Dum recordaremur Sion-Leon Modena

"Dum Recordaremur Sion": Music in the Life and Thought of the Venetian Rabbi Leon Modena(1571-1648)Author(s): Don HarránSource: AJS Review, Vol. 23, No. 1 (1998), pp. 17-61Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Jewish StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1486733 .

Accessed: 11/01/2014 03:54

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Cambridge University Press and Association for Jewish Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to AJS Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 132.64.40.69 on Sat, 11 Jan 2014 03:54:34 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ajs

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1486733?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


"DUM RECORDAREMUR SION": MUSIC IN THE LIFE AND THOUGHT

OF THE VENETIAN RABBI LEON MODENA (1571-1648)

by

DON HARRAN

To gauge the breadth of the topic, it should be said at the outset that music occupied a central place in the thought of Leon Modena and that Modena was not just another rabbi in early seventeenth-century Venice, but, among Italian Jews, perhaps the most remarkable figure of his generation.' His authority as a spokesman for his people rests on his vast learning, amassed from a multitude of sources, ancient, modern, Jewish, and Christian. He put his knowledge to use in an impressive series of over forty writings. They comprise often-encyclopedic disquisitions on subjects as diverse as Hebrew language and grammar, lexicography, Jewish rites and customs, Kabbalah, alchemy, and gambling, to which one might add various plays, prefaces,

1. The major writing on Modena, with extensive bibliographical coverage, is Howard Adelman, "Success and Failure in the Seventeenth-Century Ghetto of Venice: The Life and Thought of Leon Modena" (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1985). For Modena "reevaluated," see idem, "New Light on the Life and Writings of Leon Modena," in Approaches to the Study of Medieval Judaism, vol. 2, ed. David Blumenthal (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 109-122. I am grateful to Professors Adelman and Benjamin Ravid for complying with my request to read and comment on the present study, thereby allowing me to benefit from their wise counsel on numerous points of style and content. For a shorter version, with, as its first section, a review of Jewish musical activities in Renaissance Venice, see "Jewish Musical Culture in Early Modem Venice," in The Jews of Venice: A Unique Renaissance Community, ed. Robert C. Davis and Benjamin Ravid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming). An even shorter version, preliminary to each of the above, was read at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America (Bloomington, Ind.; April 1996).

AJS Review 23/1 (1998): 17-61 17



18 DON HARRAN

rabbinic authorizations, translations, editions, at least four hundred poems (among them epitaphs), a highly personal autobiography, and numerous rabbinical responsa. Of his responsa, two concern music, the earlier of the two amounting to an extended essay on its kinds and functions.

True, Modena's connections with music have not escaped scholars.2 In the present writing, however, they are treated, inclusively, as reflecting basic currents in his thought, among them the notion of a hiatus between the ancient Temple, where the arts and sciences flourished, and the culturally impoverished modem era. Art music served Modena as an example to demonstrate the recent attainments of the Jewish people, emerging from the shadows of their artistic mediocrity-his words--uring the early years of their dispersion, to regain, in the later sixteenth century, the skills and erudition they had once possessed in biblical times. The paradigm is the usual one for humanist revivals of antique culture, so familiar from its many appearances in the arts and letters of the Renaissance, but now with a Jewish twist. Where, in the music of the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a formula was gradually elaborated for allowing contemporary music to be enriched with ancient concepts, Modena was faced with the dilemma that the Jews of his day had no music to speak of, or so he opined, and hence they were forced to create a new music after concepts, yet without precedents. The only model available was that of Italian art music, and for lack of another, it aided the Jews in their efforts to forge their own examples. Modena unwittingly led them to believe that in following it, they were resuscitating ancient practice.

In treating the practical and theoretical sides of Modena's musical activity, I shall be concerned, in order, with music as part of the duties that Modena performed in the synagogue; references to music in his writings, in particular his poetry; music as the subject of two of his rabbinical responsa; the leading role that Modena played in shaping the first and, until modem times, most important collection of polyphonic works by a Jewish composer-I am referring to Salamone Rossi's "Songs of Solomon"; and Modena as the director of a music academy. As many topics were suggested by Modena in his autobiography, where, in alluding to the twenty-six trades he plied at various times to earn his living, he names cantorial song (point 1 above) and music (roughly equivalent to the remaining points).3 To these one might add

2. Rather than summarize the literature here, I shall refer to it, where relevant, in the sections below.

3. Sefer hayyei Yehuda ["Book of Judah's Life"], ed. Daniel Carpi (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University Press, 1985), pp. 104-105, resp. hazzanut and musiqa. (All translations here, and



MUSIC IN THE LIFE AND THOUGHT OF RABBI LEON MODENA 19

others that Modena failed to mention but that are known by hindsight, namely, writing poetry intended for musical performance or saturated with musical imagery or both; editing music; teaching it; performing it as a singer and possibly an instrumentalist; rehearsing and conducting musicians; and, it is even conceivable, composing music for one or more voice parts. Clearly, Leon Modena was no ordinary rabbi; rather, in his versatility he was, and remains, incomparable. That music often stood in the forefront of his preoccupations, in deed and thought, lends it unusual significance in early modem Italian Jewish culture.

Breaking the Monopoly of Cantorial Song

In 1609, at the age of thirty-nine, Modena was ordained as a rabbi in Venice. Yet he discharged rabbinical responsibilities in the years he spent in Ferrara (1604-7) and in Florence (1609-10).4 In Ferrara, beyond preaching in the synagogue, he may have engaged in cantorial singing;' and in Venice, he was, in fact, appointed cantor, in 1610, to the Italian synagogue, or Scuola italiana, a post he held, uninterruptedly, until his death thirty-eight years later. Modena defines a cantor as one who, in the synagogue services, "sings prayers louder than others."6 Not only prayers were chanted, but readings from the Pentateuch and the Prophets as well as postbiblical verses (piyyutim). In order to qualify for the post, the cantor had to meet certain general and professional

elsewhere, were made from the Hebrew; for an English version, see The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena ' "Life of Judah, " trans. Mark R. Cohen [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988].) Modena's list comprises such other activities, with ties to music, as writing comedies (to which were appended, as customary, musical interludes; see below), pronouncing rabbinical decisions (including two on music, to be discussed), and proofreading printed copy (especially, for our purposes, Rossi's "Songs of Solomon," again to be discussed).

