The Sword of the Dove: Purim Songs in the Sephardi Tradition       Back

Notes by Dr. Edwin Seroussi

The merry nature of the festival of Purim has served as a stage for the creation of rich poetic and musical repertoires in all Jewish communities throughout the ages. The Sephardi Jews excelled in their creativity of Purim songs, and this CD, based almost entirely on the materials collected by the late Isaac Levy, reflects such richness. Sacred songs in Hebrew for the liturgy of Purim (piyyutim) were already in evidence in the work of the Iberian Jewish poets in medieval Spain. The composition of sacred songs for Purim in Hebrew continued among the Jewish Spanish and Portuguese exiles from the 16^th century onwards. To the original medieval Hebrew repertoire, many new songs, not only in Hebrew, but also in Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) were added. The interplay of the Hebrew and Ladino song repertoires for Purim is notable. The songs in Ladino for Purim composed from the late 17^th century on, belong to a new genre of Sephardi poetry that focuses on Jewish subjects (especially holidays and narrative of historical events) called coplas. The Coplas de Purim have close links with the piyyut for Purim in terms of form and content. Moreover, some of the Hebrew songs for Purim are translations or paraphrases of songs in Ladino and viceversa.

While some songs for Purim in Hebrew and/or Ladino are known in many Sephardi communities throughout the Mediterranean Sea, others are of local vintage or regional diffusion. The same applies to the melodies to which these songs are sung. Some melodies are widespread throughout various Sephardi communities; others are local. In many cases the text of a song is widespread, but its music differs from one Sephardi community to another. This CD truly reflects this variety of the Hebrew and the Ladino repertoires for Purim in both their pan-Sephardi and local streams.

Songs for Purim are performed in three main contexts: in the liturgy of Shabbat Zakhor, the Sabbath preceding Purim; during in the liturgy of Purim itself, generally preceding the reading of the megillah (the Scroll with the Book of Esther); and, finally, during or after the festive meal in the evening of Purim.

The decision of Voice of the Turtle to base this CD on the materials for Purim included in the Antología de la liturgia judeo-española of Isaac Levy does justice to this collection, the most comprehensive of its kind ever published. Most of the songs for Purim included in this CD appear in volume IV of Levy's Antología with the exception of Rau Vanim from Volume VIII. Notwithstanding its tremendous value, a judicious use of this source is warranted. The notations of the melodies by Levy are sometimes sketchy, even slightly removed from the known oral versions, and therefore they remain wide open to the interpretation by the reader. This is especially true since the original recordings by Levy of the Sephardi informants are not available for verification;Therefore, Voice of the Turtle presents us with its reinterpretation of the Sephardi songs for Purim, many of which were lost from the memory of the Sephardi Jews of this generation. As part of this process of artistic reinterpretation, some songs were altered in comparison to Levy's versions, e.g. tempi were slowed down (songs 6, 13, 18, are customarily faster and lighter).

Songs in Hebrew

The Hebrew repertoire recorded by Levi includes four piyyutim and one prayer.

Purim Purim, Purim Lanu (nos. 4 and 14 is a song by Rabbi Joseph Shalom Gallego, a 17^th century cantor and poet from Salonika who was one of the first hazzanim to serve the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam (Seroussi 1992). The text of this song was published in the author's collection of Hebrew poems Imrei no'am (Amsterdam, 1628) and became one of the most widely recognized Sephardi songs for Purim. Two versions are included in this CD. The melody of song no. 14 is the only one in this CD which was not recorded by Isaac Levy but by A.Z. Idelsohn. It is a traditional melody sung by the Jews of Bukhara residing in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 20^th century (Idelsohn 1922, no. 141). No. 14is a distant variant of this Bukharan melody. It was notated from a relatively young informant from Jerusalem who probably remembered it vaguely.

