The earliest evidence of Jewish musical culture is found in the Old Testament. Hebrew music was established by King David between 1002 and 970bc in the Temple of Jerusalem, where Levite musicians were in charge of instrumental and vocal performance. Biblical instruments include the ′asor (a string instrument, presumed to have had ten strings), halil (wind instrument, probably including flutes and reed instruments), &hdotb;atzotzerah (trumpet, probably used to produce rhythmic blasts on a single pitch), kaithros (probably a lyre), kinnor (probably a lyre, played by David for Saul: the most important melodic instrument of ancient Israel), metziltayim (probably pair of cymbals), minnim (probably string instrument), nevel (probably a lyre or a harp), qarna (animal horn played at Nebuchadnezzar's court), tof (probably a round frame drum like the tambourine but without jingles), ′ugav (probably a wind instrument) and the shofar (ram or ibex horn, used for signalling), the only instrument played in modern times. After the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in ad 70, instrumental music was banned; vocal forms, particularly psalm singing, survive to the present, however, apparently with little change, and are the oldest living forms of Jewish music. Other vocal forms are cantillation of the prose books of the Bible (including the Pentateuch, Prophets and Ruth) and virtuoso, improvisatory prayers and hymns, orally transmitted by cantor-composers.
Since the Middle Ages, music has been linked with Jewish mysticism, as in the eastern European Hasidic movement, with its distinctive niggunim, strongly rhythmical men's songs sung to non-lexical syllables. The Hasidic style influenced east European synagogue music. Precentors developed virtuoso styles, often drawing on local classical idioms (e.g. the maqām system in the East diaspora and Baroque variation techniques in the West).
German synagogues began to incorporate choirs, organ and other instrumental music from c 1700, drawing on a contemporary non-Jewish repertory of secular pieces, dance and even operatic tunes. The 19th century saw the increasing assimilation of Western styles in synagogue music, as well as the formation of cantoral schools. The first Reform temple, of Israel Jacobson, used German chorales with Hebrew texts. American synagogue music was originally based on European models, though more recently such composers as Ernest Bloch, Frederick Jacobi, Lazare Saminsky and Isadore Freed have contributed pieces in Hebraic idiom.
There is no unified body of Jewish folksong, rather a multitude of folk traditions that reflect conditions in the many scattered communities formed after the destruction of the Second Temple and the dispersion of Jewry around the world. These diverse traditions blend Jewish trends with local forms; for example, Yiddish folksongs of eastern Europe retain something of their medieval German character while drawing on the style of the host culture - Russian, Polish or Romanian. In North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, songs of the Sephardim, driven from Spain in 1492, retain Spanish elements.
Unlike Islam, which has steadily expanded, influencing musical cultures from Spain to Indonesia, the creation of Israel in 1948 resulted in a sudden compression of Jews from widely dispersed regions. Because of this unusual concentration of cultures, Israel has been the focus of intensive ethnomusicological investigation: of Yeminite traditions (believed to be the oldest), of the Sephardim (with their Spanish romanzas, surviving from the 15th century), of the Ethiopian Falasha, of Jewish congregations from India and of the Ashkenazim from German, Slavonic and Baltic states (with their complex history of cultural exchange).
The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.
