in the relations between Jews and non-Jews during this
F. Baer, Die Juden im christlichen Spanien, Berlin, vol. 1 Urkunden und Regesten,
part 1 (1929): Aragonien und Navarra; part 2 (1936): Kastilien/ Inquisitionsakten;
E. Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, A. Klein and J. Machlowitz Klein trans.,
Philadelphia, vol. 3, 1984; A. Neuman, The Jews in Spain: Their Social, Political and
Cultural Life during the Middle Ages, Philadelphia 1944.
8 U. Simon, Four Approaches to the Book of Psalms from Saadya Gaon to Avraham Ibn
Ezra, Ramat-Gan 1982 (Hebrew).
9 Katz, The Music of Sephardic Spain, p. 103.
10 Katz, Ibidem, p. 104; for exceptions see, L. Landman, The Cantor: An Historical
Perspective, New York 1972; A. Shiloah, Jewish Liturgical Singing in Spain and its
Development, H. Beinart ed., Moreshet Sefarad, Jerusalem 1992, pp. 423437.
11 Katz,, Ibidem, p. 108.
[8]

period in the Christian kingdoms, but rather as a consequence of more abundant
documentation.
Studies of medieval Jewish music in Spain are not limited to literary sources and
iconographic evidence. For purposes of reconstruction, scholars used comparative
approaches based on the assumption that supervivencias, i.e. features of medieval
music, were retained in traditional Sephardic music until the present. According
to this approach, one could look, for example, into written musical sources from
medieval and Renaissance Spain to nd traces of melodies similar to those that were
orally transmitted by the Sefardim. Such a comparative approach can be found in
the work by Gerson-Kiwi who extrapolated medieval features of contemporary
Judeo-Spanish folksongs by comparing a single version of a Sephardic romance
collected in the 20th century with a melody from the Cantigas de Santa Maria by
King Alfonso the Tenth.12 Etzion and Weich-Shahak carried out a thorough study
in the same direction but using a very different methodology. On the basis of an
exhaustive corpus of Sephardic romances collected from 20th century oral sources
and of melodies from 15th century polyphonic settings of the same texts found in
Spanish courtly sources, they extrapolated deep structural, rather than foreground,
similarities linking melodies recorded more than four hundred years apart.13 The
comparative approach of Etzion and Weich-Shahak was contested by Katz who
suggested yet another type of comparison in the quest for medieval supervivencias
in the Judeo-Spanish melodies of the present-day oral traditions.14 One should
not fail to notice that all research in the comparative vein refers to one genre of
Sephardic and Spanish song exclusively, the romance. Such an emphasis on this
prestigious Hispanic genre has been detrimental to broader insights into Sephardic
music, past and present.
In another type of comparative study, Avenary attempted to reconstruct the
music of 16th century Sephardic piyyutim (liturgical poems) by tracing back in
Spanish sources the melodies of the Spanish songs whose rst lines are mentioned
12 E. Gerson-Kiwi, On the Musical Sources of the Judaeo-Spanish Romancero, Musical

Quarterly 50, no. 1 (1964), pp. 3143; see, similarly, J. R. Cohen, A Reluctant Woman
Pilgrim and a Greek Bird: a Possible Cantiga Melody Survival in a Sephardic Ballad,
Cantigueros 7 (1995), pp. 8589.
13 J. Etzion, and S. Weich-Shahak, The Spanish and the Sephardic Romances Musical
Links, Ethnomusicology 32, no. 2 (1988), pp. 137; Ibidem, The Spanish Romances
Viejos and the Sephardic Romances, Musical Links across Five Centuries, Atti del
XIV Congresso della Societ Internazionale di Musicologia, Bologna 1987, vol. 3
(1990), pp. 716.
14 I. J. Katz, Pre-Expulsion Tune Survivals among Judeo-Spanish Ballads? A Possibly
Late-Fifteenth Century Antecedent, Hispanic Medieval Studies in Honor of Samuel
G. Armistead, M. Gerli and H. L. Sharrer eds., Madison 1992, pp. 171192.
[9]
Edwin Seroussi
as contrafacta in collections of Hebrew sacred songs from the same period.15 Like
Etzion and Weich Shahak, Avenary too looked into the courtly polyphonic settings
of Spanish folksongs, notably the famous Cancionero de Palacio, in order to locate
Spanish melodies mentioned in Hebrew sources. He then tried to set the Hebrew
text under the upper part of the correspondent polyphonic arrangement. A similar
path was taken by Einsenstein who compared Jewish liturgical melodies from
Provence published in the late 19th century with melodies of songs by troubadours
from North-Eastern Spain and South-Western France.16
These comparative studies and attempts to reconstruct in one way or another
the musical repertoires of medieval Jewish Iberia remain, needless to say, highly
speculative. We may conclude with Katz that just how long the [medieval]
peninsular tunes remained in the Sephardic repertoire is difcult to ascertain.17
All evidence shows that the musical culture of the Sephardim after 1492 was
very dynamic and tended to engage in intense dialogues with the music of the
surrounding non-Jewish cultures in their new lands of settlement. This process
intensied for four centuries until it reached its peak towards the turn of the 20th
century. Yet, one cannot atly dismiss the idea that certain aspects of present-day
Sephardic music performance practices and repertoire, particularly in the liturgical
context, show remarkable continuity.
Music of the Jews in Muslim Spain (ca 7001150)

The Arab conquest of Al-Andalus marks the tangible beginnings of Iberian Jewish
music, because next to nothing is known about music of the Jews during the preIslamic, Visigothic period.18 Due to their very precarious conditions in pre-Islamic
Spain, the Jews favorably received the Arab conquerors.19 It is therefore under
Islam that an autochthonous Iberian Jewish musical culture emerged.
The Jews of Spain looked upon the major Jewish centers of the Eastern
15
16
17
18
19
H. Avenary, Ancient Melodies for Sephardi Religious Songs, Otzar yehude Sefarad
3 (1960), pp. 149153 (Hebrew).
J. Einsestein, The Liturgical Chant of Provenal and West Sephardi Jews in
Comparisson with the Song of Troubadours and the Cantigas, Ph.D. diss., Hebrew
Union College, New York 1966; Ibidem, Medieval Elements in the Liturgical Music
of the Jews of Southern France and Northern Spain, Musica Judaica 1 (1975), pp.
3351.
Katz, The Music of Sephardic Spain, p. 109.
H. Sivan, The Invisible Jews of Visigothic Spain, Revue des tudes Juives 159, no.
34 (2000), pp. 369385.
S. Katz, The Jews in the Visigothic and Frankish Kingdoms of Spain and Gaul,
Cambridge, Mass. 1937.
[10]

Arab Caliphate, members of which arrived in Spain in the aftermath of the Arab
conquest, as a source of inspiration for the new, Jewish culture in Iberia. The rst
Jewish music of Spain about which we know is thus related to the consolidation of
a distinguished and distinctive Andalusian-Arab Jewish culture that was to persist
even after most Spanish Jews were living under Christian rule.20
Following the methodological premises discussed above, we shall treat
two circuits of musical activities of Andalusian Jews about which we possess
information, the synagogues and the royal courts. In both social settings, music
had a certain degree of sophistication and implied professionalism. Although
one must also assume the existence of more popular, orally-transmitted forms of
music making among the Jews in medieval Spain, references to these genres are
signicantly less numerous.
The Arab Jewish culture of Al-Andalus, although drawing signicantly from
Eastern Jewish models, was forged with the development of the new local Jewish
aristocracy characterized by a courtly culture shaped after the Andalusian-Arab
model. One of the consequences of this social process was the development of
a rened taste for secular Arabic music. This music was, in general, related to
one of the major innovations of Andalusian Arabic culture: the development of
strophic poetry. The rise of Hebrew secular poetry modeled on Arabic meters and
new strophic genres, especially the development of the Hebrew muwashshahas,
had clear musical implications. This new Hebrew poetry, like its Arabic models,
was intended to be sung, as testied, for example, by Yehosef ben Ha-Nagid in
his introduction to Ben Tehillim, the diwan (poems collection) of his illustrious
father Shemuel Ha-Nagid (9931054/5): I included in this diwan his metered
writings and songs in diverse meters that used to be sung in front of him.21 This
principle also applied to the Hebrew liturgical poetry that enriched the synagogues
of Muslim Spain and set the basis for the modern Sephardic liturgical tradition.
Schirmann, following Farmer, maintained that Jewish composers of muwashshahas
also conceived the tunes for their poems.22 The close relation between secular
and liturgical Hebrew poetry in Spain in terms of form and meter opened up the
possibility of further cross-fertilization between the realm of the mundane and the
sacred in synagogue music, beyond the Eastern Jewish models.
This interaction between the music of the synagogue and its external social
surroundings, initiated in Al-Andalus, was to remain a xed feature of the
20 R. Brann, The Arabized Jews, in The Literature of Al-Andalus, M. R. Menocal, R. P.
Scheindlin and M. Sells eds., Cambridge 2000, pp. 435454.
21 D. Yarden, Diwan Shemuel Ha-Nagid: Ben Tehillim. Jerusalem 1966, p. 1 and 344
(Hebrew); Simon, Four Approaches, pp. 229230.
22 Schirmann 1936. Muwashshat composers?, p. 135136. (Hebrew); H. G. Farmer, A
History of Arabian Music to the XIIIth Century, London 1929, pp. 212, 221.
[11]
Edwin Seroussi
Sephardic liturgy up until the present. Increasing musicalization of the liturgy was
one trigger for the increase in Sephardic rabbinical rulings on music and musical
performance in Jewish contexts during the Islamic period in Spain. Drawing
on antecedents by the Geonim (the heads of Babylonian Jewry under Islam) on
these matters, the Sephardic rabbis rened and expanded the halakhic opinions of
their Eastern predecessors about music making in a Jewish community ruled by
religious law.
Another eld of current research is the intellectual speculation about music
among the medieval Jews of Spain under Islam, in other words their interest
in aspects of music theory transmitted to them through Arab sources. This
scholarly activity revealed the genuine interest of Sephardic Jews in music as
an encompassing cultural phenomenon of psychological, mathematical and
cosmological signicance. A continuation of trends already present among erudite
Jews of the Eastern Caliphate during the post-Talmudic period, speculating about
musics powers and emotional effects eventually had practical consequences,
especially when music became related to the practices of Jewish mystics in
Spain.
In short, the roots of the Jewish musical culture of Al-Andalus must be
searched for in the traditions imported from the Eastern Caliphate, particularly
from the powerful Jewish center of Abassid Baghdad. During the heyday of the
Eastern Caliphate, the Jews became procient in the theory and performance
of the developing Arabic court music. Responsa by leaders of the academies in
Babylonia concerning the practice of secular music among Jews or the famous
passage by R. Seadiya Gaon on the Arabic rhythmic modes (drawn from Al Kindi)
in his Emunot ve-deot of 933 are testimonies of this involvement.23 Cantors in AlAndalus continued the Eastern trend of singing Hebrew songs set to secular Arabic
tunes, a practice already customary by the mid-11th century. Such practice stirred
the very well known response by R. Yitsh aq ben Yaaqob Alfasi (near Fez, 1013Lucena, 1103), in one of the earliest rabbinical expositions on this topic from Al23
I. Adler, Hebrew Writings Concerning Music in Manuscripts and Printed Books from
Geonic Times up to 1800 (RISM B IX2), Munchen 1975 (hereafter HWCM), no. 630;
H. G. Farmer, Saadyah Gaon on the Influence of Music, London 1943; U. Haxen,
Saadya Gaon on Music, Jewish Studies at the End of the 20th Century: Proceedings
of the 6th EAJS Congress, Toledo 1998, J. Tarragona Borrs and A. Senz-Badillos
eds., Leiden-Boston-Kln, vol. I (1999): Biblical, Rabbinical, and Medieval Studies,
pp. 406413; Ibidem, The Captions Fi Wazn and Fi Lahn in Strophic Poetry,
Zutot (Amsterdam) 1 (2001), pp. 9196; Simon, Four Approaches, pp. 31ff; A.
Shiloah, Musical Terminology in Medieval Jewish Literature, Teshrt laAvishur:
Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, in Hebrew and Semitic Languages.
Festschrift Presented to Prof. Yitzhak Avishur on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, M.
Heltzer and M. Malul eds., Tel-Aviv and Haifa 2004, pp. 341347.
[12]

Andalus.24 It is probable that choral styles of liturgical performance practiced in
Baghdad were imported to Al-Andalus too.25
We may infer from the continuous interaction between the Jews of the
Eastern and Western Caliphates that for a long period after the establishment of a
sizeable and independent Jewish community in Spain there was a constant inux
of Oriental music. Outstanding evidence of this process is the life of the poet
Dunash Ben Labrat Halevi (ca 925990). Born probably in Fez, Morocco, and
educated in Baghdad under the tutelage of the great R. Seadiya Gaon, Dunash
settled in Cordova, the ourishing cultural capital of the Western Caliphate, while
still a young man. He became a favorite at one of the most sumptuous Jewish
courts of the time, that of Hasdai Ibn Shaprut.26 There he introduced to Hebrew
poetry, both sacred and secular, the use of Arabic quantitative meters and thus
founded the new Andalusian school of Hebrew poetry.
The adoption of quantitative meters and of Andalusian Arab strophic forms
in Hebrew poetry was linked to the leisure time of courtly life in Andalusia. An
exquisite description of a courtly scene appears in the superscription to Dunashs
poem Ve-omar: al thishan (And said: Do not sleep) in a Genizah manuscript
(Cambridge T-S 8/T 15/8):
Another song by Ben Labrat, of blessed memory, of the genre of wine
drinking at evening and morning with rhyme and in the khaf [Arabic] meter
to be accompanied by musical instruments, by the sounds of water canals
and of string instruments, by the singing of birds on the trees and by the
scent of diverse perfumes and all these he describes in a party at [the court
of] Hasdai [Ibn Shaprut] Ha-sfaradi (the Andalusian), may he rest in peace,
and said Do not sleep a voice said: Drink an aged wine 27
The introduction of this new poetry into the synagogue occurred as early as its
introduction to Jewish courts. The utterly secular context of performing Hebrew
strophic poetry described above indicates that its adoption in the realm of the
normative Jewish liturgy may have signied a revolution. The swiftness of this
process of adoption of secular poetical forms in the synagogue is not difcult to
explain. A long standing tradition of Hebrew liturgical poetry existed in the East
24 Yitsh aq ben Yaaqob Alfasi, Sheelot u-teshuvot, Warsaw 1884, no. 281 (Hebrew).
25 E. Fleischer, The Influence of Choral Elements on the Formation and Development
of Piyyut Genres, Yuval 4 (1974), pp. 1848 (Hebrew).
26 C. del Valle Rodrguez, El Divn Potico de Dunash Ben Labrat: La introduccin de
la mtrica rabe, Madrid 1988.
27 Dunash Ben Labrat, Shirim, Nehemia Aloni ed., Jerusalem 1947, p. 64 (Hebrew); Del
Valle Rodrguez, El Divn Potico de Dunash Ben Labrat, pp. 195199.
[13]
Edwin Seroussi
since at least the 6th century and many types of strophic forms were known there
long before the development of the Andalusian forms.
Allony proposed that Dunash was not only a scholar and poet but probably an
accomplished cantor as well, who may have imported Eastern musical traditions
to Spain.28 Another well-known case of a cantor migrating from East to West
is the Baghdadian paytan Yosef Al-Baradani, a member of a distinguished and
inuential family of synagogue performers, who reached North Africa in the late
10th century.29
The Musical Revolution of Strophic Poetry and the Piyyut Controversy

However, the adoption of the Arabic quantitative meters, a hallmark of Andalusian
Hebrew poetry of Eastern origins, was not easily accepted in Al-Andalus. A harsh
quarrel about this issue took place in mid-10th century Cordova between the
renowned Menah em Ibn Saruq and his disciples and Dunash ben Labrat and his
disciples over the adoption of the Arabic meters. Yehudah Ibn Sheshet, a supporter
of Dunash in the controversy with the school of Ibn Saruq, stressed the musical
implications of his colleagues mastery of the Arabic poetic meters:

30

And he chanted a song / as a master of singing

In each city and metropolis / town and village
And there is not in the world a master / who sings his songs
And another who sings his songs / and rises his voice in song.
Despite these quarrels, which were a reection of contrasting aesthetic sensibilities
and changing approaches to authentic Jewish culture, the adoption of the Arabic
28
29
Dunash Ben Labrat, Ibidem, pp. 811.

T. Beeri, Hazzanim in Babylonia: A Family Portrait, Knesset Ezra: Literature and
Life in the Synagogue, Studies Presented to Ezra Fleischer, S. Elizur, M. D. Herr,
G. Shaked and A. Shinan eds., Jerusalem 1994, pp. 251268 (Hebrew); Ibidem, The
Great Cantor of Baghdad: The Liturgical Poems of Yosef ben Hayyim al-Baradani,
Jerusalem 2002 (Hebrew).
30 Sefer teshuvot [Liber Responsorium] S. Gottlieb Stern ed., Vienna 1870, Particula
II, p. 9; see also C. del Valle Rodrguez, La escuela hebrea de Crdoba, Madrid 1981,
pp. 275282 and 574ff.
[14]

strophic genres of Andalusian origin, the muwashshah and the zejel, became a
marker of Sephardic musical culture perpetuated well after the expulsion of
1492.
The musical sources of the muwashshah are widely discussed within the vast
literature on this poetic genre and on the kharja, the nal verses in colloquial
Arabic and Romance in both Arabic and Hebrew muwashshahas.31 The role of
music in the composition and the singing of Andalusian Hebrew strophic poems,
occasionally treated by leading scholars of medieval Hebrew literature in Spain,
such as Haim Schirmann, became a topic of interest to musicologists.32 Since
the new Hebrew strophic forms were embraced together with the adaptation to
Hebrew of the quantitative meters of classic Arabic poetry, some musicologists
inferred that a new type of music was introduced through them to the synagogue
in Spain.
Idelsohn, Avenary and Shiloah proposed that the use of quantitative meters
in Hebrew poetry in Spain had deep implications for Hispanic Jewish musical
culture since the late 10th century.33 The novelty resided, according to all these
scholars, in the use, for the rst time in Hebrew singing, of music with xed
beat and recurring rhythmic patterns. These patterns must have reected, in their
opinion, the meter of the poem. Put differently, the series of long and short values
of the literary meter had their counterpart in the patterns of short and long musical
values whose common denominator was a well-dened beat. Idelsohn found that
this phenomenon survived in the musical performance of a few piyyutim in the
hazag meter still sung in the contemporary Sephardic synagogues that he visited.
Eventually, the metric style became detached from the metric poems and spread
31 For succinct and updated critical reviews of this issue see, O. J. Zwartjes, Love Songs
from al-Andalus: History, Structure and Meaning of the Kharja, Leiden, New York,
Kln, 1997; T. Rosen, The Muwashshah, in The Literature of Al-Andalus, M. R.
Menocal, R. P. Scheindlin and M. Sells (eds), Cambridge 2000, pp. 165189.
32 For a summary see, H. Schirmann, The History of Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain, E.
Fleischer ed., Jerusalem 1995, pp. 7376 (Hebrew) and E. Fleischer, On the Musical
Agenda of the Sephardi Revolution of the Form of the Medieval Hebrew Song,
Yuval 7 (2001): Studies in Honor of Israel Adler, E. Schleifer and E. Seroussi eds.,
pp. 522 (Hebrew). See also the observations on music in Y. Tobi, Kiruv u-dhiyya:
ha-shira ha-ivrit veha-shira ha-aravit beyemei ha-beinayim, Haifa 2000, pp. 59, 166,
196, 290, 293, 323.
33 A. Z. Idelsohn. Jewish Music in its Historical Development, New York 1929, pp.
110ff; H. Avenary, Music, Encyclopaedia Judaica 12 (1972), pp. 593595 and
Shiloah, Jewish Liturgical Singing in Spain, pp. 428429; see also Sh. Morag and
A. Shiloah, Meter and Melody in the Religious Poems of the Yemenite and Sephardi
Communities, in Le-rosh Yosef: Mehqarim be- hokhmat Yisrael Teshurat hoqarah
la-rav Yosef Qapah, Y. Tobi ed., Jerusalem 1995, pp. 435456.
[15]
Edwin Seroussi
even into liturgical texts in prose.34 In the words of Idelsohn: rhythmical music
emancipated itself from the metrical impress of the poetry.35
As a consequence of this novelty, the melody of a certain poem could be adopted
for the singing of another poem with the same meter and form. This technique of
recycling melodies of existing poems in new ones is known, in the specic context
of the muwashshah, as murada. From the earliest manuscripts of Hebrew
strophic poetry from Spain there are references (in the form of superscriptions)
to existing songs. According to Fleisher, this technique of referring to the music
of another poem may have been known to the Hebrew poets of the East at the
very early stages in the development of the piyyut, for this was the custom of the
Byzantine konkatyon.36 The position of Fleischer recalls aspects of the Latin
thesis of the origin of strophic poetry in Spain. Daz Esteban discusses extensively
the technique of contrafactum, the use of refrains and of profane melodies, in
medieval Latin poetry in relation to the origins of the muwashshah.37
Regardless of the theses concerning the origins of murada, the fact is that
musical references in the captions of piyyutim from the Eastern school of Hebrew
poetry employed since the earliest stages a formula that opened with the Arabic
terms wazn (according to the meter of) or lahn (according to the meter or
melody of) followed by the rst few words of the model poem. Haxen contended
that both terms may have been originally interchangeable and refer exclusively
to a rhythmic pattern of the text rather than to a succession of pitches, i.e. to a
melody.38 While this hypothesis may be correct in the East until the 10th century,
it is clear that from the 11th century on captions like these appearing in Spanish
Hebrew poetry in Al-Andalus and employing almost invariably the term lahn
referred to a melody in both its rhythmic and melodic aspects. Eventually lahan
became a Hebrew term for melody and continued to be used in this sense in
captions of piyyutim for hundreds of years. More rarely the term noam, a Hebrew
word related to the Arabic term naghma (melody or musical mode), was employed
for similar purposes among Sephardic Jews.
Stern also maintained that the musical aspect of the muwashshah was the main
stimulus for the technique of imitation (murada). This central role of music
in the making of Andalusian Arabic and Hebrew strophic poetry is the basis for
34 Idelsohn, Jewish Music, p. 116.