4. For Modena in Ferrara, then in Florence, see Adelman, "Success and Failure," resp. pp. 351-392, 411-420.

5. For Abraham ben Mordekhai Farissol, who, from his initial appointment in 1475, held the post of cantor in Ferrara for at least fifty years, see David Ruderman, The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordekhai Farissol (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1981), esp. pp. 18-20.

6. Leon Modena, Historia de' riti hebraici (1637; repr., after 1678 edition, Bologna: Arnaldo Forni, 1979), p. 18 ("... che canta pitu forte degl'altri le Orationi, detto Cazan"; I.x.7). As with the Hebrew, all translations, unless otherwise indicated, are the author's.



20 DON HARRAN

requirements. We read in the Talmud that, beyond being "experienced," he was expected to be a person "who awakens respect, exhibits modesty, and is acceptable to the people; who knows how to sing and has a pleasant voice; and who is skilled in reading the Torah, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, in teaching the Midrash, halakhot ['Jewish laws'], and aggadot ['Jewish lore'], and [in chanting] all the blessings."7

On Modena's musical training, we know no more than what may be read in his autobiography, which is that, at the age of ten or thereabouts, he received "a little instruction in playing an instrument, in singing, in dancing, in writing, and in Latin."' It must have been adequate, along with his natural gift for music, for Modena to discharge his duties. But though "knowing how to sing" is essential to cantorial song, is cantorial song music? Apparently not, for in one of his writings Modena considered the music of the synagogue a pale reflection of what was once, in the ancient Temple, a glorious practice. The reason for its decline lies, to his mind, in the exile of the Jews and their peregrinations. "Indeed, the events of our foreign dwellings and of our restless runnings are spread over the lands, and the vicissitudes of life abroad sufficed to make them forget all knowledge [nmyr]

and lose all intellect [?DV]."9 What was forgotten and lost was the supposed art music practiced by the Levites until the destruction of the Temple in the year 70.

Instead of art music, the monophonic chant--"monophonic" meaning music having a single line--of the cantor, who sang alone or together with the congregation, was developed, in the Middle Ages, as an embellished form of textual recitation. Signs were added to the sacred texts as an aid in their accentuation and articulation. The result was something approaching

7. Babylonian Talmud (B.T.), Ta'anit ("Fast") 16a (nXii ,il v ,nim lp~TI ... '•,1' I...,

"J1 l ninlnn 'D). On the duties of the cantor, see Leo Landman, "The Office of the Medieval Hazzan," Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 62 (1972): 156-187, 244-276.

8. "o•mrr Tn nr ,'tn jfh , nV z ,Tpi'* ,'rv ,11*5 at,, (Sefer hayyei Yehuda, p. 41). On the

musical training of others in his family, see below. 9. Modena's foreword to Salamone Rossi's "Songs of Solomon" (Venice: Pietro and

Lorenzo Bragadini, 1622-23, from prefatory matter on fols. 1-6v): a'•Tm i 3'1 r nrlp TK,,

author draws on the Song of Songs 1:17 ("-,n•i atfl iK •n•t nallp,,), Esther 3:8 (anr,. "Ilan 11. "'l li), and Isa. 2:6 ("lp'v ar~•ln ~'tm,), playing on the double-meaning of rmaip

(events/beams), •,1'i (runnings/rafters), and Ip,,on (sufficed/were content).




Gregorian reading tones.10 Beyond the cantillation of Scriptures, prayers were sung according to skeletal motives or tetrachordal formulae, and hymns, or

piyyu.tim, according to simple melodies, repeated for separate strophes (as in Gregorian hymns). This was not music, in the sense of music as part writing, or what Modena and others called "the science of music" (hokhmat han-niggun).1 Rather, it consisted in parsing and intoning texts with motives or melodies transmitted through oral tradition. Modena tells us that in his day some congregations did more singing, particularly the Ashkenazic Jews; and that others did less, and here he refers to his own congregation of the italiani, who read the prayers "more directly and calmly.""2 What he means is that the renditions varied from simple to more ornate. Still, the text, in readings of prayers and biblical portions, was largely recited, while music served, in one or another form, for its reinforcement.

That art music, or, as it was called, musiqa, stands apart from the cantorial tradition is clear from the controversy that followed Modena's attempt to introduce it into the prayer services in Ferrara.'3 He writes of having engaged a music teacher, around 1604, to impart the rudiments of music to certain

10. Cf. Liber usualis (with introduction and rubrics in English; Tournai: Descl6e, 1952), pp. 98-124.

11. For "the science of music," see references in index to Hebrew Writings Concerning Music in Manuscripts and Printed Books from Geonic Times up to 1800, ed. Israel Adler (RISM B IX2; Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 1975), p. 360 (also references there s.v. hokhmat ham-musiqa). On musiqa in the sense of "art music," cf. Nehemya Alloni, "Ham-munalh 'musiqa' be-sifrutenu bi-y'mei hab-beinayim" ["The Term 'musiqa' in Medieval Hebrew Literature"], in Yuval: Studies of the Jewish Music Research Center 1, ed. Israel Adler (Jerusalem: Magnes Press of Hebrew University, 1968), pp. 11-38 (Hebrew sec.).

12. Cf. Historia de 'riti hebraici, p. 22 ("Nel canto, i Tedeschi piit di tutti cantano, Levantini, e Spagnuoli a certo modo, che ha del Turchesco, gl'Italiani piui schietto, e riposatamente"; I.xi.6). Modena's pupil Samuel Nahmias, or after conversion Giulio Morosini, writes that in Venice, in the early seventeenth century, there were synagogues of "all kinds of national [origin, where] Spaniards, Turks, Portuguese, Germans, Greeks, Italians, and others congregated, and they all sing after their own practice" ("nelle Sinagoghe ... intervenendovi di ogni sorte di natione, Spagnuoli, Levantini, Portoghesi, Tedeschi, Greci, Italiani, et altri, e cantano ogni uno ad usanza propria"; Morosini, Via della fede mostrata agli ebrei [Rome: Sacra Cong. de Prop. Fide, 1683], pp. 789-790). (On Nahmias alias Morosini, see further below.)

