Notes to Accompany the Cantata of Psalms

Oxford Liturgical Service — 2010

David C. Mitchell is a musico-theologian; he has the doctorate in Hebrew and Old Testament from New College, Edinburgh, and writes on the Psalms; he is Director of Music at the Anglican Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Brussels.

The lost melodies of the Psalms have been, like a Holy Grail, sought by many, but not yet found. Will they ever be restored? Well, certainly, if they are to be found, it will be in the cantillational accents or te'amim of the Masoretic text.

Yet the decipherment of the poetic te'amim is hardly straightforward, for even the cantoral community admits to not understanding them. Nonetheless, there have been several attempts at decipherment from the eighteenth century down to the present.1

The most convincing of these is that of the French-Jewish archaeomusicologist, Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura (1912–2000), who formulated her system in southern France, while escaping from Nazi-occupied Paris. At its publication, in the 1970s, it won the highest plaudits.2 The Chief Rabbi of France, Henri Schilli, spoke of her "overwhelming discovery". The composer Olivier Messiaen hailed her as the Champollion of the Psalms. The second edition of her book, in 1978, won the Prix Bernier, the highest award of l'Institut de France. The archaeomusicologist Denise Jourdan-Hemmerdinger, writing in Revue des études juives, wrote:

"Indisputably, Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura has rediscovered the methods of musical writing of antiquity and medieval times. For it is difficult to imagine that a system founded on false suppositions could pertain so rigorously to such a large number of texts."3

Yet an issue surrounding the te'amim is their relatively recent origin. If they were simply invented by the Karaite Masoretes just over a thousand years ago, then they might have little relation to the ancient Temple song.

However, Kahle's Cairo Geniza researches point to a different conclusion. Citing Moses ben Asher's Song of the Vine, Kahle says, "Moses b. Asher traced the chain of Karaitic tradition to the Elders of Bathyra, the spiritual ancestors of Karaism who had inherited the prophetic traditions."4 They led the Sanhedrin in the early period.5

Therefore, if Kahle's view is correct, then the Masoretes did not invent the te'amim at all. Rather, they received them fully-formed in a chain of tradition dating back beyond the time of Hillel. It follows that the te'amim may indeed be an accurate transcription of the ancient Temple cantillation.

Today is the fifteenth of Tishri, when the Songs of Ascents were sung in the Temple of old. We will sing for you Psalm 122, which represents a pilgrim entering Jerusalem for the Dedication of Solomon's Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles. Watch out for the perfect quatrain at the end: sha'alu shalom yerushalayim.

The musical arrangements you hear conform to what is known of music in Solomon's time. A text from Nippur shows that Mesopotamian music already employed parallel thirds, fourths, fifths, and sixths in 2000 BCE6, while the diatonic scales featured here are found in the Babylonian tuning texts of 1800 BCE.7

The alternation between cantor and chorus is one of the best-attested features of ancient Israelite music. Hanoch Avenary notes, "The various kinds of Jewish psalmody arose altogether from one formal principle: the confrontation of soloist and choir."8

Another well-attested feature of old Hebrew music is the accompanying vocal drones beneath the cantor's singing. Israel Adler describes this practice in medieval Ashkenazic congregations.9

Of course, this reproduction of Temple music is not entirely authentic. We have, for instance, no harps, lyres, trumpets or drums. Our accompaniment is limited to these cymbals and this magrephah. But I hope it gives an idea of how Temple music sounded.

We close with the great musical coda of the Psalms, which calls on all instruments and breathing things to join the song of praise.

Clearly, we have much to learn from this new way of listening to the Psalms. With time and research, it will lead to a whole range of new interdisciplinary studies between Judaism and Christianity, and between the sciences of theology and music, which will ultimately allow us to restore Israel's ancient worship of God.