35 Ibidem, p. 124
36 E. Fleischer, Inquiries Concerning the Origin and Etymology of Several Terms in
Medieval Hebrew Poetry, Tarbiz 47, nos. 34 (1978), p. 190 (Hebrew).
37 F. Daz Esteban, La poesa latina visigoda y el nacimiento de la moaxaja, Studies on
the Muwashshah and the Kharja, A. Jones and R. Hitchcock eds., Oxford 1991, pp.
134148.
38 U. Haxen, The Captions Fi Wazn and Fi Lahn in Strophic Poetry, pp. 9196.
[16]

what Zwartjes has called the musico-rhythmical thesis on the origin of the
muwashshah and the explanation of the abundant metrical irregularities found
in Andalusian strophic poetry.39 Following the general remarks by Stern on this
respect, Haxen explained the irregular meters of some muwashshahas on the basis
of the underlying musical rhythm.40 He based his theory that there is no metrical
scansion but rhythmical beat on Ibn Sana al-Mulk, the major theoretician of
Arabic strophic poetry.41 Moreover, according to al-Mulk, the kharja in a foreign
language could be expanded by adding syllables such as la, la, la in order to t
the pattern of the pre-existent meter and melody of another composition. Al Mulks
statement can be supported by a much earlier statement by Abu Utma-n Amr b.
Bahr al-Jahiz (died 896) who observed that the Arabs match their melodies to the
meter of the poem, while in foreign cultures they may expand or contract their
words and phrases to t the tune.42
The musico-rhythmical thesis, in spite of its plausibility, is not accepted
by all scholars as the most convincing argument to explain either the origin of
the muwashshah or its metrical irregularities. In his discussion of the musicallyoriented work by Haxen and Wulstan, Corriente argued against those who tried
to explain the un-orthodox meters of some Andalusian strophic poetry as the
result of rhythmic needs created by the adopted melody.43 While recognizing the
importance of the musical aspects in the study of Andalusian strophic poetry,
Corriente argues that the composition of the poem and its recitation as poetry
always preceded its musical performance with the melody. He further argued that
the metrical coincidences between the Andalusian strophic poetry and the arud
patterns of classic Arabic poetry are too consistent to maintain that a song follows
the musical system, even if it is an adaptation of it.
Be that as it may, the practice of imitation for a musical reason was inherent
to the creation of Hebrew strophic poetry. Among the earliest evidence of this
39 Zwartjes, Love Songs from Al-Andalus, pp. 152155.
40 U. Haxen, The Muraa Concept and its Musico-rhythmical Implications: A
Preliminary Clue, Al-Andalus 43 (1978), pp. 113124; Ibidem, Hargas in Hebrew
Muwashshah as: A Plea for a Third Approach, Al-Qantara 3 (1982), pp. 473482;
Ibidem, Kharjas in Hebrew Muwashshah as, Studies on the Muwashshah and the
Kharja, A. Jones and R. Hitchcock eds., Oxford 1991, pp. 3940.
41 Haxen, The Muraa Concept, p. 120.
42 Kitab al-Bayn wa-l-tabyn, Cairo 1948, p. 385; L. Fish Compton, Andalusian Lyrican
Poetry and Old Spanish Love Songs: The Muwashshah and Its Kharja. New York
1976, p. 117.
43 Haxen, The Muraa Concept; D. Wulstan, The Muwashshah and Zagal Revisited,
Journal of the American Oriental Society 102 (1982), pp. 247264; F. Corriente,
Poesa dialectal rabe y romance en Alandals (Cjeles y xarajat de muwashshahat),
Madrid 1997, pp. 120121.
[17]
Edwin Seroussi
trait of synagogue music in Spain is found in the commentary on the Book of
Psalms by Avraham Ibn Ezra (10891164). As Simon has eloquently shown, Ibn
Ezra interpreted the superscriptions of the biblical Psalms as codes referring to
the melodies to which each song ought to be performed.44 More specically, in
his commentary to the superscription of Psalm 7 Ibn Ezra writes that the term
shigayion found in the title refers in his opinion to the melody (noam) of a piyyut
whose rst word is shigayion, as the scribes of Spain write at the beginning of
the piyyut [the name of] the melody of a well known piyyut. Extant manuscripts of
Hebrew sacred poetry from medieval Spain provide ample evidence of the practice
described by Ibn Ezra. Simon further argues that in Spain the melodic codes were
usually determined by the copyists or editors of the manuscripts rather than by the
poets themselves.45 Yet there are cases, especially in the muwashshahas, where
the poet himself intentionally selected the melody.46 While in the composition of
secular poetry the Hebrew poets borrowed Arabic tunes freely, in the context of
religious strophic poetry these headings almost exclusively refer to the melodies
of other Hebrew poems rather than to those of Arabic songs.
The musical facet of the composition of a new muwashshah is illustrated by a
famous letter addressed by the young Yehudah Halevi (c. 10751141) to Moshe
Ibn Ezra (ca 10601139) upon his imminent arrival from his home in Christian
Spain to Muslim Al-Andalus. This letter challenges the at rejection of the
musico-rhythmical thesis. Discovered by Davidson and Abramson, published in
its full version by Fleischer and discussed by Simon and Senz Badillos, the letter
describes a real life situation in which Halevi, on his journey to Granada, is invited
to a wine party in which an assembly of Hebrew poets is challenged to imitate an
extant muwashshah with its kharja by a distinguished local poet (Prince of the
Armies) whom Fleischer has identied as Yosef Ibn Tzadik:47
I was forced into composing a song [ve-ethakema le-naggen] in the drinking
gathering of gifted poets. The model of their song [neginatam, lit., their
melody] was a composition by the Prince of the Armies and the opening of
44 Simon, Four Approaches, pp.144ff.
45 Ibidem, pp. 228ff.
46 S. M. Stern, Imitations of Arabic muwashshahat in the Hebrew Poetry of Spain,
Tarbiz 18 (1947), pp. 166186 (Hebrew).
47 Sh. Abramson, Iggeret Rav Yehudah Halevy lerabbi Moshe Ibn Ezra, in Sefer
Haim Schirmann, Sh. Abramson and A. Mirsky eds., Jerusalem 1970, pp. 397403
(Hebrew); E. Fleischer, On R. Yehuda Halevi and His First Contacts with R. Moshe
Ibn Ezra, Kiryat Sefer 61 (1986/7), pp.: 898900, 902ff (Hebrew); Simon, Four
Approaches, pp. 232233; A. Senz Badillos, Las muwashshah at de Mosheh Ibn
Ezrah, in Poesia Estrfica: Actas del Primer Congreso Internacional, F. Corriente
and A. Senz Badillos eds., Madrid 1991, pp. 298299.
[18]

the poem was Lel mahshevot lev airah. They could compose a good song
[heitivu nagen, lit., they were competent in composing a good melody] for
the beginning but could not nish it. They turned then to me with boastfulness
saying: See, they started it, you nish it.
After a long apology of his own poetic limitations, Halevi nally accedes: They
insisted until I was ashamed and I tried to do it according to the measure of my
ability. I saw that being the last [in the row of poets who tried] was no advantage.
Finally, after turning the verses inside out, he
composed an organized poem about the topic, as you, Sir, can see with
your own eyes I changed some of the verses [of the model poem], left
others as they were, but I switched the topic into another related sense and
transformed it into an answer to your delightful poem.
The success of Halevi was apparently based on his mastery of the kharja (which he
left intact). Rather than to start from the beginning of the cephalous muwashshah
that served as a model, i.e. from the opening strophe, he rst mastered the refrain,
absorbing its melody and meter and then played around with the verses of the
strophe until he nished the new poem, which he incidentally dedicated to Moshe
Ibn Ezra. Moreover, Fleischer showed that the model Hebrew song upon which
Halevi struggled, Lel mahshevot lev airah, was in itself an imitation of an Arabic
muwashshah. What stands out in this passage is the loaded musical terminology
employed by Halevi which would allow one to conclude that the mastery of setting
the words to the melody was a crucial task for the poet.48
There were, then, two possible techniques of imitation in the composition of
a new muwashshah on the basis of an existing one: a perfect imitation and an
imperfect one. In the perfect type of imitation, to which the Arabic term murada
refers, the poet was compelled to compose the new poem by reproducing with
precision the meter, the number of syllables, and, if possible, the rhyme of the
model poem. In this case, each syllable of the new poem would fall on the exact
same tone as in the poem of origin. When the imitation was imperfect and the poet
did not reproduce the model precisely, the performers had to solve the problem
of disparity in the number of syllables by adding or omitting syllables, or by
employing more tones for certain syllables.
While the selection and adoption of the model poem (and subsequently of
its melody) was a matter for the poet to decide, it appears that Arabic melodies
could also be assigned to extant Hebrew poems by singers, copyists or editors of
48 Fleischer, Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, p. 901 and notes 19 and 22 on the important role of
music.
[19]
Edwin Seroussi
manuscripts. This was the case of Yehoshua ben Eliyahus references to Arabic
muwashshahs in his copy of the diwan by Avraham Ibn Ezra.49 Yahalom found
that the same Yehoshua ben Eliyahu also added names of lehanim of Arabic
muwashshahas at his own initiative to his copy of the diwan of Yehudah Halevi
which he edited soon after the death of the poet.50
The awareness of the dependence of Hebrew strophic poetry and its music on
Arabic models is expounded by Moshe Ibn Ezra in his important treatise on Hebrew
poetics, Kitab al-muhadara wal-mudhakara (post-1135). After stating that the
goal of his treatise is to expose the question of how two nations, i.e. the Hebrew
and the Arab, are parallel in most aspects, because the rst imitates the second
particularly in what pertains to poetry, he adds that he who wants to learn the
science of music, there is nothing wrong in learning it after studying grammar, as
music participates with grammar in creating a song. Ibn Ezra adds (following
Ibn Qutayba) that while for the Greeks all poetry set to music was poetry, for the
Arabs all poetry set to music is poetry but not all music composition is poetry.51
This passage apparently implies the existence of pure instrumental music genres.
Ibn Ezras submission of Hebrew poetry to Arabic music culture derives from the
inuential epistle on music by Ihwan al-Safa that he quotes extensively in his own
treatise.52
When it was chanted, secular strophic poetry in Hebrew might have been
accompanied by musical instruments in unison. The use of instruments in the
performance of muwashshahs is testied by Ibn Sana al-Mulk in his Dar el-Tiraz
where he mentions the urgn, literally the organ.53 It appears however that alMulk employs this term as a generic name for any musical instrument.54 Needless
to say, strophic songs within the Jewish liturgy were exclusively vocal, as musical
instruments were banned from the synagogue services.
49 Abramson, Iggeret R. Yehudah Halevy, p. 403; S. M. Stern, Samuel, The

Muwashshah as of Abraham Ibn Ezra, Appendix: Yeshua ben Elijahs references to
Arabic Muwashshah as, in F. Pierce ed., Hispanic Studies in Honour of I. Gonzlez
Llubera, Oxford 1959, pp. 319327; Simon, Four Approaches, pp. 201 and 228231.
50 J. Yahalom, Kitab al-shidur fi al-manthum wa-al-mantur: Diwan Yehudah Halevy as
edited by Yehoshua Halevy, Tradition and Continuity in Judeo-Arabic Culture in the
Middle Ages, Y. Blau and D. Doron eds., Ramat-Gan 2000, pp. 127144 (Hebrew).
51 Moshe Ibn Ezra, Sefer ha-yyunim ve-ha-diyyunim (Kitab al-muhadara walmudhakara), A.Sh. Halkin ed. and trans., Jerusalem 1975, p. 136 (Hebrew).
52 Moshe Ibn Ezra, Kitab al-muhadara wal-mudhakara, M. Abumalham Mas ed. and
trans., Madrid 1986, vol. 1, p. 160 (Spanish); The Epistle on Music by Ihwan al-safa,
A .Shiloah trans., Tel Aviv 1978. See also Tobi, Kiruv udhiyya, p, 290.
53 C. Lpez-Morillas, Was the Muwashshah Really Accompanied by the Organ?, La
Cornica 14 (1985), pp. 4054.
54 Zwartjes, Love Songs from al-Andalus, p. 217, note 56.
[20]

The impact of the new rhythmic style of music introduced to Andalusian
synagogues on the wings of strophic poetry is implicit in a famous passage from
the Kuzari by Yehudah Halevi.55 Halevi distinguishes in this passage between two
musical genres in the Jewish religious repertory of his time, Biblical cantillation
and the rhythmic style of Arabic strophic poetry. The rst genre, to which the
aura of Hebrew authenticity is attached, is in free rhythm. As Halevi explains,
these melodies (al-alhn in the original Arabic) are liberated from the articial
constraint of meter (beauty of speech in his words) and one can sing them in
full (one syllable per sound) or empty manner (i.e. melismatic, more than one
sound per syllable thus forcing the singer to either expand a syllable or add nonsense syllables for the sounds left empty). This genre corresponds to Biblical
cantillation where the performance according to teamei miqrah adds an oral
dimension to scripture (Kuzari 2:27, 2:69), as well as to other liturgical passages.
In this context Halevi explicitly states that the same melodic unit (melody or
phrase) can be applied to two verses of diverse length from the same Biblical
text, such as in the case of Hodu lAdonay ki tov (Psalm 136:1, seven syllables)
and Le-oseh niaot gedolot levado (Psalm 136:4, twelve syllables). It is no
coincidence that Halevi provides this specic example from a liturgical Psalm
from the Sabbath morning service. This is early evidence of the singing of Psalms
in the synagogue with exible melodies that are adapted by the singers to the
different lengths of the verses, as has been done in Sephardim synagogues until
the present.
The second genre discussed by Halevi, al-inshdiyah in Arabic (notice that the
same terminology is used by Alfasi in his responsum mentioned above), refers to
the poems that are composed and recited with xed meters of articial structure.
This genre is, in his opinion, of much lesser value, for it has no specic ethic or
moral purpose and its goal is to delight the ear. The superiority of Hebrew poetry
(Kuzari 2:73) over Arabic metric poetry is thus established on ethical as well as
on practical grounds.56 This famous passage by Halevi unravels a paradoxical
cognitive dissonance between his faithfulness to the Biblical Hebrew tradition and
his sensibilities to contemporary Arabic culture.57 Music emanating from Jewish
55 Adler, HWCM, no. 460; N. Allony, Melody and Poetry in the Kuzari, Yuval 3 (1974),
pp. 717 (Hebrew); A. Shiloah, Melody and Meter in the Kuzari, Tatzlil 6 (1966),
pp. 58 (Hebrew); D. Schwartz, Sefer ha-Kuzari and its commentators on music,
Mahanaim 10 (1985), pp. 154163 (Hebrew).
56 R. Jospe, The superiority of oral tradition over written communication: Judah HaLevis Kuzari and modern Jewish thought, in From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism,
Intellect in Quest of Understanding: Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox, J. Neusner et al.
eds., Atlanta, Ga. 1989, vol. 3, pp. 133134.
57 Simon, Four Approaches, p. 148, note 67; N. Allony, Rabbi Yehudah Halevy
and the Poetics in the Kuzari, Sinai 9 (1942), pp. 168183 (Hebrew); A. Altman,
[21]
Edwin Seroussi
oral traditions, such as Biblical cantillation or Psalm tunes, is thus antithetical to
the aesthetics of the new, metered music.
Performing strophic poetry in the synagogue implied a new element, the active
participation of the congregation in the singing of refrains. While treating the
etymology of the terms piyyut and pizmon, R. Yosef Halevi Ibn Migash (1077
1141), the most prolic rabbinical authority of his time who lived for thirtyeight years at the important center of Jewish learning in Lucena, shows a vivid
awareness of the performance of strophic poetry during his time. The term pizmon
is dened by Ibn Migash as that which is repeated, that is, said many times over
adding that an individual who repeats himself over and over is called pizmana.58
He relates the concept of the repeated refrain also to the poetic term kiklara which
Ibn Migash denes as a repetitive structure similar to the pizmon.59
The active role of the synagogue congregation in the chanting of strophic
poetry is also clear from one of the earliest and most often quoted descriptions
of the muwashshah in Hebrew by the Egyptian philologist and exegete Tanh um
Yerushalmi (13th century): The matla is called [in Hebrew] pizmon because
it is sung as a response [by the congregation] as the reciter ends each stanza.60
In Fleischers opinion, since the beginning of the history of the piyyut, the term
pizmon implied the musical section of the poem, more precisely the sections that
the congregation or the choir were asked to sing according to melodies well known
to them.61
The singing of the piyyut in the synagogue was a matter of controversy between
Jewish authorities in Spain since its inception. The phenomenon of singing piyyutim
within the normative prayers disrupted the ow of the services, expanded it, and
distracted the congregation. In Al-Andalus, where the performance of strophic
poetry in secular contexts was familiar to the public, the opposition to the singing
of religious strophic poetry in the synagogue was forceful. Although the order of
58
59
60
61
Moses Mendelsohn: A Biographical Study, Alabama 1973, p. 140 quoted in Jospe,