13. For details, see quaestio portion of a rabbinical responsum published by Modena in 1605 (London, British Library, MS Add. 27148, fol. 9a); cf. She'elot u-t'huvot: Ziqnei Yehuda ["Responsa of the Elders of Judah"], ed. Shlomo Simonsohn (Jerusalem: Rabbi Kuk Foundation, 1956), pp. 15-20 (also included, seventeen years later, in the prefatory matter to Salamone Rossi's "Songs"). Further information is contained in a letter that Modena wrote, in the same year, to Judah Saltaro da Fano: cf. Igrot rabbi Yehuda Arie mim-Modena ["Letters



22 DON HARRAN

members of the congregation ("we decided on a meeting place and hired a teacher who came to teach every day. Those without knowledge are being taught, which causes them great pleasure and delight").14 It could be that Modena was himself the teacher.15 Whatever the case, through the teacher's guidance some six to eight singers learned enough to perform, in the prayer services for holidays and festivals, "songs and praises, hymns, and the melodies Ein keloheinu, 'Aleinu leshabbeah, Yigdal, Adon 'olam, and others in honor of the Lord, observing the ordering and relation of the various voices according to the aforementioned science.""6 Modena seems to be referring to some kind of part music, i.e., having two or more voices. Most of the congregants accepted it with enthusiasm ("the crowd rejoiced and the whole congregation was delighted with it")."I Among the opponents, however, there was a certain rabbi, Moses Coimbran, who, after the Friday evening service that inaugurated the Sabbath,'" questioned its appropriateness:19

of Rabbi Leon Modena"], ed. Yacob Boksenboim (Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University Press, 1984), pp. 110-111.

14. amYn roin Y- ,r

x ) ) 7rn = b31 mn ,

= p zn, 5-vx -r• - 13'-IDI ,-Y1 n, •,•y• .... "Inu uTn (from letter to Judah Saltaro).

15. Such a possibility was also suggested by Adelman, "Success and Failure," p. 379. 16. i"nx I3l•rp ,:l:n• ny-r n:1:13tv Kltr a K~prtnrl ["lroin rn* 11]

- ". "71 , nrin: n• "•y Y-n, a n ,.

Ir,11? j,") ?,n1 ,'lrt::•V "P• rl03 nI lr

n :nw 1311"1- napI r11i••X n•'lnal 1lnl? [Ir'r1mn 1-11•

I ,l~a•v]

"n'1o~y3 in)zn3 1 m pi "ly nn -r t~ '-n nlz 7rxZIm tay T"t '-r

n•v? Ixy (from quaestio that Modena addressed in his responsum). Ein keloheinu ("There is none like our God"): hymn of praise and thanks to God (as, moreover, Lord, king, and savior) in his uniqueness, recited (in the Italian rite, to which we limit this and the following identifications) at close of Additional Service on Sabbath and Festivals; 'Aleinu leshabbeah ("It is our duty to praise the Lord of all things"): concluding prayer, proclaiming divine sovereignty over Israel and the world, for all daily and Sabbath services; Yigdal ("Magnified and glorified be the living God"): hymn (possibly by Daniel ben Yehuda, ca. 1300), based on Maimonides' Thirteen Articles of Faith, for close of both Evening and Additional Services on Sabbath and festivals; Adon 'olam ("Lord of the universe"): hymn extolling unity, timelessness, and providence of God, for close of Evening Service on Sabbath.

17. "n m IneT Synpn r ,?nM n pnpn,, (from letter to Judah Saltaro). 18. July 30, 1605 (the Special Sabbath known as Nahamu, following the Ninth of Av,

which commemorates the destruction of the Temple).

"-l'lln2lf ' n •3

1 Wm,1V Iy tip nX In1Vt p7K n 'vp? .T t 17 T ntn aKI tlKI (the quotation is, again, from the quaestio portion; cf. She 'elot u-t' huvot, p. 15).




A man arose to expel them [the singers]. With the speech of his lips20 he reacted by saying that it is not right to do this,21 for rejoicing is prohibited, and hymns are prohibited, and praises when presented according to the science of the said song [zemer]22 are prohibited ever since the Temple was destroyed,23 in compliance with [the words] "Rejoice not, Israel, for joy, as do other peoples."24 Though most of them [the singers] were scholars of Torah,25 he made them an object of scorn in the eyes of the multitude who heard their voices.

The reason why Coimbran became so aggravated was, it would seem, the proximity of the Sabbath to the doleful Ninth of Av. Yet he could well have been ill disposed to art music to start with.

Could rabbinical authority be invoked to prohibit such music? Modena debated the question in a responsum, on which more below. Whatever the answer, it is clear that the antagonist perceived the music the singers performed as quite different from the cantorial song to which he was accustomed. So did the congregation and obviously its leader, Modena, who rushed to its defense. That Modena practiced cantorial song, yet promoted art music, poses no contradiction. The one had its rationale in the readings of the prayer services as they developed in the medieval synagogue; the other was linked conceptually to the ceremonial of the biblical Temple, yet was otherwise practiced by Gentiles, from medieval times on, in sacred and secular music governed by meter and counterpoint, hence its "order" and "relation."

Modena was not the only member of his family to have studied "music," i.e., how to sing and play. His uncle Solomon Jacob Raphael Modena (d. 1580), famed as a rabbinic scholar, received training in it, along with Latin and letter writing, in his twenties, from still another rabbinic scholar (Joseph Arli).26 Moses Simha (d. 1605), his brother-in-law, was described as one who "knows how to play, sing, and dance," which he, too, learned at an

20. Cf. Igrot rabbi Yehuda Arie mim-Modena, p. 110. 21. Exod. 8:22 ("And Moses said: it is not right to do this"): the passage was purposely

chosen because it concerns Moses, the name of the adversary. 22. On zemer (1riT) as "song" (Italian canto), see Modena, Novo dittionario hebraico, e

italiano, ciod, dichiaratione di tutte le voci Hebraiche piut dfficili delle scritture Hebree nella volgar lingua italiana (Venice: Giocomo Sarzina, 1612), fol. [110]v.