A Note About the Tallis Settings

By Matthew Cheung-Salisbury — Lecturer in Music at Worcester College

The texts of Psalms 1, 95, and 67 heard tonight form part of the metrical Psalter of Archbishop Matthew Parker (1504–1575), a complete translation produced in exile during the reign of Queen Mary, and published in 1567 (STC 2729). The settings are the first, fourth, and eighth of nine tunes composed by Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585) to accompany Parker's Psalter, one for each mode and set to a psalm, and a ninth for the Veni Creator. The tenor part in each of the tunes was intended by the composer for congregational use; the others for 'greater choirs'. Since both texts and settings are metrical, it was also necessary to select a pair whose metres would agree: those heard tonight are pairs printed in the Psalter.

The printed Psalter was accompanied by Parker's observations, in verse; for example, on Psalm 1: This Psalme in sence Sheweth difference / Of men both good and bad: it sheweth their fruites Their hartes pursuites / Their endes both glad and sad! At the front of the volume is a long verse composition by Parker on the benefits of psalmody. The following passage gives a sense of his intention both in translating and promulgating his Psalter, an intention that seems to agree with Tallis's attitude to the musical setting of psalmody.

Footnotes

  1. A. Sendrey, Music in Ancient Israel (New York: Philosophical Library, 1969) pp. 205-207, notes the systems of J.C. Speidel and C.G. Anton in the 18th century, of L. Haupt and L. Arends in the 19th, and of subsequent work by H. Berl, O. Glaser and J. Yasser. More recently, Daniel M. Weil published The Masoretic Chant of the Hebrew Bible (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1996) and D. McCorkle presents another system on his website, ://musicofthebible.com. I omit any reference to the attempts of the Hebrew University Center for the Study of Jewish Music to wind church and synagogue chant back to a Temple original, not because they are not useful or fruitful (for they are both), but because they start not with the te'amim, but with traditional chant.
  2. I should add, however, that my respect for Haïk-Vantoura's work is based not on these plaudits, but rather on the fact that the application of her system to Psalm 114 gives rise to a melody recognizably similar to the same Psalm's ancient church and synagogue chant, known as the tonus peregrinus. For more details, see my booklet, Resinging the Temple Psalmody.
  3. Denise Jourdan-Hemmerdinger, review of "Suzanne HAÏK-VANTOURA. Les 150 Psaumes dans leurs mélodies antiques." Revue des études juives 145 (Jan-Jun 1986), p. 131.
  4. P. Kahle, The Cairo Geniza (Oxford: Blackwell, 1959), p. 86. Moshe ben Asher's Colophon to the Codex of the Prophets also claims to have derived the te'amim from the adat nevi'im "Congregation of the prophets", a reference to the Karaite community (Cairo Geniza, pp. 86-96).
  5. (B. Pes. 66a. Y. Pes. VI 33a) Their descendants continued to be eminent teachers well into the Mishnaic period (e.g. Pes. 3b; Sanh. 32b; RH 29b).Hanoch Avenary, Studies in the Hebrew Word of Music.Israel Adler, Hebrew Writings Concerning Music.
  6. Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn, and Miguel Civil (1986). "Old Babylonian Musical Instructions Relating to Hymnody". Journal of Cuneiform Studies 38, no. 1:94-98. In the same period, double pipes and harps, which presuppose harmonic accompaniment, were in use across the ancient world.
  7. West, M.L., "The Babylonian Musical Notation and the Hurrian Melodic Texts", Music & Letters, Vol. 75.2., May (1994) pp.161-179.
  8. H. Avenary, Formal Structure of Psalms and Canticles in Early Jewish and Christian Chant, Musica Disciplina 1963:1-13 (3). Reprinted in Avenary, Encounters of East and West in Music - Selected Writings (Tel Aviv, 1979) 105-111. Nathan ha-Bavli and Pethaliah of Regensburg record the practice in Babylon in the tenth and eleventh centuries.
  9. Adler. Hebrew Writings Concerning Music in Manuscripts and Printed Books from Geonic Times up to 1800 (RISM IX.2; Munich, 1975) p. 218. Charles Burney records the same practice among Dutch Ashkenazim in the eighteenth century (P.A. Scholes (ed.), Dr. Burney's Musical Tours in Europe. Vol. II. An Eighteenth-Century Musical Tour in Central Europe and the Netherlands. London, Oxford University Press, 1959). It is found among North African Sephardi to this day.
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