Superiority of Oral Tradition, vol. 3, p. 134.
Shiloah, Jewish Liturgical Singing in Spain, p. 430, misreading pizmonai instead
of pizmana, assumed that this was a reference to a performer of strophic poetry who
functioned separately from the cantor.
Yosef Halevy Ibn Migash, Sheelot u-teshuvot, Jerusalem 1959, no. 204; on both terms
see Fleischer, Inquiries Concerning the Origin and Etymology.
Quoted in W. Bacher (ed.), Aus dem Wrterbuche Tanchum Jeruschalmis, in 26.
Jahresbericht der Landesrabbinerschule in Budapest, Budapest 1903, pp. 2425 and
Y. Ratzhabi, Form and Melody in the Jewish Song from Yemen, Tazlil 8 (1968), p.
16 (Hebrew).
On the term kiklar, see Fleischer, Inquiries Concerning the Origin and Etymology,
pp. 190191. (Hebrew).
[22]

normative prayers in Spain was more or less xed by the 10th century, the Hebrew
poets of the Golden Age (11th and 12th centuries) did not cease to write elaborate
poetry to ornament the services. We must ask when, where, and to what extent all
this poetry actually permeated into the synagogues of Spain. That the poetry was
functional is beyond discussion; after all, why else would the poets invest so much
time and effort on this craft?
The prominence of its melodic component and the association of its tunes with
those of gentile songs created a certain antagonism to the singing of strophic poetry
in Spanish synagogues. In this regard it is worthwhile to cite a famous passage
from the tractate Ifhm al-Yahd (Silencing the Jews) by the 12th century Jewish
convert to Islam Samaual al-Maghrib in which he describes the performance of a
contemporary synagogue service and the role of sacred poetry in it:
When the Jews saw that the Persians persisted in obstructing their prayer, they
invented invocations into which they add mixed passages from their prayers;
and they called these h izna. They set numerous tunes to them. They would
assemble at prayer time in order to read and chant the h izna. The difference
between the h izna and the prayer is that the prayer is without melody and is
read only by the person conducting the service; no other person recites with
him. The h azzn, however, is assisted by the public in reciting the h izna
and in chanting melodies. When the Persians rebuked them for this, the Jews
sometimes asserted that they were singing, and sometimes that they were
bewailing their lot. So the Persians left them at it.
Strangely enough, by the time the dominion of Islam arose and granted
recognition to the various denominations of protected people, and prayer
became permissible unto the Jews, the hizna had become a commendable
tradition among them for holidays, festivals and joyful occasions. Although
no longer compelled to do so, the Jews were content to substitute hizna for
prayer.62
Samaaul himself did not dwell in Spain or North Africa, yet his description may
reect synagogue practices from Al-Andalus as his Andalusian father was one
of his sources for his vivid description of why and how payytanut and its music
became so characteristic of Jewish worship. Despite the obvious prejudice against
his former people, Samauals distinction between unsung prayer and musicallyembellished poetry in the synagogue remains one of the earliest and clearest
statements on this matter.
62 Samaual Al-Maghrib, Ifhm al-Yahd Silencing the Jews, Moshe Perlmann ed.,
New York 1964, p. 57.
[23]
Edwin Seroussi
However, the practice of singing piyyutim during the prayer service, either by
the cantor alone or by the cantor and the congregation in alternation, was constantly
challenged in Muslim Spain by critics who perceived it as an obstruction to the
smooth reading of the canonized liturgy. Responding to these challenges, R. Yosef
Ibn Migash ruled clearly in favor of the singing of piyyutim within the framework
of the normative prayers. His responsum provides a glimpse into the performance
practices of his time:
As to your question whether the piyyutim that the hazzanim used to recite
and to introduce within the blessing, such as magen and mehayyeh and
yotzer are allowed, the answer [is that] if the hazzan returned to the subject
of the blessing before its hatimah (ending formulae) it is permitted, and
no one among us will protest this practice especially since this is a custom
that has spread through all the world, and this was the opinion of my rabbi
the Rav [Yitsh aq Alfasi] ztzl.63
Later on, Maimonides, who in many of his writings referred to musical and poetic
matters, opposed the singing of piyyutim in the framework of the prayer, especially
because their melodies distracted the worshipers:64
The piyyutim are additions and you have added many things unrelated to
the prayer, in addition to their meter and their melody, and the prayer stops
being a prayer and it becomes a farce. This is the greatest reason for the lack
of proper concentration during prayer (hisaron hakavvanah). The masses
Yosef Halevy Ibn Migash, Sheelot u-teshuvot, no. 87. The 16th century Salonika edition
of Ibn Migash response adds: [This matter] is brought by the luminary of our days the
Rav Birkei Yosef [i.e. Yosef Caro] Horah hayyim, siman 112, 115.
64 Y. Blidstein, Prayer in the Legal Thought of Maimonides, Jerusalem, Beer Sheva
1994; B. Cohen, The Responsum of Maimonides Concerning Music, Jewish
Music Journal 2 (1935), no. 2, pp. 17, reprinted in B. Cohen, Law and Tradition in
Judaism, New York 1959, pp. 167181; H. G. Farmer, Maimonides on Listening to
Music, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Part IV (October 1933), pp. 866884,
reprinted as Maimonides on Listening to Music, Beardsen 1941 (Mediaeval Jewish
Tractates on Music 1); I. Goldziher, Das Gutachten des Maimonides ber Gesang
und Musik, Monatsschrift fr Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums 22
(1873), pp. 174180; J. T. Monroe, Maimonides on the Mozarabic Lyric (A Note
on the Muwashshah a), La Cornica 17 (1989), no. 2, pp. 1832; H. Schirmann,
Maimonides and the Hebrew poetry, Moznayyim 3 (1935), pp. 433436 (Hebrew);
E. Seroussi, More on Maimonides on Music, Zutot (Amsterdam) 2 (2003), pp. 126
135; A. Shiloah, Mamonide et la Musique, Prsence juive au Maghreb: Hommage
Ham Zafrani, N. S. Serfaty and J. Tedghi eds., Paris 2004, pp. 497506.
63
[24]

become light-headed and talk [during prayer] because they feel that these
additional words are not obligatory.65
However, in spite of this harsh position Maimonides was willing to compromise
with the wishes of the masses in order to avoid social tension.66
A similar view had been expressed earlier by R. Yehudah ben Barzillai ha-Nasi
al-Bargeloni (end of 11th, beginning of 12th century) who argued in Sefer ha-ittim
that the singing of piyyutim was allowed only when Israel anguished.67 Yehudah
Alh arizi adopted the position of Maimonides against piyyutim. In the dialogue in
the 24th chapter of Takhkemoni, the bad guy maintains that the melodies of the
piyyutim are better than supplications. This is yet another hint that melodies were
introduced to the synagogue via the piyyut.68 What attracted the congregations to
the piyyutim were the melodies (many of them foreign); no one understood the
Hebrew texts.69
It is also in this context that we have to read Avraham Ibn Ezras often quoted
commentary to Qohelet [Ecclesiastes] 5:1 in which he supposedly attacks the
custom of adding piyyutim to the prayer. Ibn Ezra adopted this position only when
he learnt about the Ashkenazi payytanut of Eliezer Ha-Kallir, probably during his
stay in Rome where he wrote this commentary. He was probably astonished both
by the baroque language of these poetic insertions, and by the number of texts
introduced into the Ashkenazi mahzor, which far exceeded (and still exceeds) the
number of piyyutim in the Sephardic rite.
The musical practices from Muslim Spain continued within the Jewish
community even after the majority of the Jews found themselves under Christian
rule. The Castillian Hebrew poet of the 13th century Todros Abulaa, in almost
all his secular muwwashshahs, used Arabic melodies whose names are quoted,
as is customary in Hebrew diwans, as a superscription to the new poem.70 In the
introduction to his muwwashahas, he specically acknowledged that they are all
crafted on Arabic foundations because this is the custom for the master of songs
65 Quoted in Dishon, Judah Alh arizi, p.104; see also, Schirmann, History of Hebrew
Poetry in Muslim Spain, pp. 281282.
66 Dishon, Ibidem, p. 105.
67 Yehudah ben Barzillai ha-Nasi al-Bargeloni, Sefer ha-ittim, Yaacov Schorr ed., Berlin
1902, reprint New York 1959, p. 252, no. 173.
68 Blindstein, Prayer in the Legal Thought of Maimonides, p. 134, note 52 and p. 135,
note 62.
69 Dishon, Judah Alh arizi, p. 108; E. Fleischer, Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in the Middle
Ages, Jerusalem 1975, p. 51 (Hebrew); Sh. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society,
Berkeley, Ca., volume 2 (1971): The Community, p. 159.
70 A. Doron, Hebrew Poetry in Christian Spain: Todros Halevi Abulafia, Tel Aviv
1989.
[25]
Edwin Seroussi
to set [the song] to [the tune of] Mahalath [Psalms 88, 1] the daughter of Ishmael
[after Genesis 28, 9].71 One of these lehanim in Arabic used by Abulaa is Grib
alhasin, and it is remarkable that a mode of the same name is still extant in the
Andalusian music of Morocco and Algeria.72 In another superscription this poet
specically indicated that his Hebrew poem is an imitation of the Arabic model in
its meter (al-arud), rhyme (qaya) and technique or form (sana). (The same term
is still employed in the Andalusian music of Morocco in the sense of song).73
Rabbinical sources from later periods clearly testify that by the 15th century
there was a growing trend to adopt melodies from non-Jewish sources, by now
the melodies of songs in Romanic languages such as Castilian, Catalan, and
Aragonese, rather than make use of melodies of extant Hebrew songs. The Catalan
philosopher, grammarian, Biblical commentator, philosopher and physician
Yitsh aq ben Moshe Halevi (Profayt Duran, known under the acronym of Efodi,
born in Perpignan around the mid-fourteenth century, died c. 1414) praised in his
Maase Efod (completed in 1403) the superior power of Biblical cantillation, a
type of music that appeals to the mind, over the singing of strophic poetry with
melodies adopted from the non-Jewish cultures. These foreign melodies appeal
only to the senses and Duran warns against their use for only the music of the
Torah can lead to perfection and happiness.74 In his approach Duran echoes
Yehudah Halevis passage on music in the Kuzari discussed above. However,
this disapproving attitude to Gentile music must be viewed in the specic sociopolitical context in which Duran lived, the intellectual milieu of Northern Spain
and Catalonia that was marked by anti-Christian polemics and a profound sense of
the narrowing spaces allotted to Jews.75
R. Shimon ben Zemah Duran (Majorca, 1361 Algiers, 1444) was more
explicit in his critique of the widespread practice of adopting foreign melodies
in the singing of Hebrew strophic poetry. In his Magen Avot (The Shield of the
Fathers) he distinguishes three types of music: musical speech, teamim (Biblical
71
72
73
74
75
H. Brody, Grtelgedichte des Todros Abu-lafija, Mitteilungen des Frschungsinstitut

fr hbrische Dichtung 1 (Berlin 1933), p. 9.
Ibidem, p. 85.
Ibidem, p. 23.
Passage on music in ed. by J. Friedlnder and J. Kohn, Vienna 1865, pp. 2021; see,
Adler, HWCM, no. 240; D. Katz, The Eight Way, Unpublished paper read at the IMC
conference in Budapest 2000; D. Harrn, Duran, Profiat, New Grove Dictionary of
Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., vol. 7 (2001), p. 736.
M. Polliak, The Spanish Legacy in the Hebrew Bible in Abraham Ibn Ezra and Profayt
Duran, in Encuentros and Desencuentros: Spanish-Jewish Cultural Interaction
throughout History, C. Carrente Parrondo et al. eds., Tel Aviv 2000, pp. 8995 and the
studies mentioned there.
[26]

cantillation) and melodies of piyyutim.76 The latter, adopted from Arabic, French
or Iberian sources in Durans own testimony, differ from the former in that they
have discrete intervals and xed beat and rhythm. Like his predecessors, Yehudah
Halevi and Profayt Duran, he too praises the spiritual force of Biblical singing
while underscoring a social critique against the widespread singing of piyyutim
that by his time was already a venerable custom among Sephardic Jews in North
Africa as well.
In conclusion, we may note that the opposition to the singing of piyyutim
among Sephardic Jews grew in later periods and was inuenced by the mystical
interpretations of the prayers by the kabbalists in the 16th century. Even then, the
opposition was based not so much on the phenomenon of sacred poetry itself,
but rather on the interruptions that its performance caused in the ow of the
normative text of the prayer. Moreover, entire sets of piyyutim were still added to
the normative prayer service in some Sephardic traditions, especially in Morocco,
as late as the 20th century. From the texts of poems added to the prayer books from
Spain which were preserved, and from the surviving practices among Sephardic
Jews after the expulsion, we can state that introductory poems such as reshuyot
to Nishmat or to the repetition of the amidah became very common. Festive
poems in honor of grooms and bar mitzvahs also continued to be sung whenever
they were summoned to read the Torah. The baqqashot, poems recited before the
beginning of the morning service, were another type of sacred poetry that remained
in the liturgy. After the expulsion from Spain, the singing of these types of poems
developed into complex, independent events.
On the Music of Andalusian Hebrew Strophic Poetry

As for the sources of the melodies of Arabic strophic poetry shared by Jews and
Arabs in Al-Andalus we can only speculate, once again, on the basis of very
precarious data. Arabic sources transmitted the vague idea that the music of
this original new poetry from Al-Andalus was a unique combination of Arabic
(Eastern) and Christian (Western) musical traditions (Ahmad b. Yusuf Al-Tifashi
[11841253], Mutat al-sma ilm al-sam.)77 This combination is attributed to
Ibn Bajja (Avempace, d. Fez 1138) who combined the songs of the Christians with
those of the East with the assistance of trained singing girls.78
76 Passage on music in ed. Livorno 1785, fols. 55b-56a; Adler, HWCM, no. 241; D.
Harrn, Duran, Simeon, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., vol.
7 (2001), p. 736.
77 Translated in B. M. Liu, and J. T. Monroe, Ten Hispano-Arabic Strophic Songs in the
Modern Oral Tradition: Music and Texts. Berkeley, Ca., 1989.
78 Liu and Monroe, Ten Hispano-Arabic, p. 42; Reynolds, Music, pp. 6566; Rosen,
[27]
Edwin Seroussi
To circumvent the lack of tangible sources about the Andalusian musical
style, some scholars have proposed a comparative approach based on the study of
performance practices of Andalusian strophic poetry in the contemporary music
traditions of North Africa (usually called al-ala al-andalusiyya, i.e., Andalusian
instrumental music). This hypothesis was rst advanced by Stern.79 Since then
many scholars have explored this idea, as more information became available on
the contemporary music of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, as well as on
the performance of the medieval and modern muwashshahs in the Middle East,
especially in the venerable tradition of Aleppo in Syria.80 This interest was, of
course, triggered by the survival of fragments of medieval strophic poems in the
manuscript compendia of poetry for singing used by contemporary Arab musicians.
Following this evidence, Schippers proposed to consider the possibility that
the present-day recordings of so-called Andalusian muwashshahs can shed light
upon some questions involving muwashshah tradition, especially with regard
to the performance of the songs, despite the fact that only a handful of ancient
muwashshahs gure in the modern collections.81
In light of this increasing interest by scholars of Andalusian Arabic and Hebrew
strophic poetry in the possible survival of old musical practices in the modern
repertoires, it is surprising that Jewish musical traditions of Andalusian origins
were hardly considered.82 Strophic poetry was, as mentioned above, introduced
79
80
81
82
The Muwashshah, p. 171; A. Shiloah, Music in the World of Islam: A Socio-Cultural

Study. Detroit 1995, p. 75; D. Wulstan, The Muwashshah and Zajal Revisited, p.
251.
S. M. Stern, Andalusian Muwashshahs in the Musical Repertoire of North Africa,
Actas del I Congreso de Estudios rabes e Islmicos, Crdoba 1962, Madrid 1964,
pp. 319327.
L. I. Al Faruqi, Muwashshah : A Vocal Form in Islamic Culture, Ethnomusicology 9
(1975), no. 1, pp. 129; L. J. Plenckers, Les rapports entre le muwashshahs algrien
et the virelai du moyen ge, in The Challenge of the Middle East, I. A. Elsheikh
ed., Amsterdam 1982, pp. 91111; J. T. Monroe, The Tune or the Words? (Singing
Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry), Al Qantara 8 (1987), pp. 265317; U. Haxen,
Kharjas in Hebrew Muwashshah as, in Studies on the Muwashshah and the Kharja,
A. Jones and R. Hitchcock eds., Oxford 1991, p. 46; A. Schippers, Some Remarks on
the Present-Day Tradition of Andalusian Muwashshahat in North Africa, in Studies
on the Muwashshah and the Kharja, A. Jones and R. Hitchcock eds., Oxford 1991, p.
150; O. J. Zwartjes, Algunas observaciones sobre la funcin de la xarja: Al-xarja do
amalayn (Ibn Quzman, zajal no. 59), Poesa Estrfica: Actas del Primer Congreso
Internacional, F. Corriente and A. Senz-Badillos eds., Madrid 1991, pp. 367376;
Zwartjes, Love Songs from Al-Andalus, pp. 7981, 305319; Reynolds, Music;
Rosen, The Muwashshah, p. 171.
Schippers, Some Remarks, p. 150.
For exceptions see A. Chahbar, Los megoraim marroques y el canto de las moaxajas
[28]

to the Sephardic liturgy and to paraliturgical events and this practice has persisted
without interruption until the present in North African and Eastern Mediterranean
synagogues. Moreover, some of this strophic poetry is chanted to melodies of
presumably old Andalusian Arab pedigree. These melodies reect in their structure
patterns related to the literary forms, such as differentiation between refrain and
stanza, discrete melodic sections for units ending in different rhymes and division
of the performance between cantor and congregation. Moreover, the medieval
Arabic models of some of this chanted Hebrew strophic poetry are mentioned
in the printed and manuscript compendia used by Sephardic synagogue singers.
Schippers, for example, located the original Arabic muwashshah, upon which a
Hebrew poem included in the collection Zimrat Eliyahu by Eliyahu Ghanim of
Sousse is based, in the collection al- Muwashshahat wa-l-azjal by J. Yalas and
A. Hafnawi.83
Jewish Musicians in the Muslim Courts of Spain