23. Refers to Hag. 1:4 ("n'in n nl nr,,). 24. Quotation from Hos. 9:1. 25. For the expression "scholars of Torah" (tofsei hat-tora), see Jer. 2:8. 26. See Alexander Marx, "Rav Yosef ish Arli be-tor more we-rosh yeshiva be-Si'ena"

["Rabbi Joseph of Arli as Teacher and Head of a Yeshiva in Siena"], in Sefer hay-yovel



24 DON HARRAN

early age.27 He sang well enough to appear in intermedi,28 though he seems otherwise to have engaged in small business, combining it with "wisdom and [a knowledge of] books."29

Rabbinical studies, secular knowledge, dance, music, as many strands interwove in the activities of the fifteenth- to seventeenth-century Italian Jews.30 Modena's favorite son-in-law Jacob Halevi was "burgeoning with wisdom in Torah, in Kabbalah, and in secular subjects .... His profession was dancing and his knowledge and actions were unblemished."31 Elsewhere Modena said of him that even though he taught dancing and, further, how to play instruments, he "did not abandon his reading of Torah, and he continues to make progress in his studies; he is a fine preacher and a fine scholar."32

Hardly a scholar, but no less artistically inclined, was Modena's son Zebulun. In 1622, he sang in the Great Synagogue in Venice at the festivities that marked the conclusion of the study, in the synagogue school, of the talmudic tractate Ketubbot. Modena says of him that, on the occasion, "Zebulun sang verses that I myself had written, and the listeners could not find enough words to praise the pleasantness of his voice."33 Zebulun kept

li-kh 'vod Levi Ginzberg ["Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume"] (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1946), pp. 279-282.

27. ", In'j71 t ,7s ,13 ...,, (Sefer hayyei Yehuda, p. 57).

28. As clear from two letters that Modena's son Mordekhai wrote, in 1604, to his uncle Moses Simha (cf. Igrot rabbi Yehuda Arie mim-Modena, pp. 94-95). At the end of the second, Mordekhai jested: "Then Moses sang--in an intermedio!" (the first part after Exod. 15:1: "...fnlr

) i v TK,,). On Renaissance intermedi, i.e., musico-dramatic portions inserted for entertainment between the acts of plays, there is a rich literature, including, among others, Wolfgang Osthoff's Theatergesang und darstellende Musik in der italienischen Renaissance (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1969) and Nino Pirrotta's Li due Orfei: da Poliziano a Monteverdi (Turin: Einaudi, 1969).

29. From Sefer hayyei Yehuda, p. 57 ("i'al nr1n In1• N•3al,,). 30. According to Cecil Roth, secular studies and courtly arts (music, dance) were imparted

to Jewish boys, in Northern Italy, within the traditional curriculum (The Jews in the Renaissance [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1959], pp. 271-304). See also, for similar opinions, Moses Avigdor Shulvass, The Jews in the World of the Renaissance, trans. Elvin I. Kose (Leiden: Brill, 1973), pp. 168-172; and most recently, Robert Bonfil, Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy, trans. Anthony Oldcorn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), esp. pp. 134-135.

3 1. ,' Mx'nn n:•t• In:•t• ... I mMXn m ;n•pi ;nnn , 'pro m n:m N

. ,X , nrn nft n w nn,,

."..... q) V'V n r ni ••in (Sefer hayyei Yehuda, p. 82).

32. n1x tr-TIWsn ,l•,• "t17-l'1n ,n,•n

x? in-ln T• ,pa•i "rcl5 "a,' ,-n z •x•:a? i•nna 1?irn xin m.... ""l"lo na V11r (ibid., p. 62).

33. "I*1pu • w

,ni nyl .vnv:l V)i Kn ' ,r ,nX n in 4K) 1V lxK 1 -

l• -

... (ibid., p. 70).




bad company, and shortly before his twenty-first birthday was accosted on the street and, with his father looking on, murdered in cold blood. Modena eulogizes him, somewhat exaggeratedly, as "handsome and comely, like nobody else in his circle. He performed songs in a voice as pleasant as that of God's angel. He was educated, intelligent, refined; he composed prose and poetry; he was a real fighter with courage unlike any other's."34 Under these tragic circumstances, Modena pleaded his reluctance to take on the labor of editing Salamone Rossi's "Songs of Solomon":35

My lyre has turned to grief36 and I am a fountain of tears,37 having on my heart the death38 of my lovely son Zebulun (may his soul be in Eden! may the Lord avenge his blood!), a boy twenty-one years old, a sweet psalmist,39 with a pleasant voice and a comely appearance.40 Without reason41 his blood was spilled like water,42 about six months ago, by a band of murderers (may their names be blotted out in this generation!)43 from among our own people. My soul refuses to be comforted;44 I will no longer hear male and female singers' voices.45

34. l=1 -5 vefr , JX?=n 7N~a • a'Pl •lp~a'B' a "•Bran npa lnvm n)n 1• ,hnv -0lIn

'rixnnxnl"n,... ",nr= r nx n ••v ~,n "i• 1

,na• K r~lm n r,-n ' n'1 "nnir mynni (ibid., p. 72).

35. 'n] a",n [%T Y innam] V"3 7*1nt -7nm5n ,in -5n ,?Yrl w

-v n ,5p 3 ,1

.5-i ,

?nx ? Dna '5

tana. 13nY 113nn VM211 M Mn V515= Inftl 1rV i rt1 iIVN1K3 1 m 1n-IY * r nir v vmym v X" In -r1nn [InY1 -7

"ni0101• 5 10p • 3 7'1lV N

'n r mn man noV nwnt -'m 1 'v.rn n ,nom

t (Modena's foreword to the collection). On the topos of fathers grieving over sons, cf. George W. McClure, Sorrow and Consolation in Italian Humanism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), esp. p. 444, n. 3, for reference to earlier precedents (in writings of Cicero, Quintilian, Petrarch, Salutati, Ficino, etc.). The problem, for Modena, was how to circumvent the rabbinical proscription against engaging in "festive" activities-the "Songs" were festive in their content and functions (see belowy-during the period of mourning (a full year).

36. Cf. Job 30:31 ("'~1 x ~ ? ,n,1,,). 37. Jer. 8:23 ("my eye is a fountain of tears": Modena plays on the word "my eye" ('eini),

which he exchanges for "I" (ani). 38. Cf. Ps. 109:22

("?•'j' ?n

t,',). 39. Cf. 2 Sam. 23:1 ("•bKV

nlrvi~t a,,). 40. Song of Songs 2:14 (",,rm flK 3 ri n p 1, 1 -5'nK 'vaPr ~

x-- aIn,,). 41. Reason there was, as Modena himself well knew: Zebulun got into a quarrel over a whore (Sefer hayyei Yehuda, p. 73; cf. Adelman, "Success and Failure," p. 513).

42. Cf. 1 Sam. 25:31 ("mifn itrM'bv,,) and Ps. 79:3 ("=iV itn ,,).

43. Ps. 109:13 (",on n•e, •nK "r nl a n)• nn-,,i,,). 44. Ps. 77:3

(",VDb m•n mnr Iln 1 '•a1~15,

,',,,). 45. 2 Sam. 19:36 ("mrnivl • -1v hp 1Y

YN'x-•t ... Yuian ,n ,•rax

ro ,va•-,,).