Azkir el ne'eman (nos. 5, 7 and 8) is a widespread 17^th century piyyut from the Ottoman sphere. It may be one of the Hebrew models after which the Sephardi coplas emerged later on (see its inclusion in the chapbook Coplas de Purim published in Constantinople, 1786). The versions that Levy collected (at least nos. 7 from Constantinople and no. 8 from Sarajevo) are an echo of a normative Turkish version in makam saba which survived in oral tradition until the 20^th century. This normative version was part of the repertoire of the maftirim choir in Edirne and Istanbul (see the version sung by cantor Samuel Benaroya in the CD Ottoman Hebrew Sacred Songs (Anthology of Music Traditions in Israel, no. 11). The song is a bakkashah (petition) for Shabbat Zakhor, the Sabbath preceding Purim. The name of its author appears in the acrostic: Abraham Hayyun bar Shelomo. He was perhaps an Italian Sephardi poet. Interestingly, the earliest printed version of this piyyut comes from the Jewish community of Kaffa (Caffa) in Crimea (at the shores of the Black Sea) from where is spread to the Ottoman Empire.

Qore'i megillah (no. 2from Djerba) and Qumah elohim (no. 18 from Fez) are two of the most famous poems by Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra for Purim which are sung especially in the Jewish communities North Africa. Perhaps the towering figure and the admiration for this poet in the folklore of the Sephardi Jews of North Africa are the reasons for the preservation of these texts in oral musical performances. Song. No. 18 is hardly documented besides the testimony collected by Levy. It is in the classic muwashshsah form and its musical structure beautifully reflects its poetic form.

Rau vanim (no. 16) is a fragment from the prayer (from the benedictions after Shema' Yisrael) and is a favorite "musical station" in the Jewish liturgy, i.e., a fragment from the prayer in prose where a strophic melody can be introduced. Nominally from "Gibraltar" according to the information provided by Isaac Levy, this melody is actually a very well known tune for Purim from the Sephardi community of Livorno (Leghorn), Italy. It belongs to a song called A mi me llaman (or llamaban) Hayyim Celebi which is already documented in print in the 18^th century (Seroussi 2000). The refrain of this song, classified as "Levantine" in the old printed versions from Livorno, is in Hebrew and Ladino combined. This melody (see also other adaptations from Tangier and Arcilla in Isaac Levy, Antología IV, p. 112), as many others from Livorno, spread to North Africa via local rabbis and scholars who spent sizeable periods of time studying and printing their books in Livorno or via Livornese Jews who immigrated to North Africa.

Finally, Kikhlot yeini (no. 1) is an Israeli folksong, documented since the beginning of this century in Palestine (mostly in Upper Galilee; cf. Yossef ben Yehudah Magilnitzky, Qovetz Shirei Tziyyon ve-Shirei 'Am, Philadelphia, n.d.). A folk version is included in the CD Nights of Canaan: Early Songs of the Land of Israel (Anthology of Music Traditions in Israel 12). The acrostic is "Shlomo", but the attribution to Salomon Ibn Gavirol is incorrect. This wine song was probably written in Spain prior to the expulsion of the Jews for it was already printed in one of the earliest printed collections of Hebrew poems from Spain, Shirim shirot ve-tushbahot (Constantinople, 1545). It circulated in Ashkenaz at an early period (cf. its publication in the literary journal Ha-me'assef, Adar 5544 [1785], pp. 81-82). It was probably adapted to a folk melody in Eastern Europe and later on spread to Palestine. The informant who supplied this song to Isaac Levy, Mr. Eleazar, was born and raised in Jerusalem's Old City. He probably learned this song in the Zionist youth movements, where it was assiduously performed. Despite the 'Israeliness' of the version recorded by Levy, the text of this song does also appear in Sephardi anthologies as a song for Purim, e.g. Ora ve-simha (Livorno, 1786). From here we can deduce that there is indeed some historical truth to the fact that Kikhlot yeini was sung by the Sephardim in Purim.

Coplas de Purim

The cycle of songs for Purim in Ladino comprise poems from different historical layers, usually identified as coplas (or complas) viejas from the 17^th and early 18^th centuries and coplas muevas from the late 18^th century onwards. Most of the coplas of Purim were published in chapbooks or as appendices to prayer books. Their author can generally be identified. Still, many oral versions related to these printed texts developed, regardless of the published version. Broadly speaking, the content of the coplas de Purim can be divided into three types: abbreviated versions of the entire story from the Book of Esther, burlesques about the "bad guys" in the book of Esther (Haman, his wife Zeresh and his daughter) and descriptions of the celebration of Purim. The musical documentation of the Coplas de Purim by Isaac Levy is the largest of its kind.