The Jews prociency in performance and their knowledge of the repertoire of
Arabic courtly songs are the background for the development of the Andalusian
Hebrew song. The involvement of Jewish musicians, both as performers and
composers, in the courts of Arabic rulers from an early stage is therefore a reasonable
assumption that can be supported by scattered evidence. A symbolic expression of
such involvement is found in the story of Zyriab, the mythological founder of the
Iberian school of Arabic music who arrived in Al-Andalus from Baghdad in the
rst half of the 9th century. The legend of Zyriab has reached us through much later
accounts that appear to combine vague memories of real events with extensive
literary imagination, as Poch and Wright have shown.84 According to this legend,
y el zjel, Abraham Ibn Ezra y su tiempo: Actas del Simposio Internacional, F. Daz
Esteban ed., Madrid 1990, pp. 5157; Zwartjes, Love Songs from al-Andalus; Rosen,
The Muwashshah, p. 175; E. Seroussi, Andalusian Hebrew Strophic Poetry in the
Religious Musical Repertoire of the Moroccan Jews, Muwashshah: Proceedings of
the Conference on Arabic and Hebrew Strophic Poetry and its Romance Parallels,
School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS], London, 810 October 2004, E.
Emery ed., London 2006.
83 Schippers, Some Remarks, pp. 149159; Eliyahu Ghanim of Sousse, Zimrat Eliyahu,
Tunis 5663/1903, p. 19, no. 38; J. Yalas and A. Hafnawi al- Muwashshaht wa-l-azjal
Algiers, I 1972, II 1975, III 1982; for the score of this Arabic song see, L. J. Plenckers,
De Muziek van de Algerijnse muwashshah, Ph.D. diss, Amsterdam 1989.
84 Ch. Poch, Un nouveau regard sur la musique dAl-Andalus: Le manuscrit dAlTifashi, Revista de Musicologa 16 (1993), no. 1 (Actas del XV Congreso de la
Sociedad Internacional de Musicologa, vol. 1), pp. 367379; O. Wright, Music in
[29]
Edwin Seroussi
a Jewish musician called Al-Mansur al-Yahudi, who served at the court of the
Umayyid caliph Al-Hakim I in Cordova, was commissioned by his benefactor
to travel to Algeciras to greet Zyriab. Upon Zyriabs arrival in Al-Andalus, the
news about the death of the caliph (822) reached Algeciras. Al Mansur persuaded
Zyriab to offer his services to the new caliph Abd al-Rahman II.85 In spite of the
questionable contents of this narrative, the inclusion of a Jew in a major role in the
mythical construction of the chain of events that led to the establishment of the
distinctive Andalusian school of Arabic music cannot be underestimated.
The case of Al-Mansur is not an isolated episode. There are other references
to distinguished Jewish musicians serving at the courts of the Muslim rulers of
Al-Andalus. Among them is the renowned Jewish court musician from twelfthcentury Cordova, Yitsh aq ibn Shimon, who marveled with his composition
of melodies in different styles and methods, and besides was a good singer and
instrumentalist.86 Avenary maintained that this musician also served at the court
of Hasdai Ibn Shaprut in Cordova, while Farmer tied him to no less than Ibn Bajja.87
One has to bear in mind that at this time Cordova was still the main training
center of music in al-Andalus, especially for singing and dancing girls, a favorite
entertainment at court.88 A source from a later period (late 13th century) attests
also to the existence of mujannatn, effeminate singers who imitated womens
85
86
87
88
Muslim Spain, in The Legacy of Muslim Spain, S. Kh. Jayyusi ed., Leiden, New York,
Kln 1994, vol. 2, pp. 555579.
A. Shiloah, Al-Mansur al-Yahudi, Encyclopaedia Judaica 1 (1972), col. 660 based on
Al Maqqari, Nafh at-tb min gun al_Andalus - Analectes sur lhistoire et la litrature
des Arabes dEspagne, Leyde 18551861, vol. 2, pp. 85ff; Farmer, A History of
Arabian Music, pp. 129, 131; and R. Dozy, Historie des Musulmans dEspagne, Leyde
1932, vol. 1, p. 311.
J. Ribera y Tarrag, Music in Ancient Arabia and Spain being la Msica de las
Cantigas, California 1929, reprint New York 1970. The quote of Ribera is from MS
80 by Ibn Said. This is probably the manuscript of the Academy for History in
Madrid that Ribera quotes in other of his writings. Ibn Said may be identified as
the philologist Ali ibn Musa Ibn Said (12131286) whose work Kitab al-Mughrib
fi hula l-Maghreb is well known. See, C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischer
Literatur, Leiden 1942, vol. 1, 336337. A. Shiloah, The Jews of Spain and the
Quest for Cultural Indentity, Revista de Musicologa 16 (1993), no. 1 [= Actas del XV
Congreso de la Sociedad Internacional de Musicologa vol. 1], p. 381 mentions this
Jewish musician too but without crediting Ribera as the source.
Avenary, Music, col. 596; Farmer, A History of Arabian Music, p. 212.
H. Prs, La posie andalouse en arabe classique au XIe sicle: Ses aspects gnraux
et sa valeur documentaire, Paris 1937, pp. 383ff, 388389. Singing girls (qaynah) were
a vital component in the Abbasid culture in Baghdad and this trend continued in alAndalus. See the epistle by Abu Uthman Amnr b. Bah r al-Jah iz (776869), translated
as The Epistle on Singing Girls of Jahiz, A.F. Beeston ed., Warmister 1980.
[30]

voices, attire and haircut and performed at weddings and funerals.89 Although we
assume that Jewish women and men refrained from this brand of entertainment,
the possibility of isolated cases is not entirely far-fetched.
Another Jewish musician of talent from the Muslim period in Spain was
Dan from Toledo. Al-Santarn (d. 1147) reports that when al-Mamn, prince
of Toledo, arranged a grand soire (idar), this Jewish singer, accompanied by
a band of musicians, entertained the guests.90 Al-Mamns court was rich in
musical entertainment for it employed two orchestras at a time, one consisting
of women and one of men. The orchestra, called sitra, included only melodic
instruments (i.e. no percussion instruments), especially lutes, and was separated
from the guests (but not from the prince), together with the singers, by a curtain.91
This was probably the context in which Jews like Dan performed in Al-Andalus
in the 11th century.
Jews and Medieval Arabic Music Theory

Besides their prociency in performance and composition, Jews in Muslim Spain
knew and studied Arabic texts on theoretical aspects of music, which were included
in the curriculum based on the Greek lore inherited by the Arabs. This knowledge
of music theory (including acoustics, tunings, speculations about harmonies of
the spheres, etc.) is reected in the copious circulation of Hebrew translations,
paraphrases and commentaries of classic writings about music by renowned
Arabic scholars from East and West.92
We already mentioned the use that Moshe Ibn Ezra made of the famous musical
epistle of Ihwan al-saf (Brotherhood of Purity) in his treatise on Hebrew
poetics. In another text on music included in his Book of the Garden on Metaphor
and Reality (Maqlat al-hadqah, translated into Hebrew by Yehudah Alh arizi
as Arugat ha-bosem), Ibn Ezra incorporated passages about music from diverse
Arabic sources, such as Al Kindi and Hunayn b. Yitsh q (808873).93 Musical
89 Muhammad Al-Saqat, El Kitb f Adb A-Hisba: Libro del Buen Gobierno del
Zoco, Pedro Chalmeta Gendrn trans. and ed., Al-Andalus 33/2 (1968), p. 161162.
Originally published as Un manuel hispanique de hisba, G. S. Colin and E. Lvi
Provenal eds., Paris 1931, p. 68.
90 Ali Ibn Bassam Al-Santarn, Adh-dhahra fi mahasin ahl al-jazra, I. Abbas ed.,
Libia, Tnez 1975, part IV, vol. 1, p. 105, line 5, quoted by Prs, La posie andalouse,
p. 382 directly from Lvi-Provenals Ms, fol. 188b.
91 Prs, La posie andalouse, p. 385.
92 For a selection of texts see, Adler HWCM.
93 Ibidem, no. 280; see A, Shiloah, The Musical Passage in Ibn Ezras Book of the
Garden, Yuval 4 (1982), pp. 211224.
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Edwin Seroussi
passages from Al-Farabis inuential Ihs al-ulm appear quoted in Hygiene
of the Soul (Tibb al-nufs) by Yosef b. Yehudah Ibn Aqnin (11501220), a
disciple of Maimonides and in Reshit hokhma by Shem Tov b. Yosef Ibn Falaqera
(12251295). Falaqeras Sefer hamevaqqesh (Book of the Seeker) of 1263 is
one of the Hebrew sources closest to the epistle of Ihwan al-saf.94 Another Arab
theoretician of music assiduously quoted by medieval Iberian Jews was Ibn Sina.95
Interspersed in these passages on music theory are allusions to current musical
practices. For example, Moshe Ibn Ezra interpolates in his Maqlat al-hadqah
some practical observations on the relationship between strophic poetry and its
musical performance that brings to mind the passage on music in the Kuzari by
Yehudah Halevi.96
Further evidence of the involvement of Andalusian Jews in contemporary
Arabic music comes from the period of decline in Arab cultural prominence in
Iberia. In Maimonides commentary to the Mishnah Arakhin 2, 3, the musical
interests of the Great Eagle come to light. In this passage he discusses the
musical instruments used in the Second Temple of Jerusalem during Festivals.
It clearly attests to the sages awareness of the musical practices of his time, as
well as the existence of a specic musical form, al-tiyah, that has survived in
the modern Andalusian music from Morocco and Algeria. The function of this
instrumental genre is to introduce the singer, who sings the song accompanied in
unison by the instruments. The Arabic instruments mentioned by Maimonides in
this passage, the mizmar and the ud, comprised the basic ensemble of his time in
Andalusia and North Africa. Maimonides remarks probably reect contemporary
Jewish musical practice as well.97 Hereby follows a translation of this important
musical passage by Maimonides:
[Mishnah] They did not sound less than twenty-one blasts in the Temple
[Commentary] Nevel is an instrument in the form of a water-bag with
strings and one plays on it [on the strings; Maimonides has the Arabic ud in
mind as seen later in this passage]
And halil is an instrument famous among all, i.e. the mizmar.
And abuv is the pipe of a ute, i.e. the thin pipe [i.e. the reed] at the
head [of the ute]. And the reed of the pipe [abuv shel qaneh] is the small
pipe at the head of the ute.
94
A. Shiloah, The Sources of Shem Tov Ibn Falaqera, Fourth World Congress of
Jewish Studies, Jerusalem 1978, vol. 2, pp. 373377 (Hebrew).
95 Adler, HWCM, nos. 390, 400, 410, 430, 440, 500.
96 Shiloah, The Musical Passage, p. 222.
97 Seroussi, More on Maimonides on Music.
[32]

And abuv yehidi, i.e. it has one hole [unlike the pipe of the ute that has
many].
And it divides [mahaliq]. This is the melody [zemer] that the player
[zamar] plays [mezamer] on the ute, something like the preceding matter,
before the singer [menagen] begins to sing [lenagen] against [she-ke-negdo,
more precisely to the accompaniment in unison] the rhythm [or playing]
of the ud, [and it is called in Arabic] al-tiyah, in this way it was always
explained to us.
Our discussion of Jewish prociency in Arabic music theory completes a wellrounded picture of the intense involvement of Spanish Jews in all aspects of the
musical culture in Muslim Spain. Of course, the information upon which this
picture is drawn is extremely scattered and the few texts available only reect the
practices and perceptions of the elites.
Jewish Music Culture in Christian Spain (ca. 11501492)

The transition of the Iberian Jews from Arab-dominated areas into the realm of
Christian rule was a long and slow process. In spite of this irreversible historical
development, the rooted Arabic character of Iberian Jewish culture did not totally
dwindle in the Christian kingdoms.98 Jewish poets continued to use the Arabic
forms and meters as late as the early 15th century. We may assume that the musical
performance of Hebrew strophic poetry, in its secular and liturgical contexts,
was still inuenced by Andalusian Arabic tunes. The tradition of Jewish musical
entertainment found at the major Arab courts of Al-Andalus was perpetuated in
the Christian kingdoms. In Catalonia and Aragon there was even an impressive
growth in the number of Jewish musicians active at courts.
Another crucial cultural process characteristic of this period and affecting the
musical repertoires of the Jews was the gradual linguistic transition from Arabic
to Romance languages, eventually to the predominant Castilian language. The
adoption of folksongs in Romance languages by Iberian Jews, one of the most
enduring musical features of Sephardic culture after the expulsion from Spain,
occurred progressively from the late 11th century onwards, as the Romance kharjas
in Hebrew muwashshahas attest. However, the development of distinctive Jewish
repertoires of songs in Romance languages occurred much later, from the 14th
98 E. Gutwirth, Hispano-Jewish Attitudes to the Moors, Sefarad 49 (1989), no. 2, pp.
237261; Y. T. Assis, The Judeo-Arabic Tradition in Christian Spain, in The Jews
of Medieval Islam: Society and Identity, D. Frank ed., Leiden, New York, Kln, 1995,
pp. 111124; Brann, The Arabized Jews.
[33]
Edwin Seroussi
century. This development eventually led to the inux of the melodies of these
folksongs, many of which still originated within the framework of an Arabic
culture, into the realm of religious singing. The Hebrew contrafactum of melodies
of folksongs in Romance languages is a well-documented phenomenon in the
post-expulsion period too. New documentation shows that we can now trace this
phenomenon back to as early as the late 14th century.
The Consolidation of Sephardic Synagogue Music in Christian Spain

By the beginning of the 13th century, when most of Iberian Jewry was under Christian
rule, the aesthetics of musical performance of the liturgy in the synagogues of Spain
was well dened. Some scholars have attempted to reconstruct the atmosphere of
a Sephardic synagogue in the medieval period on the basis of the scattered pieces
of information available. Ashtor, for example, offers a ctional reconstruction
of a service during the festival of Sukkoth in Toledo in the 11th century.99 Such
reconstructions are of course projections of modern perceptions and sensibilities
on medieval practices.
Nonetheless, from the scanty details that can be gleaned from historical sources
emerges a set of performance practices and aesthetic ideals that would become the
hallmark of the Sephardic synagogue in periods to come. These practices include
the sequencing, within one liturgical event, of diverse types of sounding structures
ranging from simple chant formulae of texts in prose to elaborate melodies of
strophic poetry. The cantor, who performed the liturgy, especially on Sabbath and
Festivals, emerged as a pivotal gure in many medieval Spanish communities.
The entire synagogue congregation participated actively in the service by chanting
refrains of strophic poems and other sections of the liturgical text. From many
descriptions of medieval Spanish synagogues it emerges that congregational
singing was usually loud and disorganized. Even if such descriptions, usually
transmitted by Christian sources, were not devoid of a-priori negative biases (see
below), they do seem to reect some genuine qualities of the Sephardic synagogue
soundscape.
Circumstantial internal criticisms of such practices are not unusual. The
halakhic manual Tsedah la-derekh, written by Menah em ben Aharon ben Zerah for
the Jewish courtier Shemuel Abrabanel in the mid-14th century, provides us with
an idea of the soundscape of the Sephardic synagogues of the period. Regarding
the proper recitation of the concluding prayer of the morning service, Aleinu
leshabeah Ben Zerah observes that:
99 Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, pp. 141ff.
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They have to be said with intention (kavannah) and in a dignied manner
(be-mitun), not like most of the cantors are accustomed to perform them, in a
muted and rushing manner (be-safah rafah u-bimrutzah), without intention,
to the point where no one [in the congregation] says it with his fellow, but
one is reciting upwards and the other one downwards, not as supplicants but
as wrestlers.100
On the High Holy Days, especially on the Day of Atonement, it was customary
for the rabbi to conduct the services.101 The order of the prayers and the manner of
their performance was a matter of local custom. However, the practices of leading
communities were adopted as precedents in other places and formed the basis of
local minhagim.102 In the 14th century the minhag of Barcelona was held in high
esteem and became a model to imitate.103
We have seen that music, understood as strophic melodies with xed beat,
i.e. melodies consisting of a xed and recurring number of phrases, was a growing
feature of the synagogues of Al-Andalus since the introduction of Hebrew strophic
poetry to the liturgy. It is probable that even at this early stage the use of melodies
with xed beat spread to other texts of the liturgy in prose. In other words, the
Jewish liturgy in Spain was in a constant process of musicalization.
This treatment of organized sound as a marker of diverse approaches to the
meaning and content of the liturgical text can be seen in the dispute regarding the
performance of the Qeddushah de-Sidra in medieval Spain.104 R. Shelomo ben
Adret (12351310) of Barcelona, the most respected rabbinical authority of his
time, wrote numerous responsa about performance practices in the synagogue. In a
responsum written in 1305 to the community of Huesca, he referred to the practice
of singing sections of songs without words, another example of the emphasis
placed on music in synagogue liturgy.105 Moreover, the normative prayers were
100 Menahem ben Aharon Ibn Zerah , Tsedah la-derekh, Warsaw 1880, reprint Tel Aviv
1963, chapter 37, p. 48.
101 Yitsh aq ben Sheshet Perfet, Sefer sheelot u-teshuvot, D. Metzger ed., Jerusalem 1993,
no. 219.
102 Shelomo ben Adret, Sheelot u-teshuvot ha-Rashba, Jerusalem 19972005, 1, 452; 3,
288; Yitsh aq ben Sheshet Perfet, Sheelot u-teshuvot, nos. 84, 334.
103 Yitsh aq ben Sheshet Perfet, Ibidem, 37, 334.
104 Discussed at length by R. Langer, To Worship God Properly: Tensions between
Liturgical Custom and Halakhah in Judaism, Cincinnati 1998, pp. 206209.
105 Shelomo ben Adret, Sheelot u-teshuvot 1, 215, mentioned in E. Werner, The Doxology
in Synagogue and Church: A Liturgico-Musical Study, HUCA 19 (1946), p. 327; see
also Shiloah, Jewish Liturgical Singing in Spain, p. 431.
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Edwin Seroussi
embellished with additional chants. For example, on the Sabbath the presence of a
bridegroom among the worshipers was announced with a special song.106
In the early 14th century this expanded musicality of the synagogues of Spain
caught the attention of the prominent Ashkenazi rabbi R. Asher ben Yeh iel (ca.
12501327) who was living in Castile. R. Asher noted in one of his responsa,
in what appears to be a comparison between the Sephardic liturgy and his own
Ashkenazi liturgical background, that in Christian Spain the liturgy was largely
sung by an expert hazzan, actively accompanied by an intrusive congregation in
a rather disordered manner.
In my opinion one has to reprimand all those who raise their voices in
the Eighteen [Benedictions] and say with the hazzan the Eighteen and the
qeddushah The cantor prays [the Eighteen] on behalf of all those who are
not acquainted with the prayers and those who sing [mezammerim] along
with the hazzan act frivolously.
It is forbidden to say qaddish with the cantor and one has to pay
attention to the hazzan and respond Amen yehe sheme rabah after him and
the same in the qeddushah, the hazzan says naqdishakh ve-naaritzakh
etc. until he arrives to qaddosh and [only] then the congregation answers
qaddosh.
And also I heard everywhere [in Spain] that they say Yitaleh ve-yishtabah
when the hazzan says barekhu and this is why the hazzan prolongs [the
singing of barekhu].107
Another special task of the hazzan in medieval Spain was the public recitation of
the scriptures on Sabbaths and Holy Days. By the 11th century most young men
in Spain could not properly read the scriptures during services. R. Yehudah ben
Barzillai ha-Nasi al-Bargeloni testies that in this generation the cantor reads [the
Biblical portion from the scroll] and the oleh [a member of the congregation who
is granted the honor of reading the Torah in public] remains silent.108 According to
the same source, the cantor sometimes read together with the oleh in order to help
him, or whispered to him the proper reading. However, even ignorant bridegrooms
were trained to read a portion from the Torah.109
106 Shelomo ben Adret, Ibidem, 469; Neuman, The Jews in Spain, p. 158.
107 Asher ben Yehiel, Sheelot u-teshuvot, Vilna 1885, IV, no. 19. See also S.B.Freehof,
Home rituals and the Spanish synagogues, Studies and Essays in Honor of Abraham
A. Neuman, M. Ben-Horin, B.D.Wienryb and S. Zeitlin eds., Leiden and Philadelphia,
1962, pp. 215217, especially pp. 221222.
108 R. Yehudah ben Barzillai ha-Nasi al-Bargeloni, Sefer ha-ittim, p. 264, no. 178.
109 Duran, Tashbetz II, 39; Neuman, The Jews in Spain, p. 158.
[36]