26 DON HARRAN

Always short of funds, and chronically complaining of his debts,46 Modena justified editing the collection as a "pious act" (mitswa), for which God would surely "have mercy on his soul," the more so since by performing it he would bring "light and happiness to the rest of the Jews."47

None of the persons mentioned seems to have practiced cantorial song, with the exception of Jacob Halevi, who, in his reading of Scriptures, doubtless intoned them according to the traditional formulae. Rather, they were knowledgeable, to varying degrees, in art music. Where cantorial song ends and art music begins is a tricky, though tantalizing, liminal question. Perhaps they meet in the domain of postbiblical religious hymns, orpiyyutim, which, of the different song types practiced by the cantor, come closest to art music in their metrical and melodic stability: one meter per verse, one melody per stanza.48 This is the kind of music that Zebulun probably performed for the festivities in the Great Synagogue, though it is not clear whether he sang the verses to a given tune or improvised his own melody.49 The important point is that there is a bridge between the two traditions, which itself narrows the distance between them in Leon Modena's activities.

Still another bridge between cantorial song and art music is in the mode of their rendition. Modena emphasized the sweetness of his son's voice. The idea of singing with a dulcet tone runs as an Ariadne thread not only through art music theory but also through rabbinical writings. It has its roots in the biblical description of David as a sweet psalmist.50 The attributes of the synagogue precentor were set by Rabbi Judah ben Illai in the second century: they included having musical ability and a sweet voice."' We read in the midrash Tanhuma that "if you have a sweet voice, glorify God with the gift He bestowed upon you; chant the Shema' and lead the people in

46. For Modena's money problems in the years 1620-22, for example, see Sefer hayyei Yehuda, pp. 67, 69-70.

47. From foreword to "Songs": ',-

anir nrt5 1to In-=IK miynn y " Iy ,nr•n m n•• Xn ~,•

"nnlt n'• nrn;n Ptnn;n "•n,1 1a n Y (cf. Esther 8:16: "i nj T1p=1irnV niurnria nt nn plnnt,).

48. On the differentiation between non-rhythmicized chants for prayers and biblical cantillation and rhythmicized ones for piyyutim, see Abraham Zvi Idelsohn, Jewish Music in Its Historical Development (New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1929), chaps. 3-4, 7.

49. The poem, on which more below, is printed in Modena's Divan, ed. Simon Bernstein (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1932), p. 156 (no. 141).

50. 2 Sam. 23:1 (see above). 51. B.T., Ta'anit 16a (see above).




prayer."52 In one of the poems that Modena inserted in the prefatory matter to Rossi's collection of "Songs," which, for him, exemplified art music in its quintessence, we read that "the singing of His chants will be as pleasant to God as Abel's offering. You will offer them to Him with great tenderness, thus turning away His wrath; despair and the sighs of mourning will retreat.""

Yet not all cantors lived up to the demands of proper delivery. In his early responsum Modena refers to some who "bray like asses"54 or who "shout to the Lord of our fathers like a dog and a crow."55 Thus they make of themselves "a laughing-stock to the nations."56 "Every cantor," we are told, "is obliged to render his voice, in prayer, as pleasant as possible." In enforcing the requirement of "sweet song," Modena borrowed an aesthetic from art music, yet with its roots, at the same time, in the Temple liturgy and, in principle if not always in practice, in the later tradition of synagogue chant. For its application one need go no farther than Modena himself: he is said to have had "a tenor voice, sweet and pleasant to its auditors."57

52. Midrash Tanhuma, Leviticus, the portion Re'e, par. 12 (?y oin~ i ,r i br i y1 n lKw,,

"P•rnv n ,1pin 'n-nr I n ,x t 7 v

,nann ,:D •:1II Ynv. Cf. Pesiqta rabbati, chap. 25 (r'n tN,

53. pr ui , vK / invnl aw 1 )t1 ,9in K / ,Y1jf1VK V'rV fl1 mw / ' I1fl nrn= 5x.7K yn 5,% "'2 nnmNM (first of three poems in collection; for its ascription to Modena, see below).

54. "...lp lrY3r XK• ma5•bn1 •,I Y1r rnrv

"11i12~ . 'mi * y p t 117••,,

(from responsum). 55.

",.~•=1 a a m nn~ ~n a ~x 5X pY 1,, (ibid.; cf. Deut. 26:7:

Yr=, •in x 'mN 'n-'N pr 31,

,,"?:,n l~ tlnf 1'~K (responsum). In emphasizing decorum, Modena tried to improve the image

of the Jews in the eyes of their neighbors. In the madrigal comedies (e.g., Orazio Vecchi's Amfiparnaso [1597] and Adriano Banchieri's Barca di Venezia [1605]), the Jews were parodied for their sloppy singing. The French humanist Francois Tissard, who attended a prayer service in Ferrara at the beginning of the sixteenth century, reported that "one might hear one man howling, another braying, and another bellowing, such a cacophony of discordant sounds do they make!" (Grammatica hebraica et graeca [Paris: Egide Gourmont, 1508], fol. 17v; after Ruderman, World of a Renaissance Jew, pp. 19, 101). Thomas Coryat, an Englishman visiting Venice in 1608, voices his own animadversions (see his Coryat s Crudities [London: W. Stansby, 1611], p. 232; or in its later edition [Glasgow: J. MacLehose, 1905], p. 371).

57. Thus his grandson Isaac Halevi reported in his introduction to Modena's Magen wa-herev ["Shield and Sword"] (Milan: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS Q139 Sup, fols. 2-3), quoted by Abraham Geiger in his Leon de Modena, seine Stellung zum Talmud, zur Kabbala und zum Christentum (Breslau: Sulzbach, 1856), fols. 11-12, esp. 11 (fnl31 whp y 13,-9, n ni,, "rynlvtDS)



28 DON HARRAN

The Joy of Music

The subject of music turns up in at least four different ways in Modena's writings: (1) general references to music; (2) music in connection with synagogue ritual or Jewish festivities; (3) musical imagery in Modena's poetry, of which some examples were written expressly to be sung; and (4) the use of art music in prayer services. Modena confronts the subject, further, in a foreword to Salamone Rossi's collection of Hebrew songs and in a letter about the music academy he directed in Venice. Here I will consider nos. 1-3, especially the third, deferring the others to later sections. Underlying the various discussions is the notion of music as a form of joyful expression.