The Coplas de Purim included in this CD derive from five texts, as follows:

La celebración de Purim (The celebration of Purim, no. 12; Alavar quero al Dio con tañer y cante) from Salonika is one of the most widespread Purim coplas in the Ottoman Sephardi oral repertoire, both in its text and music. The song describes different customs and dishes for the celebration of Purim among Sephardi Jews. The poem is in the form considered as the classic Copla de Purim. It consists of stanzas of nine alternating short and long lines in the complex rhyme pattern ababbccdd. The tune is a variant of a melodic archetype which is known as "the" melody of this copla and of subsequent songs using the same poetic form (regardless of whether the text is for Purim or not). This phenomenon is usually reflected in the printed chapbooks of Purim songs in the indication lahan coplas de Purim, i.e. "[sing it to the] melody of the Coplas de Purim".

Three songs in this CD (no. 11 from Jerusalem, no.3 from Sarajevo and no. 17from Monastir) belong to another major copla de Purim in the classic nine line strophic form, La historia de Purim. The first acrostic of the first twenty-two strophes (out of the thirty-nine published by Levy) is arranged according to the Hebrew alphabet. The melodies of all these songs are remote, related variants of the normative lahan (archetype melody) of Coplas de Purim (see our comments to La celebración de Purim). Interestingly, no. 11 includes one stanza only (Cuando Haman se emborrachó), with the addition of the refrain "Viva el y viva yo, viva la Reina Ester" which is found only in the versions of another copla of Purim, El testamento de Hamán, sung in North Morocco. Perhaps the reason may be that this version was transmitted to Levy by Isaac Navón (the former President of Israel) whose mother's family was from Morocco.

To a third text in the classic copla de Purim pattern of nine lines, another version of La historia de Purim, belong two songs in this CD (no. 15 from Bucharest and no. 10 from Izmir). This first one is based, according to Levy, on the lahan (melody) of the Hebrew poem Eli tzur yeshu'ati, which is actually a Hebrew translation of this song in Ladino. This is one of the longest coplas ever composed (108 stanzas). The melody of no. 10 (Alevanta Mordejai) appears to be of Arabic origin (its second phrase strongly recalls the refrain of the Palestinian song Shuftyah, upon which the Israeli folksong Ma yafim ha-leylot bi-Khna'an is based).

El testamento de Hamán (The will of Haman, nos. 6and 9) is a copla found in the repertoire of both the Eastern Sephardi Jews and the communities of North Morocco. The text consists of another common pattern in the Purim repertoire: quartets with the rhyme aaab, called sometimes in the Ladino literature rima zejelesca, whereas "b" always ends with the same word, "Purim". A long version of this song (no. 9 Un día antes) from Sofia is a rare case whereas a copla is sung to the tune of a Sephardi romance. According to Levy, this is the melody of Una matica de ruda which was collected and published by him in volume I of his Chants judéo-espagnols. The second version of this copla included in this CD (no. 6; Ven aqui Zeresh) consists of only one stanza from the middle of the song.

Finally, a particularly rare item from the Purim repertoire recorded by Levy and included in this CD. is song no. 13 (Se acodren de los hijicos) from Saloniki. The text is in the aaab rhyme pattern, as El testamento de Hamán, but without a fixed word at the end of "b". The melody is in the rather unusual 5/4 meter, perhaps related to the Ottoman usul (meter) called Zafer (another version of the same melody, awkwardly notated in 2/4 appears in Levy IV, no. 80).

References

Idelsohn, Abraham Zvi. 1922. Hebräisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz III: Gesänge der persichen, bucharischen und daghestanischen Juden. Jerusalem, Berlin, Wien.

Hassán, Iacob M. 1976. Las Coplas de Purim. Unpublished thesis, Universidad Complutense, Madrid.

Seroussi, Edwin. 1992. R. Joseph Shalom Gallego Author of Imrei No'am: A Cantor from Saloniki in Early 17th-century Amsterdam with Annotations on the Poets, the Poems by Joseph Shalom Gallego and an Analytical Index by Tova Beeri, Assufot 6, pp. 87-150. [in Hebrew].

Seroussi, Edwin. 2000. Livorno: A Crossroads in the History of Sephardic Religious Music. Jews around the Mediterranean 1550-1850, ed. Moises Orfali and Elliot Horowitz. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, in press.