The active role of the medieval Spanish congregation during prayer rendered
the Sephardic service a loud and disordered affair. These characteristics are
probably the origin of the widespread and well-documented Christian perception
of the Jewish prayer as a lament or as a loud shouting. Both Jews and conversos
were referred to in Spain as lamentadores (lit. mourners) because the synagogue
chanting was heard by Christians as a constant, deep lament. Another example
of this perception is found in a composition by Pedro Manrique addressed to
the famous marrano Juan de Valladolid, in which the poet claims that when the
latter entered the Seo of Valencia all the objects acquired Jewish attributes and
the priest then sang a guaya [derived from the interjection guay! used by the
Jews in their laments] instead of a cheerful chant (cant luego el sacerdote / la
guaya por alegra).110 Jewish liturgical singing was also perceived as loud. The
Comendador Romn, a 15th century poet of apparent Jewish descent, addressing
Antn de Montoro, encourages him to enjoy singing with the special gritillo
(lit. scream or screech) that was so identied with the Spanish Jews.111 Christians
perceived the Spanish synagogue as a strange and noisy location. They were
even more bewildered by the continuous bodily movements of the Jews during
their prayers. Inquisitorial records frequently refer to this typical movement as
sabadear.112 Despite these prejudiced perceptions of Jews and Jewish practices,
Spanish Christian nobles, from kings to knights, including ladies of the court,
showed surprising interest in the synagogue and most especially in the gure of
the hazzan (cantor). This interest sometimes lead to the embarrassment of the
congregation.113
What became perceived as lack of decorum in the synagogues (in comparison
to the churches) and, perhaps paradoxically, an exaggerated musicality of the
cantors, features that by the 14th century characterized the synagogues of Spain,
were strongly condemned by some rabbinical authorities. The catastrophe of 1391
led some thinkers to conceptualize these events as a punishment for the sins of the
Jewish communities, including the sin of musicalizing the liturgy at the expense
of true devotion. In his Iggeret musar (c. 1415), a moralistic treatise addressed
to a student from Portugal, R. Shelomo Ibn Lah mish Alami (ca. 13701420)
warns: Beware of the melodies of the drunks and from the songs of the fools. The
110 J. M. Sol-Sol, Sobre rabes, judos y marranos y su impacto en la lengua y literatura

espaolas, Barcelona 1983, pp. 238239 and 274275, quoting J. Caro Baroja, Los
judos en la Espaa moderna y contempornea, Madrid 1962, vol. 3, p. 187, note 42.
111 Sol-Sol, Ibidem, pp. 238239.
112 H. Beinart, Los conversos ante el tribunal de la Inquisicin. Barcelona 1983, p. 342.
113 Baer, Die Juden im christlichen Spanien, vol. 1, text no. 294, p. 430, an ordinance by
Pedro IV dated Valencia 13rd July 1369, text no. 542, p. 864 an ordinance issued by
Pedro IV in Zaragosa on 13rd September 1458
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Edwin Seroussi
despicable hazzanim who halt in the middle of the blessings with lascivious songs
contaminated with lust and metered with the fancy meters of the Christians and
the Muslims. Alamis testimony includes the familiar accusations regarding the
use of metered Arabic melodies by the cantors in order to please the audience,
a feature that leads in his opinion to idolatry. And the people and their leaders
Alami adds,
do not pay any attention to the selection of their cantors, to their desirable
qualities and the majority, except me, are driven by the pleasant voice [of
the cantors] that reaches their ears and they hear the voice but the image they
do not see except for the voices, they do not care for the [cantors] minimal
understanding [of the prayer text] or for their low [moral] standards, and add
to that that I found among them even some who are suspected of adultery.114
Although Alamis critical approach must taken with caution, the picture that
emerges from his portrayal is clear. The beauty of the voices of the cantors and
the use of foreign melodies were, by the late 14th century, standard features of the
Sephardic liturgy.
By the 15th century the musicalization of the liturgy was perceived as a xed
feature and a desirable religious duty, as explained by R. Yosef Albo in his
inuential work Sefer ha-Iqarim, completed in Soria (Castile) in 1425:
The rule is that the prayer needs three features in order to be acceptable
The words of the prayer must be pleasant to the hearer and not tiresome.
For this reason, metered songs (shirim) and piyyutim and supplications
(baqqashot) have been added to the prayers because all the requirements
mentioned are contained in them, and they correspond to music (le-niggunei
ha-musiqa) besides, for the denition of a poem is that it is a composition
in which the parts bear relation to and have connection with each other, and
it expresses the idea of the composer in brief and pleasant words, metrically
arranged in accordance with the music. 115
This compelling testimony, which includes one of the earliest uses of the
word music in an Hebrew text in its very modern sense (i.e. in reference to
performance practice and not to speculative theory), shows the extent to which the
114 Rabbi Shelomo Ibn Lah mish Alami, Iggeret musar o Iggeret ha-tokheha ve-ha-emuna,
ed. A.B. Haberman, Jerusalem 1946, pp. 25 and 50 respectively.
115 Yosef Albo, Sefer ha-Iqarim, ed. princeps, Soncino 1485. Translation based on Joseph
Albo, Sefer ha-Ikkarim, translated by I. Husik, Philadelphia, 1946, 4:1, pp. 210211.
[38]

musicalization process became a xed feature of the Sephardic liturgy well before
the expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula.
The rise to prominence of the gure of the cantor that started in the Muslim
period reached its peak in Christian Spain. The cantor was called shaliah tsibbur
(lit. emissary of the congregation) or hazzan. As a religious ofcial the cantor
was highly esteemed and his ofce was ranked second only to that of the rabbi.
In his Tahkemoni (ca. 1220), the traveler Yehudah Alh arizi (11651225) refers to
some cantors with the title of reb whom he meets in the Jewish communities of
Spain and Provence during his journey to the Middle East. One of these cantors
is Yosef Alsiyad of Lerida, whom Alh arizi criticizes for adopting the manners of
the gentiles (derekh ha-minnim lamad).116 Yahalom and Blau assume that this is a
reference to the Karaite tendencies of this cantor. 117 Yet this passage can be also
read as an allusion to his involvement with foreign music. Alh arizi also had harsh
comments about cantors from the East.118
Cantors in medieval Spain were required to possess a pleasant musical voice,
to be learned in Hebrew, and to have a pious character.119 The duties of the ofce
included not only the chanting of the service and the scriptural reading from the
scrolls of the Law, but also the art of scribal writing. The post was elective and
was frequently paid a xed salary. R. Shelomo ben Adret recommended a xed
payment for the shaliah tsibbur as a means to ensure his unfailing dedication to the
congregation and to the proper rendition of the liturgy.120 In Al-Andalus cantors,
along with other talmidei hakhamim (learned scholars), enjoyed certain privileges
such as exemption from paying taxes or custom fees.121 In Elche in the second half
of the 14th century the cantor was exempted from participating as a member of the
rabbinical tribunal.122
Being a cantor became a desired position in medieval Spain and was handed
down from father to son. Several responsa by R. Shelomo ben Adret vividly show
how artistic jealously and legal antecedents were interwoven in arguments related
116 Yehudah Alh arizi, Tahkemoni, Tel-Aviv 1952, p. 346.
117 J. Yahalom, and Y. Blau eds., The Wanderings of Judah Alharizi: Five Accounts of His
Travels, Jerusalem 2002, p. 50 (Hebrew).
118 Yehudah Alh arizi, The Book of Takhkemoni: Jewish Tales from Medieval Spain, D. S.
Segal trans. and ed., London, Portland 2001, pp. 534540.
119 Shelomo ben Adret, Sheelot u-teshuvot 1, 215, 300; Baer, Die Juden im christlichen
Spanien, vol. 1, p. 294.
120 Shelomo ben Adret, Ibidem I, 691; compare with Alfasi, Sheelot u-teshuvot, p. 281.
121 Neuman, The Jews of Spain, p. 159, note 102; Shimon ben Tzemah Duran, Sefer
hatashbetz, 3, 254
122 M. Ben Sasson, Sources on the History of the Jewish Communities in Spain in the
Fourteenth Century, Galut ahar gola (Sefer Hayyim Beinart), A. Mirski and others
ed., Jerusalem 1998, p. 300 (Hebrew).
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Edwin Seroussi
to the rights of cantors to their post.123 One of these responsa relates to a crisis
created when the hereditary post of the hazzan was challenged by members of the
congregation of the great synagogue of Huesca around the year 1300. A careful
reading of the arguments included in the presentation of this case to Ben Adret
reveals the inner workings of an Iberian synagogue in the early 14th century. Once
again, voice quality emerges as a major concern in the selection of cantors.
A question from Reuben who sued Shimon and said to him: You were
shaliah tsibbur in the synagogue of Huesca for thirty-eight years and now
you are old and your hair is gray and you cannot serve the community as you
used to do before. In your place you gave us your son and he is not worthy
of your ofce because he does not have a pleasant voice, and I and some of
the members of the above-mentioned synagogue do not want him to lead
the prayers. If you can still lead the prayers, that would be better for us, but
if you do not, respect our wish and retire to your home. Shimon [i.e. the
cantor] responded: it is possible that I have exhausted my strength and that
my eyes are less sharp due to age and that I cannot see and read the Torah
scroll as I used to. Yet on all other matters that pertain to the shaliah tsibbur
my energies are as strong as they used to be. I plead to the congregation who
prays in the synagogue to be kind to me as it was to my forefathers, because
my father and my grandfather served your fathers and your grandfathers
all the days of their life and in spite of the fact that my above mentioned
son does not have a pleasant voice, he fullls the role of my forefathers
in all other matters, and reads the Torah scroll in my place and writes all
that I have to say to the public in order to avoid the infringement of the
ordinance [taqqana] that I have inherited from the communitys forefathers
of blessed memory. They were the ones who appointed me to the post of
shaliah tsibbur for all the days of my life in agreement and [according to]
their choice. Nobody besides me, or whoever I appoint to replace me, can
serve on any matter or affair related to the jurisdiction of the shaliah tsibbur
as it is written in the text of the ordinance. Indeed the benevolence and
the will of the majority of the congregation, about one hundred and fty
members, show mercy and compassion for the memory of my forefathers
who were the shelihei tsibbur of their fathers and of them. Their wish is
that my son assists me on all matters referred to above for all the days of
my life. The people that you represent do not number more than ten. This is
the text of the ordinance [relating to the functions of the cantor in Huesca]:
The congregation of the big synagogue of Huesca agrees unanimously
and without any exception. to appoint a cantor [hazzan] to serve them
123 Shelomo ben Adret, Sheelot u-teshuvot 1, 300, 450; 3, 428
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on all matters of singing the prayers [hizzun] from small to big matters for
everybody from today and for the rest of his life, etc. The congregation has
no authority to appoint someone else to assist the appointed cantor on any
of the matters mentioned in the ordinance besides those who are appointed
by the cantor.124
Differing interests and tastes within the same congregation often lead to conict.
Ben Adret was called to rule in a case in which a community appointed two
cantors at the same time. He was not at all surprised by this quarrel, as his answer
reveals:
On issues related to the public domain, there is no permission for a minority
to make decisions without the agreement of the entire congregation, as they
are partners on all issues pertaining to the public and on all appointments
needed for the congregation as a corporation: tax collectors and shelihei
tsibbur, etc Such a dispute occurred in the holy congregation of Granada
and R. Moshe zl imposed a compromise between the cantors, as follows:
that there will be two cantors, and one prays on one Sabbath and the other on
another Sabbath. This also happened in our congregation in Barcelona. For
this reason I order you to avoid dispute and to restore love and comradeship.
You too selected one cantor and then another cantor and you appointed both
of them. Since the rst one preceded the second one, in order not to offend
him, he will lead the prayers rst on the rst Sabbath and afterwards the
second cantor will lead the prayers and so on, Sabbath after Sabbath. This is
the right way to solve this conict.125
R. Nissim ben Reuven Gerondi (c. 1310-c.1375) told the story of a cantor from
Perpignan who was hired by the community of Majorca because his voice was
pleasant to them and signed a three-year contract.126 After a short period of time,
the cantor asked the community to allow him to return to Perpignan in order to
bring his wife and son back with him to Majorca. The members of the community,
suspicious of his real intentions, allowed him to go as far as Barcelona and to remain
there until his family arrived from Perpignan. The cantor broke his promise, and
the community of Majorca tried to excommunicate him for violating the contract.
It was desirable for the cantors in Spain to be married or at least to be adults.
Yet, according to the following responsum by Asher ben Yeh iel, it appears that
124 Ibidem 1, 300.
125 Ibidem, Sheelot u-teshuvot 3, 428.
126 Nissim ben Reuben Gerondi, Sheelot u-teshuvot ha-Ra"n, Rabbi A. L. Friedmann ed.,
Jerusalem 1984, no. 65, pp. 285297.
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Edwin Seroussi
gifted youngsters occasionally lled the post of cantor. The lineage of the cantor
was important too. Moreover, this responsum is one of the clearest testimonies
that musicality was a main criterion for the selection of cantors in 14th-century
Castile:
[Question] A thirteen year old boy can lead the prayers sporadically but he
should not be appointed as a permanent shaliah tsibbur until he has a full
beard. [Response] Concerning what you wrote that it was the custom of
these places to appoint as shaliah tsibbur members of the most undignied
families, this behavior is a debasing of the act of public prayer, as if it is not
worthy of the best of Israel and is just one of the worthless crafts. God forbid
that the worship of the Lord shall be turned into just a craft I too, from the
day I arrived here [in Castile], have been enraged with the hazzanim of this
land, but I was not upset by your shaliah tsibbur whose appointment you
based on the status of his family. This is [however] not proper in the eyes
of God [the maqom], for if the shaliah tsibbur is of high social status but is
evil, what is the usefulness of his service to God. If he is from a non-Jewish
family and yet is righteous, peace be upon those near whose seed comes from
afar. Yet I was furious because the hazzanim of this country take pleasure in
listening to their own pleasant voices, and even if the hazzan is all evil, the
community does not hesitate to appoint him if he is a sweet singer .
You said that they have appointed a hazzan who does not yet have a full
beard to lead prayers all week at the synagogue, relying upon the fact that
they have another hazzan who leads prayers on the Sabbaths and Mondays
and Thursdays, [days when the Torah is read in the synagogue]. This is a
mistake because he is considered to be a permanent hazzan since he was
appointed to lead prayers despite the fact that there is someone else who said
that he was appointed as well. However, he can lead prayers occasionally
without being appointed as long as he says that he has grown two hairs [of
his beard]. 127
The willingness of the communities to engage as cantors individuals with a
good voice even if they had a dubious background is exemplied in a responsum
addressed from Spain to the Exilarch in Babylonia, about a cantor who frequented
brothels and, according to another testimony, had homosexual relations with a
youth.
To R. Yosef: Reuven, a Cohen [from a priestly family] came to our
congregation many years ago and we appointed him cantor [shatz]. After
127 Asher ben Yeh iel, Sheelot u-teshuvot, Jerusalem 1965, vol. 4, p. 22.
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a while, a rumor spread around the city that he negotiates with providers
of prostitutes and the rumor about him continued for a long time and the
members of the congregation did not see the need to investigate these
rumors because he was appointed cantor and performed the morning and
evening services in the synagogue to our satisfaction. But thereafter the
rumor became more and more unrelenting and members of the congregation
said that they saw him time and again leaving those houses [of prostitutes]
and moreover, they realized that the gentiles saw him frequenting a gentile
woman at the apartment where he lives and he bribed them [the gentiles] and
they left him in peace and they said that they heard gentiles condemning
the people of Israel by saying: Is this your law, to appoint a man full of
lasciviousness to pray on your behalf? 128
The question addressed to the Gaon was whether the community was under
obligation to retain such a problematic individual in his public post. The response
was that even if he repented he should not be restored to his post.
Sometimes misbehavior during his youth could be a cause for the cantors
dismissal as an adult, as the following response by R. Yosef Ibn Migash testies:
[Question] Reuven is a young cantor (shatz) and people from another city
are after him to be their cantor and he is a decent cantor (hazzan aggun),
in the sense that he meets all the conditions that razal (our teachers of
blessed memory) stipulated a cantor must have. However, one of the elders
of the public has said that it is not proper to appoint as a cantor one who
has a bad reputation from his youth [] [Response] If this rumor about the
cantor is still valid it is proper to oust him However if the rumor is about
something of the past and now he is not a suspect and one can see in him
signs of repentance and of good deeds, one should not oust him for what
happened in the past.129
References to the performance of the liturgy and the key role of its performers,
the cantors, provide us with a vivid image of this important venue for Jewish
128 Teshuvot geone mizrah u-maarav, J. Mller ed., Berlin 1888, reprint Jerusalem
1966, p. 41b, no. 171. According to some scholars the question is addressed to R.
Yosef Ibn Abitur. see, Matti Huss, The Maqama of the Cantor: Its Possible Sources
in Relation with Medieval Homoerotic Literature, Tarbiz 72 (2002/3), no. 12, pp.
197244, especially pp. 202203, note 29 and pp. 209ff. (Hebrew). Huss discusses at
lenght the issue of the cantors sexual behavior, a theme that was severly censured in
rabbinical sources.
129 Ibn Migash, Sheelot u-teshuvot, 95.
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Edwin Seroussi
music-making in medieval Spain. The struggle of the rabbis to prevent this sacred
gathering from becoming primarily a musical performance was counterbalanced
by the public pressure to increase the musical content of the prayer service.
Eventually, alternative forms of religious expression provided further opportunities
for the use of music within Jewish social frameworks in Spain.
Music and Jewish Mysticism in Spain: Nightly Vigils, Prophecy and Therapy
Additional occasions for religious musical expressions among the Jews of medieval
Spain are related to the rise of Jewish mysticism. Formal public expressions
of religiosity, i.e. the normative liturgy, apparently did not satisfy the needs of
those who aspired to a higher degree of intensity in their religious experience.
Establishing other forms of devotion was one of the main contributions of 13th
century Spanish kabbalists, such as Avraham Abulaa.130 These devotions included
novel types of musical expression, including the singing of strophic poetry, whose
scope was limited to the liturgy.
A common form of devotion developed under the inuence of mystical
practices was the habit of rising at night to recite voluntary prayers, a custom
sometimes known in medieval Spain as lehitnapel, by way of the Arabic concept
of nala. A hint to this practice is given by R. Yonah ibn Janah of Cordova in his
Sefer ha-shorashim.131
And when I consulted with Mar Yitsh aq ben Mar Shaul zl on the matter of
elekha kisiti [Psalm 143:9] he confessed I do not understand it and
told me: my custom was to pray [lehitnapel] this Psalm in the nights and
when I inquired into the issue of elekha kisiti and I could not understand it,
I refrained from praying it.
Mystical exercises such as lehitnapel belonged to the domain of the individual
or of small groups of devotees. However, an earlier custom of rising in the early
130 Moshe Idel, The Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia, New York 1988.
131 See the edition of W. Bacher, Sepher Haschoraschim Wurzelwrtebuch der
hebrischen Sprache von Abdulwalid Merwn Ibn nah (R. Jona). Aus dem
Arabischer ins Hebrische bersetz von Yehudah Ibn Tibbon, Berlin, 1896 (Hebrew),
reprint Jerusalem, 1965, p. 226, see also there, vol. 2, p. X of the Hebrew version where
the Arabic etymology of lehitnapel is discussed. This practice is also mentioned
by Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, p. 150 and note 325 and Idel, The Mystical
Experience, on the basis of the same source. For early evidence about the existence of
such practices in the East perhaps under Sufi influence, see T. Beeri, Betwen Iraq and
Spain: Ezekiel ben Eli and His Poetry, Peamim 108 (2006), pp. 518.
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hours of the day to sing before dawn may have been the antecedent to these
individual spiritual exercises. While complaining about the individuals who are
late to synagogue for the recitation of the prayer of Shema Yisrael in the morning
service, R. Yehudah ben Barzillai ha-Nasi al-Bargeloni referred, in his Sefer haittim, to the admirable custom followed in some towns and villages [probably in
his native Barcelona] that have the wisdom of rising early to go to the synagogue
to sing songs and the preliminary Psalms [pesuqei de-zimra] and to prolong them
as needed in order to read qriat shema in its proper time.132 While this testimony
does not refer specically to the expanded night vigils dedicated mostly to singing
that developed among Sephardic Jews in much later periods, it certainly heralds
such a practice.
Old customs of night vigils in private or public venues became, however, a
rooted religious Sephardic practice which continued, and was even intensied, after
the expulsion from Spain. In Christian Spain these nightly assemblies dedicated
to praying, studying and singing religious poetry were institutionalized. Evidence
of this comes from Saragossa, where in 1391 a society called Le-ashmorot or Leil
ashmorot (Nights of Vigil) was founded with the goal of formalizing the rising
to prayer in the early mornings.133 This society is another example of the network
of mutual material and spiritual support that characterized Spanish Jewry in the
Christian period.134 According to Blasco Martnez, who studied the origins of this
society from Saragossa, Rabbi Duran argued at the beginning of the 15th century
that the Jewish community of Aragon was saved from anti-Jewish riots due to their
custom of praying with intensity in the very early mornings.135
The custom of praying and singing at night or in the early hours of the morning
became a marker, sometimes with negative connotations, of Jewish culture in
Christian Spain. It is recalled, for example, in the fabricated response of the rabbis
to the poet Pedro Ferruz included in the Cancionero de Baena. While in Alcal, the
poet slept in a hostel whose walls were adjacent to two synagogues. He complains
to the rabbis, in a rather humorous manner it must be said, that he was awaked at
daybreak by the loud prayers stemming from the Jewish houses of prayer.
132 Yehudah ben Barzillai ha-Nasi al-Bargeloni, Sefer ha-ittim, no. 174, p. 253.
133 Baer, Die Juden im christlichen Spanien, vol. 1, p. 474.
134 H. Beinart, The Hispano Jewish Society, Journal of Jewish History 11 (1968), no.1
2, p. 238.
135 A. Blasco Martnez, Instituciones socio-religiosas judas de Zaragoza (siglos XIVXV): sinagogas, cofradas, hospitales, Sefarad 50 (1990), no. 1, 346, especially pp.
1819.
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Edwin Seroussi
Mas, quando viene el alva,
Un rab de una grant barva
igolo al mi diestro lado.
Muncho enantes que en todos
Viene un grant judo tuerto,
Que en medio daquessos lodos
Al Diablo lo oviesse muerto,
Que con sus grandes bramidos
Ya querran mis odos
Estar allende del puerto.
Rab Yehud el terero,
Do posa Tello, mi jo,
Los puntos de su garguero
Ms menudos [abundantes] son que

mijo,
E tengo que los baladros [alaridos]
De todos tres ayuntados
Derribarin un cortijo.136
Yet, when the sun rises