By general references, I mean those that occur, by way of simile or analogy, in Modena's nonmusical publications. In Beit Yehuda, a collection of aggadot from the Talmud, Modena alludes to music in a cosmic sense:58

I lack the space to include what the sages have reiterated, [first], about the honor and glory of music and its usefulness, for all beauty in the lower, middle, and upper worlds and all their goodness is an order of voices and choice music, and [second] about how the soul, through music and song, awakens to be elevated and lifted from matter to the heavenly dwelling place of its Creator.

There is nothing original in this: music that reflects the harmony of the universe is a theme that runs through the ancient Greek and Roman writings. It became integrated into Neoplatonist thought from Plotinus on to Ficino; it resounds in Renaissance music theory, and in the Jewish sphere, it turns up in the Zohar and other kabbalist writings.59 To come closer to Modena's

58. vn

f nl ,,?

1I ',' rn

'I 1 Yfl1D Vfl "no

f l fl-? ~'infnl -n13 i~n I -loxK ' n

I "•im "•,

1-?,

",,,K1...n '?=" oK v nininn onin-i : from Beit Yehuda (Venice: Vendramin, 1635), fol. 44v (quoted after Nehemiah S. Libowitz, Leon Modena [New York: Harry Hirsch, 1901], p. 95; see also Shulvass, Jews in the World of the Renaissance, p. 241).

59. See, at length, Don Harrnn, In Search of Harmony: Hebrew and Humanist Elements in Sixteenth-Century Musical Thought, Musicological Studies and Documents 42 (Neuhausen: Hiinssler-Verlag for the American Institute of Musicology, 1988); and Moshe Idel, "Hap-perush ham-magi we-hat-te'urgi shel ham-musiqa be-teqstim yehudiyyim mi-t'qufat ha-renesans we- 'ad ha-hasidut" ("The Magical and Theurgic Interpretation of Music in Jewish Texts from the Renaissance until Hassidism"), in Yuval: Studies of the Jewish Music Research Center 4, ed. Israel Adler, Bathja Bayer, and Lea Shalem (Jerusalem: Magnes Press of Hebrew University, 1982), pp. 33-63 (Hebrew sec.).




time, it underlies Judah Moscato's sermon on music, which was influential in molding contemporaneous Jewish thought on music as synonymous with order and proportion; and it fits the ideology of an era dominated by concerns with messianic redemption.60 Modena's writings ought to be combed for other general, i.e., universalist, and eschatological references to music, as a complement to their appearance in his poetry (on which more below).

For music in connection with synagogue ritual, one might consult Mod- ena's Riti, a manual on Jewish rites and customs as elucidated for non-Jewish readers. No one has ever probed it for its musical information, contained mainly in part 3, on the various feasts and holidays of the Jewish year, and in part 4, on, among other things, marriage and circumcision. Thus one reads that on the Sabbath the Jews are forbidden to handle "instruments of art";61 that toward the end of Havdala, the ceremony that separates the outgoing Sabbath from workdays, "they pour wine on the ground, as a sign of happiness, and some are wont to utter some song or verse to wish one another joy and good luck for that week";62 that on the first night of Purim "many parties, feasts, and receptions are held, as related in the [next to] last chapter of Esther [9:22]"63---the place of music in Purim festivities, among them Jewish theatrical presentations, is well known;64 and that during the wedding ceremony "the bridal couple convenes in a hall or room under a canopy to the sound [of musical instruments], and, by custom, certain boys stand nearby, singing while they hold lighted torches in their hands.... The

60. Moscato was the leading rabbi in Mantua at the end of the sixteenth century. His sermon on music (Higgayon be-khinnor ["Contemplations on a Lyre"]) was published as the first in his collection Nefutsot Yehuda ["Judah's Dispersions"] (Venice: di Gara, 1588-89); for an extended study, cf. Herzl Shmueli, "Higgayon bekhinnor": Betrachtungen zum Leierspiel des Jehuda ... Moscato (Tel-Aviv: Neografika, 1953). For messianic echoes in Leon Modena's treatment of art music, see below.

61. "Non possono toccar, ne maneggiar cosa di peso, ne instrumenti d'arti ... ": Historia de' riti hebraici (III.i.7), p. 57.

62. "Per6 tutta questa cerimonia si chiama Habdald, che vuol dir distintione. Al fin del che gettano del vino per terra, per segno d'allegrezza, et alcuni usano dir qualche canto, o verso augurandosi pur felicitA, e buona sorte quella settimana.. . " (ibid. [III.i.25], p. 63).

63. "Si fanno molte allegrezze, feste, e conviti, come in Ester nell'ultimo capitolo dice, Essentque dies isti ..." (ibid. [III.x.4], pp. 85-86).

64. See, for example, Jefim Schirmann, "Hat-te'atron we-ham-musiqa bi-sh'khunot hay- yehudim be-'Italya" ["Theater and Music in Jewish Communities in Italy"], Zion 29 (1964): 61-111 (reprinted in the author's collected writings, Mehqarim u-massot ["Studies in the History of Hebrew Poetry and Drama"], 2 vols. [Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1979], 2:44-94).



30 DON HARRAN

rabbis on the spot, or the cantor of the synagogue, or the nearest relative, with a cup or carafe of wine in hand, pronounces a blessing to God. ... Then, holding another pitcher of wine, they sing six other blessings, to make seven in all. ... That evening there is a reception for friends and relatives... where, following the regular blessing at meals, the seven blessings pronounced at the wedding are sung, after which the tables are removed.""65

Music plays a major role in Modena's poetry, spawning its own vocabulary. Thus in a poem whose circumstances are unfamiliar we read:66

To God with a crown on His head, who fought for His people, but was defeated,

we will sacrifice as Abel's offering a hymn; to the conductor,

bound with the cord of a lyre, we, facing the Almighty in all His glory,

will sing in a voice of thanks and exultation ...

