Water, water!
Sep. 2nd, 2009 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuAs you may recall, one of the distinguishing features of my prayer book project is the inclusion of musical notation to help the shaliach tzibbur, the leader of the service, to remember the nusach. In most cases, this is just a brief reminder of the beginning of a familiar melody so that if I'm blanking at the start of a section I can get a jump-start, but in a handful of places it's actually a completely notated passage that occurs infrequently.
One such passage is the prayer for dew, recited on the first day of Passover, and the prayer for rain, recited on Shemini Atzeret. These share a melody that is designated mi-Sinai; not that we literally believe it comes "from Sinai" but it is an ancient melody, from time immemorial (almost certainly predating 1066CE), and one that the shaliach tzibbur Does Not Tinker With.
For the last several years, I have been honored with the opportunity to lead the services containing Tal and/or Geshem on a regular basis. I did my research in Cantor Pinchas Spiro's compendium A Musical Siddur and in Avraham Baer's 19th-century masterwork Der Practischer Vorbeter. Last year, though, someone who knows his stuff told me that I was doing it wrong, that what I was using was a mangled Neilah, and had me do it with a different melody which was also very familiar. What was going on?
I asked my teacher Josh Jacobson, and he said they were both legitimate but the latter was the one he uses. I asked another chazzan whose experience I trust, and he said that he has heard them both and the second one matches Noah Schall's Chazzanic Thesaurus. So now at least I had print citations for both.
Tonight I discovered that the third volume of Cantor Moshe Nathanson's Zamru Lo also has Tal/Geshem notated, and he's in the second camp as well. So now I have two respected authorities on either side.
I examined the melodies more closely, and discovered that, ornamentation aside, after the first six bars or so they converge. And if you reduce the first few bars down, and kinda squint, they can be considered baroquely ornamented versions of the same basic structure --- which was probably the true ancient tune, and despite the idea that you don't mess with mi-Sinai melodies, I think it's been hard to resist thousands of years of shelichei tzibbur singing the basic melody in the way they are accustomed to improvising everything else. And so evolution happened, but things basically line up underneath.
So I have decided to include both versions of the first six bars, on parallel staves, and then combine the rest. I've included citations ("Baer" and "Nathanson") to justify them to anyone who objects to either one. I'll decide on a year-by-year basis which one I feel like using. But now I feel confident that both are correct. And it's been a great experience getting into the juicy musicological details.
One such passage is the prayer for dew, recited on the first day of Passover, and the prayer for rain, recited on Shemini Atzeret. These share a melody that is designated mi-Sinai; not that we literally believe it comes "from Sinai" but it is an ancient melody, from time immemorial (almost certainly predating 1066CE), and one that the shaliach tzibbur Does Not Tinker With.
For the last several years, I have been honored with the opportunity to lead the services containing Tal and/or Geshem on a regular basis. I did my research in Cantor Pinchas Spiro's compendium A Musical Siddur and in Avraham Baer's 19th-century masterwork Der Practischer Vorbeter. Last year, though, someone who knows his stuff told me that I was doing it wrong, that what I was using was a mangled Neilah, and had me do it with a different melody which was also very familiar. What was going on?
I asked my teacher Josh Jacobson, and he said they were both legitimate but the latter was the one he uses. I asked another chazzan whose experience I trust, and he said that he has heard them both and the second one matches Noah Schall's Chazzanic Thesaurus. So now at least I had print citations for both.
Tonight I discovered that the third volume of Cantor Moshe Nathanson's Zamru Lo also has Tal/Geshem notated, and he's in the second camp as well. So now I have two respected authorities on either side.
I examined the melodies more closely, and discovered that, ornamentation aside, after the first six bars or so they converge. And if you reduce the first few bars down, and kinda squint, they can be considered baroquely ornamented versions of the same basic structure --- which was probably the true ancient tune, and despite the idea that you don't mess with mi-Sinai melodies, I think it's been hard to resist thousands of years of shelichei tzibbur singing the basic melody in the way they are accustomed to improvising everything else. And so evolution happened, but things basically line up underneath.
So I have decided to include both versions of the first six bars, on parallel staves, and then combine the rest. I've included citations ("Baer" and "Nathanson") to justify them to anyone who objects to either one. I'll decide on a year-by-year basis which one I feel like using. But now I feel confident that both are correct. And it's been a great experience getting into the juicy musicological details.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-03 04:11 am (UTC)(But I look forward to your siddur regardless.)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-04 12:57 am (UTC)How are you doing the music and words -- separate, music written right-to-left, or something else? (For the short cues I assumed it would just be music, no text, but what about for the full piece?)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-04 01:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-04 01:03 am (UTC)