A rabbi of long beard
I hear on my right side.
Before all the rest [come to the
synagogue]
Arrives a hefty, one-eyed Jew
Whom in the middle of those noises
He would have killed the devil
Due to his rumbling screams
My ears already wanted
To be well beyond the harbor.
Rabbi Judah, the third,
Who accommodates Tello, my son,
The dots [probably the Masoretic
accents of scriptural reading] of his
singing
Are more abundant than breadcrumbs
And I am scared that the shouts
Of the three of them together
Will tear the courtyard down.
The rabbis, answering from the mouth of the poet himself, defend the quality of
their liturgical singing and then respond apologetically, suggesting to the Christian
bard that their early morning devotional prayers may benet him as well.
136
El pueblo e los hazanes

Que nos aqu ayuntamos
Con todos nuestros afanes
En el Dio siempre esperamos
Con muy buena devoin,
Que nos lleve a remissin
Porque seguros bivamos.
Venimos de madrugada
Ayuntados en grant tropel
A fazer la matinada
Al Dio santo de Israel
En tal son, como vos vedes,
Que jams non oiredes
Ruiseores en vergel.137
The people and the cantors

Who gathered together here
With all our strength
In God we always trust
With our best devotion
That He will care for us
So that we can live securely.
We arrive at daybreak
Together as a great horde
To pray the Morning Prayer
To the righteous God of Israel
With such a melody, as you can see,
That you will never listen to
[Even] from a nightingale in the garden.
136 Juan Alfonso de Baena, Cancionero de Juan Alfonso de Baena, B. Dutton and J.
Gonzlez Cuenca eds., Madrid 1993, p. 536, no. 303. See the indispensable study by
F. Cantera Burgos, El Cancionero de Baena: judos y conversos en l, Sefarad 27
(1967), pp. 71111, especially pp. 106109 on Pedro Ferruz.
[46]

It is difcult to assess the value of this contradictory assessment of synagogue
music (unbearable noise vs. very pleasant melody) coming from the mouth of one
and the same Christian poet. In the best of cases, these poems reveal a growing
gap between Christians and Jews in Spain in respect to their judgment of beauty
in religious devotions.
Female Voices: The Realm of the Life Cycle

Up to this point we have focused on music-making in the synagogues and at
court and by default have addressed the voice of men exclusively. However, there
certainly was a feminine voice among the Jews of Christian Spain that produced
its own musical repertoire which continued in the Sephardic diaspora after the
expulsion from Spain. Although records of Jewish womens musical activities in
the Iberian Peninsula are extremely scanty, since the extant sources reect the
voice of men, there are two contexts in which the female voice is mentioned. These
contexts, both traditionally related to Sephardic women, are the rites surrounding
the preparations for circumcisions and funerals. Interestingly, many documents
about Sephardic womens music repertoires have come down to us from the records
of the Inquisition. These records show converso women stubbornly striving to
preserve their customs, including the singing of traditional songs in their proper
social contexts.
The ceremony of Hadas (best known in Spanish sources as fadar), whose
origins are uncertain, was still celebrated by the conversas of Ciudad Real in the
15th century with utmost detail. The event took place in the private chamber of
the new mother on the days preceding the day of circumcision, most especially
during the last one (the eight day after the childs birth). Women, young and old,
would gather, eat together, and dress the baby in festive white robes while singing
and dancing accompanied by musical instruments.138 In the testimony of Beatriz,
daughter of Elvira Gonzlez, from about the year 1478, during the trial of Juan de
Ciudad, and of Marina Gonzlez, wife of Francisco de Toledo, at the Inquisition
of Ciudad Real, we read:
Que en su casa cuando le nasia algund jo lo fadauan, de la manera y forma
que se acostumbra entre ellos faser, vestiendo a la criatura de ropas blancas
137 Cancionero de Juan Alfonso de Baena, p. 536, no. 303
138 H. Beinart, Los conversos ante el tribunal de la Inquisicin, Barcelona 1983, pp. 302
303; R. Levine Melammed, Noticias sobre los ritos de los nacimientos y de la pureza
de las judeo-conversas castellanas del siglo XV, El Olivo 13 (1989), nos. 2930, pp.
235244.
[47]
Edwin Seroussi
e linpias. E venian muchas donellas e otras mugeres a taer y baylar a las
syete noches. (At her house when a son was born they used to circumcise
him in the manner and style that they were accustomed to, dressing the
newborn with white and clean clothes. And many young ladies and other
women used to come to play and dance during the seven nights)
Item dixo que al tiempo que paria, seyendo biba, veya que hasia las
hadas, y venian alli donzellas e otras parientas e taian alli panderos e
comian muchas frutas e alla hasia las hadas. (The above said that when she
gave birth, and remained alive, [the witness] saw her doing the hadas and
young women and female relatives came and played there on their frame
drums and ate fruits and made the hadas)
The rst lines of songs for this event have survived in inquisitional records, such
as Hadas, hadas, hadas buenas que te vengan139 or Lobo halbn [probably le-bo
ha-ben, Hebrew for the coming of the boy] hadas traygo para ty, las medias
traygo para ty y las medias traygo para my.140 It is remarkable that this type
of celebration, known also as noche de la shemirah (night of the vigil), became
deeply embedded in the Sephardic tradition and was endowed with mystical
interpretations.141 Until the present, the ceremony of name-giving for baby girls
among the Sephardim of North Morocco is called fadas. A line from one of the
most beloved havdalah (end of the Sabbath) songs from Tetuan, in which the
believers ask for a good coming week, says: para fadar y sercusir (i.e. for
name-giving [of girls] and circumcision).142 Undoubtedly the rich repertoire of
canticas de parida (songs for the mother of the newborn) that has survived in the
Sephardic repertoires until the present is testimony to the cultural importance of
this custom whose roots extend back to the medieval period.143
Pascua (Passover) appears to be another occasion in which converso women
139 Beinart, Ibidem, pp. 302303, especially note 185.
140 Quoted in Levine Melamed, Noticias sobre los ritos, p. 237.
141 E. Horowitz, The Eve of the Circumsicion: A Chapter in the History of Jewish Nightly
Life, Journal of Social History 23 (1989), pp. 4569; Ibidem, Night Vigils in Jewish
Tradition - Between Popular Culture and Official Religion, in B. Z. Kedar ed., Studies
in the History of Popular Culture, Jerusalem 1996, pp. 209224 (Hebrew).
142 M. Alvar, Cantos de boda judeo-espaoles, Madrid 1971, p. 213 and his remarks on
fadar in p. 199.
143 For example A. Hemsi, Cancionero sefard, E. Seroussi in collaboration with P. DazMas, J. M. Pedrosa and E. Romero ed., Jerusalem 1995, nos. 6873, especially the
remarks by Pedrosa in p. 193; see also M. Molho, Usos y costumbres de los sefardes
de Salnica. Madrid 1959, pp. 7981; M. L. Ortega, Los hebreos en Marruecos,
Madrid 1919: 164166; S. Weich-Shahak, Childbirth Songs among the Sephardi
Jews of Balkan Origin, Orbis Musicae 8 (1983), pp. 87103.
[48]

used to dance and play instruments. The exaltation caused by this holiday of
redemption aroused in the conversos a spirit of hope that was expressed through
movement and sound. In the records related to the trial in 1500 of Ynes, daughter
of the shoemaker Juan Estevan and Beatris Ramirez, known as the Prophetess of
Herrera, we read that a witness saw muchos de los conversos de la dicha villa
[Herrera] holgar atavyados como en dias de estas con mejores ropas que otros
dias e lo que particularmente recuerda aver vysto holgar a Ferrand Garcia,
arrendador, e a su mugger e entravan e salian en casa de Juan Estevan a hablar
e comunicar con la dicha Ybes e alli tannian e holgavan e baylavan e tannian
pandres (many of the conversos of that town wandered dressed as for a holiday
with better attire than in other days and in particular he remembers seeing
Ferrand Garcia, arrendador, and his wife who entered and left the house of Juan
Estevan to talk and communicate with that Ynes and there they played [music] and
wandered and danced and played the frame drums).144
Women in Spain also sang at funerals, or other events surrounding a death.
Professional female performers were hired to recite laments. We can assume with
a certain degree of certainty that the rich repertory of endechas (mourning songs)
that has survived in the Sephardic repertoire until the present bears traces of the
poetic and perhaps even musical formulae employed by the Jewish plaideras
(lamenters). This feminine role was shared alike by Jewish and Muslim women in
Spain. According to an Arabic manual of rules of conduct in public places dating
from late 13th century Castile, Muslim plaideras were allowed to recite Koranic
verses at funerals with the provision that their faces and bodies were properly
covered.145 Open expressions of grief among Muslim women in Al-Andalus
were customary in spite of the Islamic opposition to the public manifestations of
mourning.146
R. Yitsh aq ben Sheshet (Ha-Rivash, 13261407) vividly described Jewish
funeral services and the role of women in them in Saragossa around the second
half of the 14th century. Addressing the question of whether the custom of women
singing laments to the accompaniment of musical instruments is permitted, he
rules leniently in favor of this rooted tradition in spite of the problem of qol ishah
(the Talmudic interdiction against hearing the singing voice of a woman):
In Zarakast the mourners go to the synagogue all the seven days of mourning
(shiva) for morning and evening services even on the rst Saturday and
weekdays. After the prayers, when they return to their homes, followed by
most of the congregation which accompanies them up to the entrance to the
144 Baer, Die Juden im christlichen Spanien, vol. 2, pp. 530ff.
145 Al-Saqat, El Kitb f Adb A-Hisba, p. 162.
146 M. Marn, Mujres en al-Andaluz, Madrid 2000, pp. 301302.
[49]
Edwin Seroussi
courtyard, the woman mourner awakes the entourage and plays the drum in
her hand and the other women lament and clap their hands, and because they
do this in honor of the deceased their custom should not be abolished.147
There are records showing that Jewish as well as Muslim plaideras provided
their services to Christians. An ordinance from Seville from the time of Alfonso
XI (dated 13371347) prohibits the employment of Moorish or Jewish singers
para fazer el llanto (lit. to cry).148 In a document from 1344, the expenses
for the funeral of doa Mayor Ponce includes fteen maravedes for the judas
endicheras.149 Iberian Jewish women also performed laments at state funerals. At
the memorial services for Alfonso the Magnanimous, king of Aragon and Naples,
held in Cervera (Catalonia) in 1458, Jewish women chanted laments on the towns
square next to six rabbis.150
The records of the Inquisition also contain precious documentation concerning
the performance of lament repertoires. The testimony of Mara Gonzlez in the case
of Leonor de la Oliva in Ciudad Real, mentions Catalina de Zamora, a converso
plaidera who was recruited to sing laments (endechar in the original) at Jewish
funerals.151 In her detailed study of the mourning customs of the new Christians,
Levine Melammed describes scenes that reect old practices of the Jews in Spain.
In the trial of Isabel Garca de Hita, who apparently was a guaynidera or plaidera,
the opening line of a specic endecha is mentioned:
El da del enterramiento de la dicha persona cuando vinieron a enterrar la
cerraron las puertas de la casa de las dichas personas y echaron sus mantos
y comenaron a llorar e guayar e cantar e dar palmadas llorando un poco
e cantando un poco [diziendo]: Fuy del campo la mal casada e cogi las
yerbas.152
The subjects of la mal casada (the badly wedded) and las yerbas (simple or
bitter plants) are recurrent topics in Sephardic songs of admonition and mourning
that have survived in oral tradition. Judeo-Spanish plaideras, as described in all
147
148
149
150
151
152
Yish aq ben Sheshet Perfet, Sheelot u-teshuvot, no. 158.

Baer, Die Juden im christlichen Spanien, vol. 2, p. 160.
Ibidem, p. 162.
A. Durn y Sanpere, Discursos de entrada, Barcelona 1924, p. 27.
Baer, Die Juden im christlichen Spanien, vol. 2, p. 304 and note 192.
R. Levine Melammed, Some Death and Mourning Customs of Castillian Conversas,
In A. Mirsky, A. Grossman, Y. Kaplan eds., Exile and Diaspora, Studies in the History
of the Jewish People Presented to Professor Haim Beinart on the Occasion of His
Seventieth Birthday, Jerusalem 1991, vol. 2, pp. 163165, based on Beinart, Conversos
on Trial, pp. 282 ff
[50]

the medieval sources mentioned above, remained an integral feature in funerals of
Sephardic communities well into the 20th century.153
That Sephardic women apparently sang in open spaces emerges from the severe
complaint included in a qinah (Hebrew lament) by a rather unknown poet from
the generation of the expulsion, Meir de Vidas: Your daughters sang and chanted
like the Gentiles and became lecherous, walking around the markets and in the
open with stretched forth necks, but now they are scattered on the hands of my
cruel enemies.154 This connection between the expulsion of the Jews from Spain
and the licentious behaviour of Jewish women must be, of course, understood
in the framework of the general dismay and confusion caused by this traumatic
historical event and not as an ethnographic account. Yet, we cannot consider as
totally unfounded this specic mention of Jewish singing women in the context of
late 15th-century Peninsular Jewry.
Jewish Troubadours and Minstrels in Christian Courts

Practicing music as a profession appears to be a characteristic of Jewish life in
Christian Spain, as one of the services offered by Jewish vassals to their rulers.
Some names of Jewish instrumentalists active in Christian Spain are incidentally
recorded. Alh arizi (ca. 1220), for example, dedicated a poem to the Jewish ud
player Yshayah (yodea nagen be-kinnor).155 The famous illuminated miniatures
in the manuscripts of the Cantigas de Santa Maria of King Alfonso X depict
Jewish musicians, even though the exact nature of the cooperation between
Muslims, Christians and Jews around this proselytizing musical repertoire has to
be evaluated with caution.156
One of the earliest and well documented cases of a Jewish trovador is Yish aq
Ha-Gorni, who was active in Provence and probably Aragon during the second
half of the 13th century. In his eighteen extant Hebrew poems, he clearly depicts
his own persona as a troubadour, stresses his prociency as an instrumentalist
153 M. Alvar, Endechas judeo-espaolas, Mxico 1969; Molho, Usos y costumbres, p.

182.
154 Y. Yahalom, Guilt and Blame Responses to the Expulsion and the Foreced
Conversion in the Poetry of the Exiles, in Jews and Conversos at the Time of the
Expulsion, Y. T. Assis and Y. Kaplan eds., Jerusalem 1999, pp. 273286, especially
pp. 280281.
155 Yehudah Alh arizi, Shirim nossafim le-takhkemoni, Varsaw 1899, p. 463.
156 A. I. Bagby, 1989. The Figure of the Jew in the Cantigas of Alfonso X, in Studies
on the Cantigas de Santa Maria: Art, music, and poetry, I. J. Katz, S. G. Armistead,
J. T. Snow, and J. E. Keller eds., Madison 1989, pp 235245.
[51]
Edwin Seroussi
and recalls his ties with his contemporary non-Jewish colleagues.157 But Ha-Gorni
was an exceptional case of a combination of Hebrew poet and troubadour. Most
Jews who engaged in this profession in medieval Spain were mainly involved with
the dominant non-Jewish culture. In other words, they were procient in poetry
in Romance languages and its musical performance rather than in composing
Hebrew poems.
Names of Jewish troubadours and minstrels (juglares or jongleurs) appear in
royal records. Jews were part of the musical chapel of King Sancho IV of Castille.
Registers of the royal court for 12931294 mention a Jewish juglar and his
wife next to Moorish and Christian juglares.158 Barzalay judeum joculatorem
appeared before the court of Jaime II in Barcelona in 1315.159 Bonafas and his
son Sento (Shemtov), Jewish juglares from Pamplona, received payments from
Charles II (13491387).160
Romano gathered impressive documentation about Jewish musicians who
served in the court of the kings of Aragon in the second half of the 14th century.161 The
Jewish performers appear in the Aragonese sources with different denominations:
mim, jouglar, tocador de viola, sonador de laut, minister, minister de corda,
and ministers dinstruments de corda. All these Jewish musicians played string
instruments. All except for two (Bonafas Gentil i Jacob from Navarra and Naan
de Molina from Castille) were from Aragon: Simuel Fichell, Bonafas Aven Mayor
and Avraham el Mayor were from Saragossa, Jucef Axivil from Borja. Yohanan
(no family name) served the bishop of Valencia; Sasson Salom, minister de corda
e sonador de laut served King Juan I and King Martn; Yohanan Semuel Yohanan
Baruch served Queen Sibilla de Forti. Romano concludes that Jewish juglares and
minstrels, local and visiting ones, served most of the kings of Aragon and their
families.162 We cannot know if there were differences between the repertories or
techniques of Jewish and non-Jewish musicians.
Blasco expanded Romanos ndings by locating other Jewish juglares and
sonadores from the city of Saragossa.163 The terms juglar, ministril, and sonador
157 J. Schirmann, Isaac Gorni, pote hbreu de Provance. Lettres Romanes 3 (1949), pp.
175200; A. Brener, Isaac Ha-Gorni and the Troubadour Persona, Zutot (Amsterdam)
1 (2001), pp. 8490.
158 R. Menndez Pidal, Poesia juglaresca y juglares. Madrid 1957, p. 386.
159 Ibidem, p. 140, note 3.
160 Ibidem; Baer Die Juden im christlichen Spanien, vol. 1: 975
161 D. Romano, Mims, Joglars i Ministrers Jueus a la Corona dArago (13521400), in
Studia in honorem Prof. M. de Riquer, Barcelona 1988, vol. 3, pp. 133149; Ibidem,
Mahahix Alcoqui, extrao juglar judo de los Reyes de Aragn, Sefarad 44 (1985):
183210.
162 See also, Baer, Die Juden im christlichen Spanien, vol. 1, p. 414 and pp. 468469.
163 A. Blasco, Jewish and Convert Jongleurs, Minstrels and Sonadores in Saragossa
[52]