The verses were probably sung to celebrate an important school event, as were other hymns. Talmudic tractates were studied over a period of time, and a reception, for which Modena wrote and sometimes published poetic broadsides, marked their completion. One poem, for example, was designated for "the conclusion, in the yeshiva, of the tractate Gittin." It piles on a number of musical images at the outset, as if to indicate its vocal rendition: "Thanks did he render to God, a song, and chants, / a hymn with instruments, rejoicing, and praise.""67 Another is the poem that, to all appearances, Modena's son

65. "All'hora poi, che si vuole; si riducono li sposi in una sala, o camera sotto un baldachino con suoni, et alcuni usano con certi fanciulli appresso con torcie accese in mano, che cantano. ... Li Rabini del loco, o il cantarino della Scuola, o '1 piO stretto parente, preso una tazza, o caraffa di vino in mano, dice una benedittione a Dio. ... E poi con un'altro vaso di vino cantano sei altre benedittioni, in tutto sette..... La sera si fa un convito ad amici, e parenti.... Poi si cantano quelle sette benedittioni, che si dissero nello sposare doppo l'ordinaria benedittion della mensa, e si levano le tavole" (Historia de' riti hebraici [IV.iii.4-5], pp. 91-92).

66. Superscript breath marks are set at the point of caesura (and virgules at the end of

lines):' 1 3 fl nnK / n•

M nu , 11=T-t '~I nnffl 311p3 / =13 KI/

1?Y ~ Y••- un•, 'Infl~ IVR13 ,

",,..nuN-' rTin fl p, 1jW / nalnn 3-13 fl'7 ,

' "3!n (cf. Divan, p. 131 [no. 87]; the last line here, like the whole poem, is incomplete).

67. "'InaVI I•

1' • '•-,t mfnl, / Stl1 v-rV ' nm, mnly-n, (plus six more lines, to complete

an ottava rima; ibid., p. 120 [no. 74]). Line 6 concludes with the rhyme word simha (see end rhyme ha of line 2), referring to the head of the yeshiva, Simha Luzzatto. The final couplet has




Zebulun sang at the rather elaborate festivities for the termination of the tractate Ketubbot, as described in his autobiography (see above). It has no musical vocabulary, and from the content of its two rather undistinguished distichs one wonders how Zebulun could have made the music so inspiring as for Modena, the author, to rave over his son's performance:68

How will a society for studying Torah refuse to give all its members fish and sweetmeats?

If a maiden marries and unfolds her gown, her majesty is reason for all nations to rejoice.

Perhaps there were other stanzas, in which Zebulun displayed his vocal talents. Or perhaps he repeated the same lines two or more times, with musical variations. Or perhaps Modena fantasized.

Considerably more interesting is the musically "loaded" poem---it begins "Singing on the lips of all men in the streets"-t-hat Modena himself appears to have sung during the celebration.69 Why Modena and not his son? Because the inscription not only identifies the occasion, but also designates the poet as singer:

A hymn song from the songs of the Great Synagogue on the first day of the month Shevat in the year 5382 [= 1622]. The eminent members of the yeshiva went about their reading in peace and quiet and came to the end of the tractate Ketubbot, with the help of God and the aid of those in charge of the Ashkenazic Talmud Torah Society70 (may the Rock protect and preserve them!). The poet sings his own song, and these were his words7 [which are then quoted].

the end rhyme tin, to accord with the last word gittin (B.T., Gittin ["The Laws of Divorce"];

68. Divan, p. 156 (no. 141), marked "for the conclusion of the tractate Ketubbot ["Marriage Contracts"] in the yeshiva of the Great Synagogue" ([nomn ni ] •-n

I n•,riv nan

nin o•

nt9 a,, "n•,nlri). It reads: rnln1v n3l rnlnU n K / nlTfil ? ,Y t 1 3 7D nn '

?3? nflnn "nn? n-l3n 7ln -K,, "nim "D" [nnt•,=] r";l n''•m "nrl , nol,. 69. Divan, pp. 119-120 (no. 73). 70. Talmud Torah schools, run as confraternities, provided advanced study for adults. 71.

,3-'iN1 rn,~'v', ,v n "3 , tv*Y [vrin WK-] n"'1 nwm=l n'rr now '.1•vt •-V -11=1T1,,

"I"flT 11 111

,,D11=l "I1"W "I "V ,[1"17 1 11? InV'1 1"71

[,'UtK 11"llnn "ftn] (for poem, see below).



32 DON HARRAN

Unless the portion "sings his own song" is a figure of speech for "writes his own poem," which reason says it is not, then Modena, in his "sweet and pleasant tenor voice," as already described, must clearly have sung to the delight of his listeners.72 Not only that, but the song was performed on the first day of Shevat (January 12, 1622), whereas Modena, in his autobiography, specified that Zebulun sang on the second day of Shevat ("on the last night [of the festivities], which was the second of Shevat ... I preached to a large audience ... ; songs and instrumental pieces were performed, and Zebulun sang a poem that I myself composed," probably the poem reproduced above).73

The refrain and the first two (of the five) stanzas read thus:74

Singing on the lips of all men in the streets: let 's have an encore of the tractate Ketubbot!

Renowned yeshiva's members who were exalted to deliverance75 by the Synagogue that is the Great one:

at the close and end of years, they are as if multiplied by nine in their studies; when a maiden is wed,

all are taken by the sword76 of praises, "Wahev taken by storm," i.e., "in the end," by the sword of love.77

Singing on the lips of all men in the streets: let's have an encore of the tractate Ketubbot!

72. Bernstein, following the autobiography, identifies the poem as the one sung by Zebulun (Divan, p. 120 n.), as does Carpi (Sefer hayyei Yehuda, p. 70). Adelman, following the superscription to the poem, believes it was sung by Modena ("Success and Failure," p. 512).

73. -ivx~t iv, 1p ,Irvt,~I

'1f 1 7 1 n InVr .,t•lvy

'2 ,-l2,

vr II'ln-, ,miinri,, , "...'tx ,nan (Sefer hayyei Yehuda, p. 70).

74. noi n,

'v'I '• 121V tW n '=7 'yIn / . niIn f nano "~

/ hiTInia

v~/ M 211 '12,VD ,

:-IJn nImo: 21 '1 "nn ;*.In 'lT n? -r / x

In:fln nfl trt "n ri ' urn ir rn on aw91 upoi / n•"•arnr xn

nf': I•t7 rl 'U"? Vi n

1?? •X~1V' 1ft / Y!m1 7'12 :nnn I :? :

I n' - V:

n vn

-IV ? =2:71- "

Y / .nurixr

"n:nnymn -TY"riurn I• ,

T•' Y-n7- 7 ?nb : W: t•n: / Y7'1)1 Iv)K"Y*IS (etc.).

