Posted on 08/15/2007 10:57:32 AM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
While everyone's discussing the return of the Latin mass I've found an album of prayers and chants by Baghdadi Jews in Singapore. It's quite interesting and can be listened to at least once for free or purchased for download for $9.95. It's at free.napster.com.
Here's the link if anyone's interested.
Enjoy this taste of a rich, ancient, nearly extinct, and practically unknown world!
Interesting! Sounds more Jewish than Gregorian — well, I guess it would. I won’t say much, since I’m not very musical by nature and my musical education has been spotty at best, but thanks for posting!
But here's a Yigdal I like!
ML/NJ
I'd like to sing the Song of Glory occasionally when I'm feeling low but am afraid it's too holy.
I sing it to myself all the time, but I'm never as good as the kids who lead it in my shul.
Since you mention it, it's sort of a coincidence that Anim Zemirot precedes that Yigdal on the Signs and Wonders album that it comes from. (Click on "To Listen" to get to excerpts from all the songs on the album. N.B. I have nothing to do with the CD except that I heard Nachum Segal play the Yigdal, contacted him to find out where it came from, and then ordered it.)
ML/NJ
It's long been my understanding that the Shir Shel Kavod is an extremely holy song, so much so that it can't even be sung on Yom Tov unless it falls on Shabbat. I believe there are also those who only sing it on the High Holy Days (or maybe it was only sung on those holidays originally).
ML/NJ
Very interesting! The scale sounds more Sub-Saharan African or European than Middle Eastern.
Yes, I have the ArtScroll Siddur and I believe it lists the Shir Shel Kavod as part of the Mussaf for Shabbat and Yom Tov but the little shul two hours from here I visit twice a year won't recite it on Yom Tov unless it's also Shabbat. I don't know how universal this practice is.
I believe it was originally sung only on the Yamim Nora'im which goes to show its great holiness.
Well, I've only Davnened with 'Ashkinazim, so it sounds Middle Eastern to me. Plus how can you say that with all those "waws?"
Wow almost like Punk Gospel. lol.
I think the Ashkenazi were very influenced by their stay in Eastern Europe, weren’t they? A lot of that chant sounded very much like Orthodox or Byzantine Rite Catholic chant from Little Russia (that is, the Ukraine and Slovakia). Not the elaborate Russian settings of Rimsky Korsakov, of course, but basically peasant village chant.
If you went to parts of PA or OH a few years ago, you would have heard this type of chant in the local Orthodox or Eastern Catholic church, sung by coal miners and steel mill workers. I don’t know what they sing now. Probably Marty Haugen.
However, just a reminder--these are Baghdadi Jews from Iraq (ancient Babylon), where Jews had lived since the First Exile until being chased out in modern times. The synagogue itself is (or was) in Singapore where some of the exiles from Baghdad took refuge. If it sounded like any chr*stian chant it seems to me it would sound either Antiochene or Edessene rather than Byzantine.
I started to ask how this could possibly remind you of Southern quartet singing mimicing a brass marching band but remembered that's not the kind of music most people mean when they mention "gospel."
I once heard a lecture by a guy who supposedly asked a Jewish scholar what the original Psalms must have sounded like. The scholar replied, “You’ve never heard the Gregorian Chant?”
This recording is a rare spiritual gem, considering where it was from. This must be appriciated.
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