were used interchangeably in 14th and 15th century Saragossa. Jewish minstrels and
string players in the courts of Aragon took advantage of their privileged position
in order to obtain benets, favors and even posts in the Jewish community.
Some artists moved to other kingdoms due to the animosity of their neighbors.
Others combined their art with mundane trades such as clothes merchant. Mass
conversions at the beginning of the 15th century affected Jewish musicians who
converted to Christianity for economic reasons. When restrictions of the papal bull
of Benedict XIII and King Fernando were abolished in 1419, Jewish artists were
more relaxed and even collaborated with Christians without having to convert.
Clues to the character of Jewish musicians and dancers in Spain can be found
in iconographical materials. Of special interest are the depictions of musicians in
illuminated Passover Haggadot from the 14th century. The Barcelona Haggadah
(British Library, Add. Ms 14761) thoroughly studied by Snir, includes in fol. 611
a realistic scene of an ensemble of contemporary instrumentalists playing under
the coat of arms of the city of Barcelona.164 The instruments illustrated in this
illumination are the pipe (aviol or auta de pico) and drum played by the same
musician, rebec, lute (guitarra morisca), bagpipe (cornamusa) and a pair of small
kettle drums. Another example appears in the Golden Haggadah (British Library
Add. Ms. 27210) that was probably illuminated in Barcelona, ca. 13201335. In
fol. 15r there is a depiction of Miriam and her entourage illustrating the biblical
verse from Exodus (15:20): And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took
the minstrel on her hand. The gure includes ve young female musicians and
two dancers. The musicians are playing a lute, square and round drums, cymbals
and two woodblocks. According to Narkiss, the illuminations might have been
made at a workshop associated with the royal court in Barcelona.165
The playing of instrumental music by Jews in territories adjacent to Spain
which had also been under Muslim rule is documented as well. In the list of
taxes imposed on the Jews of Sicily in the year 1312, under the chapter titled
(Fourtheenth and Fifteenth Centuries), Orbis Musicae 12 (1998), pp. 4972. See also
the reference to Maestro Gentil, alias Mosse Cohen, judo tanyedor, habitante de
la ciudad de Tarraona, 1483 mentioned in J. R. Cohen, Panorama de la cancin
judeo-espaola, Aragn-Sefarad 1 (2005), pp. 537553. In http://www.dpz.es/
turismo/monograficos/aragon-sefarad/VolumenI/VolI-26, accessed 5/10/2006, p. 537;
P. Calahorra Martnez, Historia de la msica en Aragn (siglos I-XVII), Zaragoza
1977, mentions the musicians Samuel Fichiel, Santo [Shem tov] Mayor, Abraham
Mayor y Bonifas Mayor as well as converted Jews and Moors among the musicians
participating in the Corpus Christi procession in 1513.
164 Y. Snir, Musical Instruments in the Illuminations of Barcelona Haggadah BM.
ADD. MS. 14761. MA Thesis, Department of Musicology, Tel Aviv Universtiy, 1978;
see also Katz, The Music of Sephardic Spain, pp. 106108.
165 B. Narkiss, The Golden Haggadah, London 1997, pp. 4849.
[53]
Edwin Seroussi
cabella iocularie, we read: Nullus Iudeus audeat habere tubas, nec ioculatores
zammarias et guidemas secundum ritum Sarracenorum in nuptiis, nisi per
cabellotum cabelle predicte. Zammaria means zampogna (cornamusa,
siringa, gaita); guidema is yet unclear. 166
High ranking Jewish courtiers dealt with musical activities at court. Don Yosef
de Ecija, who served at the Court of Alfonso XI of Castile and was, according to
Baer, versed in music (yodea nagen), had some authority over the musicians
of the court.167 A testimony of this role appears in an unusually friendly letter
sent to Yosef by Alfonso IV of Aragon on 19th November 1329, after the king
recovered from a serious illness, in which he asks the Jewish courtier to send for
his diversion the Castilian musicians (players of xabeba and meo canon) that they
had heard together when they last met.168
The Incipient Judeo-Spanish Cancionero

One of the outstanding and most recognizable features of Sephardic musical
culture is the folk song in Judeo-Spanish that has been transmitted orally until the
present. Collectively known as cancionero, this poetic-musical legacy retains traits
that disclose its medieval sources. However, the almost total absence of tangible
references to the singing of songs in Spanish by Jews in Christian Spain in the
period prior to the expulsion, even in the 15th century, has intrigued scholars.
In the past years, however, a major repository of information about the
development of the Judeo-Spanish cancionero in its formative period has started to
emerge, providing a glimpse into the development of this characteristic Sephardic
repertoire. Quotations of rst lines of Spanish songs appearing in collections
of sacred Hebrew poems in manuscripts and printed sources dating from the
period immediately following the expulsion from Spain or even preceding it, are
compelling evidence that the Jews had a substantial repertoire of courtly and folk
songs in Spanish and Catalonian from at least the 15th century onwards.169 These
quotations refer the singers of the Hebrew poems to the melody of a well known
Spanish song, a technique that naturally follows the Arabic Andalusian usage
166 Sh. Simonsohn, The Jews in Sicily, Leiden, Boston, Kln 2000 (A Documentary
History of the Jews of Italy, 16), vol. 2 (13021391), pp. 618619, doc. no. 342.
167 A. Ballesteros, Don Juaf de Ecija, Sefarad 6 (1946), pp. 253287; Baer, Die Juden
im christlichen Spanien, vol. 2, p. 142.
168 The letter appears in Baer, Ibidem, vol. 1, p. 262; for a more complete version see,
Ballesteros, Don Juaf de Ecija.
169 E. Seroussi, Catorce canciones en romance como modelos de poemas hebreos del
siglo XV. Sefarad 65 (2005), no. 2, pp. 385411.
[54]

discussed above, as well as the entrenched tradition in Spanish popular poetry of
turning secular songs a lo divino.
Among the earliest references to tunes of Spanish folk songs in Hebrew
sources is a manuscript, dated around 1414 and published for the rst time by
Yahalom, which includes a collection of dirges for the mourning period known as
the Three Weeks (Ms St. Peterburg, Firkovitch I, no. 165).170 Four Spanish songs
are mentioned in this manuscript: Corazn quejoso, Dolor hacera dolore,
El corazn me escurece, and Un judo de gran. The rst three songs, at least,
deal with the pain of earthly love which is applied by the Hebrew poet to the
national pain over the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The third song is
set to a Hebrew poem whose opening line is Yah mi-kol ason retze. Obviously the
poet is imitating here not only the meter and the form of the original Spanish song
but also its phonetic sound. In other words this is a continuation of the murada
technique that was intensively applied by Hebrew poets in their imitations of
Arabic muwashshahas.
More startling yet is the fact that the famous Spanish Christian lament for the
nal fall of Jerusalem to the Turks in 1244, Ahy Iherusalem, is mentioned in a
Hebrew manuscript from the 15th century (Oxford, Ms. Bodleian 1094).171 This
manuscript, which appears to be have been compiled during the course of the
15th century, mentions another eleven melodies of Spanish songs. Among these
songs is an unidentied romance whose rst line is Jueves primero de mayo, the
villancico En toda la su montaa or En toda la tresmontana, the love songs
Por mi mal vos ami, Mi bien tanto deseado, and Si deliberado tenes que a
vuestra mano muera.
Other documents from the same period include entire songs. A mixed HebrewSpanish poem found in Ms. Oxford, Bodleian 1139 (fol. 75b-76a) dated around
1457 and noticed for the rst time by Moshe Lazar reveals the familiarity of
Sephardic Jews with courtly love songs in Spanish:172
170 Y. Yahalom, Poetry as an Expression of Spiritual Reality in the Late Sephardic

Piyyut, in Exile and Diaspora, Studies in the History of the Jewish People Presented
to Professor Haim Beinart on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, A. Mirsky, A.
Grossman, Y. Kaplan eds., Jerusalem 1988, pp. 337-348 (Hebrew), especially pp. 341,
347348.
171 E. Seroussi, and R. Havassy, The Fall of Jerusalem Sung with One Melody: An
Hebrew Dirge from Medieval Spain and its Christian Parallel, Aharon Mirsky
Memorial Volume, E. Hazan and Y. Yahalom eds., Ramat Gan 2006, pp 347362
(Hebrew).
172 M. Lazar, Catalan-Provenal Wedding Songs (14th-15th centuries), Hayyim (Jefim)
Schirmann Jubilee Volume, Sh. Abramson and A. Mirsky eds., Jerusalem 1970, p.
159, note 2.
[55]
Edwin Seroussi
/
/
/
/
Another document from the Cairo Genizah contains the entire text of a dirge
(endecha) in Judeo-Spanish dating apparently from closely after the expulsion.173
The extant evidence makes clear that the Judeo-Spanish song repertoire in
medieval Spain stemmed from the world of male juglares. Thus, the transformation
of the Judeo-Spanish folksong into a predominantly womens repertoire appears
to be a phenomenon of the post-expulsion period. Moreover, from its formative
stages the Judeo-Spanish repertoire included songs belonging to diverse genres. It
certainly included some romances from the peninsular tradition, a courtly genre of
the 15th century, and many of these songs were perpetuated until the 20th century
in oral tradition. Vestiges of lyric songs from the pre-expulsion period can also
be found in the more copious 16th century Spanish incipits found in Hebrew
sources. Popular songs from 15th century Spain such as Digan lo que digan la
gente deslenguada or Adobar adobar caldero adobar are mentioned in the
collections of Hebrew sacred poems by Yisrael Najara from the beginning of the
17th century.174
Towards Expulsion
In recent years, many scholars have challenged the widely accepted perception of
the slow and painful decline of medieval Hispanic Jewish culture in the century
immediately preceding the expulsion. Eliezer Gutwirth, for example, offered a
different reading of the century ushered in by the persecutions of 1391 by stressing
the increasing involvement of Jews in Christian culture, in spite of mounting antiJewish sentiments among the Christian elite: Paradoxical as it may seem, the
period which begins with the pogroms [of 1391] and ends with the expulsions
need not be seen as one of unmitigated decline. An examination of both may
173 E. Gutwirth, A Judeo-Spanish endecha from the Cairo Genizah, Mediterranean

Language Review 67 (1993), pp. 113120.
174 M. Frenk Alatorre, El antiguo cancionero sefarad, Nueva Revista de Filologa
Hispnica 14 (1960), pp. 312-318; H. Avenary, The Melodies in a Song Collection
from Greece by Shelomo Mevorakh, Ms. Jerusalem 8o 421, Sefunot 13 (1978), pp.
97213 (Hebrew).
[56]

reveal what rich, complex and perhaps contradictory trends were at work in 15th
century Hispano-Jewish history.175
Some literary research has followed the path suggested by Gutwirth.
Scheindlin argues that the new vernacular literature of Spain is echoed in the
works of members of the last school of Hebrew poetry in Spain, which was based
in Saragossa in the late 14th and 15th centuries.176 This poetry was not popular but
courtly, tending to articiality and mannerism. The limited thematic repertoire of
Hebrew poetry from this late period may actually reect trends from the poetry of
the courts.177 However, Hebrew secular poetry from this late period never totally
shook off its Arabic legacy, despite attempts since the 13th century to imitate
Romance verse forms. Secular poetry remained the last vestige of Arabic culture
among Jews in the peninsula during the reconquista. Latin and its literature could
not replace Arabic as a model for Jewish writers. On the popular level, the process
of Judaizing the Spanish folk song laid the foundation for the Ladino cancionero
and the energy the community had for producing vernacular literature was also
expended in this direction. On the level of high culture, Hebrew poetry was stuck
in its own traditions.178
Thus, when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, an established Sephardic
musical tradition was already in place. The performance of the synagogue service,
the singing of pizmonim, the nightly vigils and early morning additions to the
normative prayers, the singing of special songs in the vernacular by women on the
eve of circumcisions or at funerals, along with other aspects of modern Sephardic
culture, are all features of Spanish Jewish culture in the pre-expulsion period,
although in slightly different formats.
By the 15th century the features of Sephardic musical culture were as well
established as its literary counterpart. A characteristically Sephardic performance
of the liturgy, including its musical component, took shape, notwithstanding the
local variants that persisted even after the expulsion. We are unable to evaluate
the level of similarity that existed between the diverse regional traditions, nor the
full extent of their similarity to those traditions that crystallized in the Sephardic
diasporas in North Africa and in the Eastern Mediterranean.
A canon of strophic poems (piyyutim) for the liturgies of the Festivals, fast
days, and the High Holidays was also probably in place by the end of the 15th
175 E. Gutwirth, Towards expulsion 13911492, in E. Kedourie ed., Spain and the Jews:
The Sephardi Experience 1492 and After, London 1992, pp. 5173, especially p. 52.
176 R. P. Scheindlin, Secular Hebrew Poetry in Fifteenth-Century Spain, in B. R. Gampel
ed., Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World 13911648, New York 1997, pp.
2537.
177 Ibidem, p. 35.
178 Ibidem, p. 37.
[57]
Edwin Seroussi
century, including some of the melodies for these poems. Studies, such as those
carried by Avenary and Seroussi, substantiate the claim that at least certain
surviving melodies for the High Holidays and the Ninth of Av are of medieval
Spanish origin.179
The music of non-liturgical religious repertoires also shows a certain
homogeneity. Looking at the musical repertoires surfacing from the melodic
incipits registered in the diwans of the poets belonging to the last school of Hebrew
poetry in Spain, one cannot fail to notice a certain standardization in the traditional
melodies known to these writers. The collection of piyyutim by Shelomo Dapiera
(c.1340/1350 after 1417), whom Bernstein considered the greatest poet of the
last generation in Spain and a major inuence on the great post-exilic Sephardic
poets in the East such as R. Yisrael Najara from Safed and Damascus (c 1555
1625) and David Onqinera from Salonika (second half of 16th century), shows
that a modest number of melodies served this poet for the composition of a large
number of texts.180 Among the melodies that Dapiera was acquainted with are the
tunes of the few piyyutim by the classic Spanish Hebrew poets, such as Yehudah
Halevi and Avraham Ibn Ezra, that continued to circulate as sung poems among
the Jews from Spain, especially items belonging to specic functional genres such
as baqqashot for the early vigils, pizmonim for Festivals such as Simh at Torah and
qinot for fast days. In addition, Dapiera used the melodies of poems by later poets
of lesser stature such as the anonymous Nah um, whose poem Nerd ve-kharkum
is widely mentioned as a melodic incipit by Dapiera as well as by post-exilic
Sephardic poets from North Africa, and the Provenal paytan Haseniri, whose
poem Ha-El haira u-ree is quoted by Dapiera and by exiled Sephardic poets in the
16th and 17th centuries. There was, then, continuity in the singing of paraliturgical
Hebrew poetry from the 15th century in Spain into the post-expulsion era.
We have also observed an ever increasing expertise by Jews in the singing
of songs in Romance languages, especially in the Castilian dialect that became
the dominant component of modern Spanish and of Judeo-Spanish as well. The
Judeo-Spanish cancionero was probably forged by both Jewish juglares who were
active in the courts of Catalonia, Aragon and Castile and by Jewish women who
acquired a rich repertoire of songs in Spanish for life cycle occasions such as
births, circumcisions, weddings and funerals. Sephardic womens voices could
179 H. Avenary, Persistence and Transformation of a Sephardi Penitential Hymn,

Yuval 5 (1986), pp. 181232; E. Seroussi, Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue Music in
Nineteenth-century Reform Sources from Hamburg: Ancient Oral Tradition in the
Dawn of Modernity, Jerusalem 1996.
180 H. Schirmann, The History of Hebrew Poetry in Christian Spain and Southern France,
E. Fleischer ed., Jerusalem 1997, pp. 580600 (Hebrew); S. Bernstein, Shirei ha-qodesh
shel Shelomoh ben Meshullam Dapiera, HUCA 19 (1946), pp. 174, especially p. 4.
[58]

then be heard in the rituals related to the life cycle, when gender segregation was
more relaxed.181
Considering the involvement of Iberian Jews in the composition and
performance of songs at court and other public venues in Christian Spain, it is
not surprising to nd among the conversos of the rst generation many who were
extremely active in the creation and publication of popular poetry.182 Aside from
the dubious assumption that Juan Alfonso de Baena, the poet/compiler of the most
important Spanish cancionero of the early 15th century, was himself a converso,183
his collection includes various items that reect attitudes to Judaism in general
and to the music of the Jews in particular. In a poem in the form of a satirical
testament, the poet Alfonso Alvarez Villasandino (probably a converso himself),
who is prominently represented in the Cancionero de Baena, mocks the mesumad
Alfonso Ferrandes Semuel, a converso who viciously attacked him in a previous
poem. Villasandino scolds Semuel both for having the hypocritical attitude of the
converso who conceals in his testament his preference for Jewish institutions and
for retaining a religious musical memory saturated with Jewish elements:184
Si moriere oy o cras [maana]
Manda su ropa la blanca
Que le den en Salamanca
O aqu a algn samaz
Por que l reze en el Homas
E le canten con buen son
Una huina, un pysmon,
Bien plaidos por compas185
Should he die today or tomorrow

He commands that his white clothes [tallit]
Should be given in Salamanca
Or here to some samaz [synagogue beadle]
Who will pray for him from the Homas
[Pentateuch]
And chant for him a pleasant melody,
A lament, a pysmon
Well performed and in rhythm.
The singing of pizmonim, religious strophic poetry, with beautiful melodies is then
a remarkable feature of the Sephardic musical culture in Spain. This feature is
frequently mentioned in non-Jewish sources as a clear marker of Hispano-Jewish
character.
The intensive association of 15th century Sephardic Jews with music led Tobi
to argue that the poetic sensitivity of the Jews from Spain immediately before
181 J. R. Cohen, Le rle de la femme-musicienne dans lEspagne medievale, dans les
communauts chretienne, juive et musulmane. MA thesis, Universit de Montreal
1980, p. 86.
182 Y. Yovel, Converso Dualities in the First Generation: The Cancioneros, Jewish
Social Studies 4 (1998), no. 3, 128.
183 Cancionero de Juan Alfonso de Baena, ed. y estudio de B. Dutton y J. Gonzlez
Cuenca, Madrid 1993, pp. XIV-XV.
184 Ibidem, pp. 16ff.
185 Ibidem, no. 142.
[59]
Edwin Seroussi
the expulsion underwent a deep change.186 While secular poetry declined, a new
sacred poetry started to emerge, a paraliturgical poetry that found inspiration in
popular poetry. The taste of the public in the formal-linguistic aspect of poetry
became less sophisticated. Instead, the parameters of content and music became
the center of this new sacred poetry: Music receives a high status in the ritual of
the Lord, in both the framework of the canonical liturgy of the synagogue or in the
framework of the recitation of piyyutim.187
The importance of music in religious devotion is elucidated in the treatise
of poetics Ets hayyim (Oxford, Ms Heb f16, Neubauer 2770, fols 7a-11b) by
Yitsh aq ben Hayyim Hacohen of Xtiva (c. 1468 - after 1518), an exile from Spain
who spent most of the rest of his life in Italy. A relatively elaborate passage on
music included in this work is a very late sample of the speculative texts about
the inuence of music on the human soul and its role in divine worship, which
circulated among Sephardic Jews since the 10th century. Hacohen, inspired by the
numerous late elaborations on the writings on music by Al Kindi and Ikhwan elSafa, writes that words of praise and thanksgiving to the Lord which are said by
means of song with meter and rhyme are of higher value than those said in prose.
Through the melody played by material instruments of music (klei ha-musiqa
ha-homriyym), the goal of awakening the mind of man and worshiping of his
Creator is attained because through them [the instruments] they sing their melodies
and songs in a measured and mindful manner, not by chance and casualty (fol 7a
in Ets hayyim). Musical instruments are then a material means to train the human
mind to understand the non-material essence of the Divinity. This is a relatively
new emphasis on the role of music in worship, an approach less hostile to music
in general and to instrumental music in particular and one which reects the
intellectual trends in the generation of the expulsion from Spain.188
A touching episode recorded in the annals of the Inquisition summarizes
the central argument developed throughout this study, namely that music was a
vital component of Sephardic culture since its beginnings in medieval Spain. It
186 Y. Tobi, Hebrew Poetry in the East after the Spanish Expulsion, Peamim 26 (1986),
p. 33 (Hebrew).
187 Ibidem, p. 41. The same ideas are developed in Y. Tobi, The Role of Music in the
Transition from Prayer to Piyyut, Piyyut in Tradition. 2 (2000), B. Bar Tikvah and E.
Hazan eds., Ramat-Gan, pp. 209230. (Hebrew).
188 A. Shiloah, La musique entre le divin et le terrestre, Anuario Musical 38 (1983), pp.
314; M. Idel, Chronicle of an Exile: R. Isaac ben Hayim Ha-Kohen from Xtiva,
in Jews and Conversos at the Time of the Expulsion, Y. T. Assis and Y. Kaplan eds.,
Jerusalem 1999, pp. 259272, especially p. 270; for a later Sephardi source influenced
by ideas similar to those of R. Itzhak ben Hayyim Hacohen see, Y. Tobi, Hashqafato
shel R. Yehoshua Benvenist (Kushta 1634) al takhlita shel ha-shirah, Dapim lesifrut 4 (1988), pp. 1934.
[60]

eventually became a main vehicle for religious expression, a focus for professional
activity, a major marker of ethnic identity and a cornerstone in the construction
and safeguarding of Sephardic memory. The central place allocated to the deep
knowledge of synagogue chants as a marker of Hispano-Jewish cultural identity
and the esteem for good performers of such chants is revealed in the inquisitorial
process carried out post mortem against Diego Arias de Avila, contador mayor
of King Enrique IV, in Segovia between 1486 and 1489. This case, whose
documentation was published in detail by Carrete Parrondo, has been the object of
an exhaustive analysis and interpretation by Gutwirth.189
De Avila, the father of the bishop of Segovia, was seen many times by witnesses
taking part in Jewish synagogue services in which he sang like a rabbi (cantando
como un rab) because he had a very good voice (tena muy buena boz).190 In
a secret service held in Segovia an eyewitness heard him singing a psalm that
the Jews use to sing on the eve [of their holidays], and his voice was like an
angels and he [the witness] said: Guay, what a sad voice he had! (cantando un
salmo que los judos suelen decir a las bsperas, que pareca un ngel en su boz,
y diciendo Guay, qu negra voz tena!)191 He sang as a soloist to the response of
the congregation as was customary in Andalusian strophic poetry (a una sola voz
cantando y respondan todos los susodichos).192 Among the prayers recalled by
these witnesses as being specically sung with a melody are Nishmat kol hay
(y reaban all [at Diego Arias home] las oraciones de los judos, en especial
mismad col ahahd), Barukh she-amar (y estaba rezando a bozes, cantando una
oracin judayca que se llama en romance Bendicho el que dixo e fue el mundo;
bendicho sea El; bendicho sea su nombre) and the pizmon Kol mevaser.193 This
last piece of evidence is remarkable for it provides us with a glimpse of the interest
and awareness that the Jews had concerning religious music. It is worthwhile to
quote this incident in its entirety:
And he said that this witness [Rab Simoel, physician of the Duke of
Albunquerque] heard from master Josep, his father, that walking one day
with Diego Arias, an accountant, they found themselves removed from
the people with whom they were walking, and that [then] the same Diego
189 C. Carrete Parrondo, Fontes Iudaeorum Regni Castellae, vol. 3, Proceso inquisitorial
contra los Arias Dvila segovianos: un enfrentamiento social entre judos y conversos.
Salamanca 1986; E. Gutwirth, Music, Identity, and the Inquisition in FifteenthCentury Spain, Early Music History 17 (1998), pp. 161181.
190 Carrete Parrondo, Fontes Iudaeorum Regni Castellae, vol. 3, pp. 2021, item 5, p. 22,
item 7.
191 Ibidem, vol. 3, pp 28, item 25 and also p. 25, item 16.
192 Ibidem, vol. 3, p. 46, item 71.
193 Ibidem, vol. 3, p. 49, item 77; p. 50, item 81.
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Edwin Seroussi
Arias asked master Josep if he knew how to sing something of his Jewish
[repertoire], and he answered yes, and that Diego Arias asked him if he
knew the melody of a pizmon, Kol mevaser, that the Jews sing and he
answered yes, and he started to sing it, and the same Diego Arias assisted
him and said that he was mistaken in the melody, that the melody was as he
started to sing it, and both sang together.194
A variation of this incident appears in another testimony:
Some nights, after he had returned from the palace and had eaten, Diego
Arias would call Yosef and ask him to come down to the big kitchen where
he was and he would order everyone to leave the place, and he ordered
Yosef to close the door and he asked him to sing in Hebrew a pizmon, and
Yosef defended himself by saying that he did not know how to sing, and he
insisted and said to him that he will help him, and he named the pizmon that
he would sing or asked him to say a chanted psalm, and offered to help him;
after Arias implored him so much, Yosef sang a pizmon and a psalm, and
Diego Arias joined him. And they sang these songs some nights and some
other things that are chanted in their prayers. And [he testied] that these
events occured in a lighthearted vein with laughter. 195
According to the testimonies concerning Diego Arias, the procession of the Torah
194 Ytem dixo que oy decir este testigo [Rab Simoel, fsico del seor duque de
Albunquerque] a maestre Josep, su padre, que yendo un da caminando con Diego
Arias, contador, se quedaron entranbos apartados de la gente que yba con ellos, e le
dixera el dicho Diego Arias al dicho maestre Josep que si saba cantar alguna cosa de
su hebrayco, el qual le dixera que s, e que le dixera Diego Arias que si saba el son de
un pismon que dicen los judos Col meuaer, e que l dixo que s, e lo escompez
[sic] a cantar, e que el dicho Diego Arias le ajud [sic] e dixo que no acertaba en el
son, mas que era como l lo comeno a cantar, y lo cantaron entranbos, Ibidem, vol.
3, p. 62, item 104.
195 Algunas noches, despues que vena de palacio el dicho Diego Arias e despus que
cenaba, inbiaba por el dicho Yn [sic, Yu, Yosef] que se bajase a una coina grande
donde l estaba, e mandaba a todos a salir de ella, y mandaba al dicho Yne que
cerasse la puerta y le deia que cantasse en hebrayco un puizm [sic] y l se defenda
diciendo que no saba cantar, y l se profiaba y dea que l le ayudara y le nombraba
el pizm que disesse o que dixesse algn salmo cantado, e que l le ayudara; el qual,
por tanto se lo rogar, obo de cantar algn pizm e algn salmo, y el dicho Diego Arias
con l. Y esto cantaban algunas noches e algunas cosas que se dicen cantadas en su
oracin. E que estas cosas pasaban de modo jugatibo, riendo, Ibidem, vol. 3, p. 111,
item 203.
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Scrolls taking place before and after the public scriptural reading on Sabbaths and
holidays was very musical:
When Diego Arias is in a good mood or has had pleasure, he does not
remember which of these he said, he takes a large shawl and arranges it
on his shoulders and head in the manner of a tallit, and he sings the verse
in Hebrew that the Jewish cantor says when the Torah is taken out, and he
sings it very well, and he sings it step by step, as the cantor when he takes
the Torah And this witness believes the old man from whom he heard that
[Diego Arias] was a Jew, because he sang very well in Hebrew.196
In another incident another witness relates a variant of the same situation:
that walking along with Diego Arias he saw he was singing a song that the
Jews sing when they take out the Torah on the Sabbath, that says Ata horeta
ladaat, etc which means: You showed me in order to make me know that
You Adonay, is God, and there is none other.197
A similar testimony pretends to show the casual desire to return to a Jewish
environment:
Don Jud from Saragossa says that walking one day on the road to
Chichn with Diego Arias de Avila, Diego Arias said to him: Dont you
know Jud? When I was a Jew I used to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath
to say the blessings when the Torah was taken out and a rabbi prayed over it.
And the custom of the young Jews is that they go up to say certain blessings;
and that he, as a young Jew, went up and said the blessings with song. And
now [said Arias] I would like to recite them to you; at which moment he
started to sing them in a loud voice, very gracefully, as a Jew, and he enjoyed
singing them very much.198
196 Diego Arias, quando est de gorja o de placer, no se acuerda qul de esto dixo, toma
una gran toca y ponsela sobre los hombros e cabeza a forma de taler [tallit], e cant
el berso que dize el capelln judo quando saca la Tor en hebrayco, y cntalo muy
bien, y binelo cantando paso a paso, como el capelln quando saca la Tor Y cree
este testigo que aquel viejo a quien esto oy decir que aba seydo [Diego Arias] judo
porque cantaba muy bien el hebrayco, Ibidem, vol. 3, p. 66, item 111.
197 que yendo camino con Diego Arias le veya decir un cantar que cantan los judos
quando sacan la Tor el da de sbado, que deca Hara horada la de hue, etc. que
quiere decir: Que T mostraste por facerme saber; que T Adonay, es el Di, y no
ms a solas, Ibidem, vol. 3, p. 74, item 126.
198 Don Jud de aragozadixo que yendo un da camino de Chichn, a la dicha
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Edwin Seroussi
Since the remarkable quality of de Avilas voice as heard in the context of his
secretive prayers is stressed by several non-Jewish witnesses, one may conclude
that there was a certain gentile appreciation for the gift of Spanish Jews in the eld
of music. We should point out that Diego Arias de Avila was perhaps conversant
in some kind of Arabic music too.199
The music profession remained a favored one among the Jews who converted
to Christianity and remained in Spain after 1492. One of the rst victims of the
Inquisition in Toledo was no other than Juan de Pealoza (c. 1515 c. 1579), the
organist of the cathedral of Toledo and a grandson of Juan de Cordova el Viejo
(the Old, known as Benbarnel) and of Maria de Pealoza, both Jews expelled in
1492 who returned to Madrid as Christians after a short sojourn to Portugal.200
Sephardic musicians remained notably active in making music, and other
forms of entertainment, in the Ottoman Empire. Upon their arrival in the Ottoman
Empire, they attained prominence in local music circles, as the following story by
R. Eliyahu Capsali of Constantinople (14831555) conveys:
And the King [Sultan Bayazid II, 14811511] went from neighborhood to
neighborhood... And it so happened that the King passed by the public and
there was one of the Spanish Jews who came to live in this land from the
expulsion from Spain and his name [was] Avraham Shondor [chantor? or
perhaps sndir, player of a folk lute], and he was called like this after his art,
because he was the only one of his generation in his art, one who is skilled
in music, a stalwart fellow and a warrior, sensible in speech and handsome
in appearance [I Samuel 17:18]... His listeners would say that he was the
ancestor of all those who play the lyre and the pipe [Genesis 4:21]. And on
that day the man was doing his art at his home playing the drum and the lute
and revel to the tune of the pipe [Job 21:12]. And the King passed by and he
Chichn, con Diego Arias de Abila, contador, le dixo Diego Arias: No sabes, don
Jud? Quando yo era judo yba a la sinoga el da del sbado a deir la hararu [sic;
probably berakha] estando la Tor fuera, reando en ella el rab. Y es vso que los
muchachos judos suban a decir ciertas vendiciones; e que l, como muchacho judo,
subi y dixo vendiciones cantadas. Y quiroos las agora decir; las quales comen
a decir cantadas a voes, con muy buen graia, como judo, e se olgaba mucho en lo
deir, Ibidem, vol. 3, p. 115, item 219.
199 A. de Palencia, Archivo documental espaol: Dcadas, A. Paz y Meli ed., Madrid
1973, I, lib. II, ch. V, pp. 39ff quoted in Gutwirth, Hispano-Jewish Attitudes to the
Moors, pp. 245246.
200 D. Preciado, El organista Juan de Pealoza, primera victima de limpieza de sangre
toledano, El rgano espaol: Actas del II Congreso espaol del rgano, Madrid
1987, pp. 147148; Ibidem, Pealoza, Juan de. Diccionario de la Msica Espaola e
Iberoamericana, vol. 8 (2001), p. 589.
[64]

heard the tune and he liked it and he descended from his chariot and entered
the house of that Jew and asked the Jew: may I sit for a while at your home
and listen to the voice of male and female singers as well as the luxuries of
commoners coffers and coffers of them [Ecclesiastes 2:8]. And Avraham
replied to the King and said: sit as long as you wish. Then Avraham ran to
the lyres [paraphrase of Genesis 18:7, nevalim meaning there herd] and he
took the melodious lute and the lyre [Psalms 81:3] and started to play
once and again as the musician played [II Kings 3:15] and the King was
pleased...
And the King came in order to leave, and the Jew held him and played
for him another tune on instruments of different kinds... And the Jew did
not know that the [man was the] King, [he] only thought that he was one of
the ministers because he paid no attention to his appearance or his stature
[I Samuel 16:7] and from his face it was obvious that he was a minister and
an ofcial, but no one could imagine that he was the King.
And the day after the King was seated eating... and the musicians stood
up each one with his instrument on his hand, the horn, lyre, psaltery,
bagpipe and all other types of instruments [Daniel 3:5], and they played
as customary. And the King said: spare me the sound of your hymns, and
let me not hear the music of your lutes [Amos 5:23] because from the day
I heard the tune of the Jew I did not taste the taste of a beautiful tune, there
is no one like it in the country. And the King said to the clerk upon whom
he was leaning on: hasten to me the Jew who plays and he will play for me
and I will be pleased.
And the couriers left hastily and arrived and took the Jew and placed
him in front of the King and the Jew prostrated himself to the ground. And
the King said to the Jew: I heard about you that you are a player and a
singer, now play before me, sing us from your songs, play to us with your
hands, rejoice us with your art, take on your hands the sweet lyre and the
lute because I heard about you... [Gittin 88:1]. At that moment the Jew tried
to play as always and he had no power, and he tried to do his work, strange
is his work, and to perform his task, astounding is his task [Isaiah 28:21]...
And the King was surprised by what happened and said:... one night he was
a supreme artist and he perished overnight [Jonah 4:10] and he became
[like] an apprentice of all apprentices. Who ever heard the like? Who ever
witnessed such events? [Isaiah 66:8].
And the King thought he was drunk. And the King said to him: until
when are you going to get drunk... And Avraham prostrated before the
King and said: No my Lord, I am sober and I have drunk no wine or other
strong drink, but I have been pouring my heart to the Lord [I Samuel 1:15],
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Edwin Seroussi
to rejoice him with my actions... but I saw you my Lord, my King as if I
have seen an angel of God, and a great anxiety fell upon me and I was too
anguished to play and too frightened to sing [Isaiah 21:3]... Look away
from me, that I may recover [Psalms 39:14].
And the King spoke to him softly and said: Why are you afraid, what
I have done to you, go and play, and go and sing... And the Jew replied
to the King and said: why my Lord, my King should I not be frightened
by your presence, why should I not tremble when confronting you. I had
heard [about] you with my ears but now I see you with my eyes [Job 42:5].
When I was in Andalusia I have learned of your renown; I awed, O Lord,
by your deeds [Habakkuk 3:2], we were scared and frightened... And when
we heard about your strength and might we lost heart, and no man had
any more spirit left because of you [Joshua 2:11] so mighty was your arm
perceived by the inhabitants of Spain... And why should not I be afraid now,
when my eyes look forward, my gaze be straight ahead [Proverbs 4:25]
fear and trembling invade me; I am clothed with horror [Psalms 55:6].
And the King heard these words and he was pleased, his heart was happy
and his honor rejoiced when he heard that from one edge of the world to
the other people tremble at his presence and are at awe. And he comforted
the heart of the Jew, and the Jew started to strengthen gradually and then he
played a little, murmur upon murmur [Isaiah 28:10], on that day. And on
the next day the King permitted the Jew to leave and come back before him.
And so did the Jew and Avraham woke up early in the morning and went to
the place where he stood [the day before] and he played with his hands and
so he did day after day...
And Avraham attained great honor, and the King put his chair on a high
level, overlooking the rest of the singers and players that played with him
and he performed his melodies in honor of the King for the rest of his days...
And the King ordered and so it was written in the book of chronicles that this
Jew shall receive an award of thirty coins each and every day. His prison
garments were removed and... a regular allotment of food was given him at
the instance of the King an allotment for each day all the days of his life
[II Kings 25:2830].201
201 R. Eliyahu Capsali, Seder Eliyahu Zuta, The History of the Ottomans and Venice and
Chronicle of Israel in the Turkish Kingdom. Spain and Venice by R. Eliyahu b. Elkanah
Capsali (14831555), Jerusalem 1976, vol. 1, pp. 91ff. (Hebrew), translated in E.
Seroussi, From Court and Tarikat to Synagogue: Ottoman Art Music and Hebrew
Sacred Songs, Sufism, Music, and Society in the Middle East, A. Hammarlund, T.
Olsson and E. zdalga eds., Istanbul 2001, pp 8196.
[66]

Even if we consider this story a myth, it undeniably contains a kernel of truth.
Jewish musicians from Spain made for themselves a name that reached beyond
their land of origin and they therefore continued to be active in their new areas
of settlement. Although not all Jewish musicians active in the largest cities of the
Ottoman Empire in the early 16th century were of Sephardic origin, one can assume
that many indeed belonged to the very recently arrived Iberian Jewish stock. Not
only professional Jewish musicians arrived to the Eastern Mediterranean from
Spain. Despite the obscurity surrounding oral music traditions, we must assume
that gifted folk singers, both men and women, transplanted rich musical repertoires
to the new lands of settlement. The newly reestablished Sephardic synagogues
in the Ottoman Empire certainly continued the Iberian liturgical music traditions
even preserving, at least during the rst generations after the expulsion, the distinct
local traditions that were found in Spain. A new era was thus launched in the
annals of Sephardic music, an era in which the Hispano-Jewish traditions were
readapted, reshaped and reinvented in their new musical environments around the
Mediterranean basin.
[67]

Seroussi, E. Music in Medieval Ibero Jewish Society

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HISPANIA JUDAICA BULLETIN

Articles, Reviews, Bibliography and Manuscripts on Sefarad

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

A. Bernldez, Historia de los Reyes Catlicos Dn Fernando y Da Isabel, Sevilla 1870.

Reconstructing the Past: Methodological Problems

D. Reynolds, Music, in The Literature of Al-Andalus, M. R. Menocal, R. P. Scheindlin

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

12 E. Gerson-Kiwi, On the Musical Sources of the Judaeo-Spanish Romancero, Musical

Music of the Jews in Muslim Spain (ca 7001150)

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

The Musical Revolution of Strophic Poetry and the Piyyut Controversy

And he chanted a song / as a master of singing

Dunash Ben Labrat, Ibidem, pp. 811.

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

34 Idelsohn, Jewish Music, p. 116.

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

49 Abramson, Iggeret R. Yehudah Halevy, p. 403; S. M. Stern, Samuel, The

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Moses Mendelsohn: A Biographical Study, Alabama 1973, p. 140 quoted in Jospe,

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

H. Brody, Grtelgedichte des Todros Abu-lafija, Mitteilungen des Frschungsinstitut

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

On the Music of Andalusian Hebrew Strophic Poetry

The Muwashshah, p. 171; A. Shiloah, Music in the World of Islam: A Socio-Cultural

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Jewish Musicians in the Muslim Courts of Spain

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Jews and Medieval Arabic Music Theory

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Jewish Music Culture in Christian Spain (ca. 11501492)

The Consolidation of Sephardic Synagogue Music in Christian Spain

99 Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, pp. 141ff.

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

110 J. M. Sol-Sol, Sobre rabes, judos y marranos y su impacto en la lengua y literatura

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Ms menudos [abundantes] son que

Yet, when the sun rises

El pueblo e los hazanes

The people and the cantors

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Female Voices: The Realm of the Life Cycle

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Yish aq ben Sheshet Perfet, Sheelot u-teshuvot, no. 158.

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Jewish Troubadours and Minstrels in Christian Courts

153 M. Alvar, Endechas judeo-espaolas, Mxico 1969; Molho, Usos y costumbres, p.

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

The Incipient Judeo-Spanish Cancionero

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

170 Y. Yahalom, Poetry as an Expression of Spiritual Reality in the Late Sephardic

173 E. Gutwirth, A Judeo-Spanish endecha from the Cairo Genizah, Mediterranean

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

179 H. Avenary, Persistence and Transformation of a Sephardi Penitential Hymn,

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society

Should he die today or tomorrow

Music in Medieval Ibero-Jewish Society