75. Cf. Job 5:11 ("v1' 21V tr•,np1l a1r7 tatov •tl,,). 76. Cf. Song of Songs 3:8 ("In~n ',1i

a i rn Stlnx thl,). 77. Refers to B.T., Kiddushin ["Marriage"] 30a, where the study of Torah is conceived as a battle between father and son, i.e., teacher and pupil, ending in peace or, as here, love: *1v9,,

"non ?x no ito n x -oo n

[?,1fJ ?1 nn n, ~1mv it nx lt (the last portion, suggesting that

niol be read not as "storm" but as "end," is a quotation from the lost biblical Book of the Wars of the Lord, referring to the site Wahev; cf. Num. 21:14:

wiln' :'1n mnl1nn -n•o

-a•. 7n-,,

"prix1 tr?=.rnxl1,;35~)




About the glory of their forces a man sings praises, including, in all things, wisdom, understanding, and science;78

he is a leader for Israel; light and happiness [simha], after his name, [he brings] to the Luzzatto family; and he is known,

like Heman, Calcol, and Darda, for being wise,79 from the earth to the heavens.

Singing on the lips of all men in the streets: let's have an encore of the tractate Ketubbot!

Further on Modena addresses "the congregation of noble Venice," asking them "to be glad and, today, only merry.""0 Rejoicing in speech and song over the conclusion of readings in the yeshiva curriculum is an activity of which we know very little, but would like to know more, for it seems to have been widespread.8' That Modena was actively involved, as poet and singer, in these "commencement" ceremonies, is obvious from his grandson Isaac Halevi's remark that he was "a cantor and teacher in the synagogue of the italiani (may the Rock protect and preserve it!), as is clear from the 'concluding' poems related to the synagogue, which [poems] he (may he rest in peace!) composed and sang."82

Still other occasions presented themselves for musical celebration, among them the inauguration of a Torah scroll, as is clear from a poem that the

78. For the combination "wisdom" and "science," see 2 Chron. 1:10-12 (rai 1nl n nn,, "J T'l ni YrTnnll nnl ... -w-'n t1Dn IV Yltl a b~irnn 15-rVfm ... ',-tn);

and for the combination "wisdom" and "understanding," with its sefirotic implications, see Dan. 1:20 (nnnn 127r ~1,,

79. Cf. 1 Kings 5:11 (sons of Mahol, though their wisdom was exceeded by Solomon's:

-:wo trlxr1nn nn- In•- =

na •an• 7

• 1- f'••

b 'Int•,n

m ,nw• n ntrKmi-bn

n -n',). The simile applies, of course, to the wise Simha Luzzatto (see above).

80. "n~v pia s*9n ,o, n ' n 3r'n n•,?,,'2'1 n, (from fourth stanza). Cf. Zeph. 3:14 ('nnv,,

81. On the siyyum, or completion of readings, see Howard Adelman, "Another More nevukhim: The Italian Background and the Educational Program of Leon Modena's More nevukhim biktivah bilshonenu hakadosh," in From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding (Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox), vol. 3, ed. Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, and Nahum M. Sarna (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), pp. 89-107, esp. 94-95.

82. From the same introduction to Modena's Magen wa-herev mentioned above (Tm...,, 0111n,"On 1111111Y M111 0121MV 110=11 21120 0111111Wlin 111XIIr v inn 1"r -))-J Xtv n-11m), fol. I I



34 DON HARRAN

author wrote, "upon request of the holy community of Modena, to be sung to music upon bringing the Torah scroll into the synagogue":83

Blessed is He who brought to Israel the Law of Truth by [Moses] the son of Amram,

to be written down in script as a perpetual memorial for all generations

to rejoice in it forever and to exult;84 they will be delighted, for it is a candlelight

that alone remains in their exile, to comfort and console them in their many troubles.85

Today, therefore, let us be glad for this book, a new one that is lifted and raised86

from an honest man's house and brought to the house of the living God, the Lord of Abraham...

As with the school celebrations, here too we would like to know more about these and other festive events, for which verses seem to have been commissioned and, to the delight of the congregation, joyously sung.87

Two other poems were written for Asher Clerli, Modena's "friend," with whom he corresponded in the late 1580s.88 One carries the inscription "To the learned scholar Asher Clerli, my friend, for the completion of his studies. I

Divan, p. 118 (no. 72), a poem consisting of ten distichs, with each line ten syllables long, as

oir tra =n=i n; nrn ' tniSa= t~n• 7=7 "ilv•

/ tra

11? Ki;1 'n ,lflrn' '1?,l7'1 r',•n 1nl?~V' 1=

/ t1raa

.m*x 'r)n t.I n' nK ? K1 x Kiml . n vi11 n"21 / ,,n ivir piv r 9)1-ivx x "r-. m11 -von ?'1) In /

84. Cf. Ps. 68:4 ("a-nrK '~D 1•0 9 1tawS 7rp'r1,,).

85. It is uncertain whether I02V is to be read as rin,

("their... troubles") or •,.

("their ... expectations").

86. Cf. Exod. 29:27 ("-iIoIn iv•i 1 1n Wvt,).

87. These poems are to be distinguished from others intended to be sung upon opening the Holy Ark. Cf. Massimo Acanfora Torrefranca, "'Quando si apre l'arca al Signore': Su di un manoscritto ebraico italiano del XVIII secolo, e sul 'Cantar di forte all'arca,"' Italia: studi e ricerche sulla storia, la cultura e la letteratura degli ebrei d'Italia 10 (1993): 59-72.

88. Cf. Igrot rabbi Yehuda Arie mim-Modena, pp. 52-55, for three letters, though devoid of musical references.




changed its style so that it will last forever, because it is intended for music."89 Despite its musical usage, the poem itself, beginning "Blessed is He who flashed a glow of ember,"90 is devoid, in its seven lines, of musical vocabulary. Nor does music turn up in the second poem, beginning "As a stray person, a treasure of gold"91 (it has twenty-two lines and, like the Arabic qasida, a single rhyme). Yet it too may have been written to be sung, to judge from the words "he will be very glad, his heart will rejoice, and he will render praise to His maker,"92 and from the division of its lines into eight syllables per hemistich in a rigid, almost singsong metrical pattern. Take the first line-for each hemistich it reads, quantitatively, as a short plus three longs, then four longs, or, qualitatively, as a succession of syllables in iambic tetrameter:

First hemistich (or delet): Second hemistich (or soger):

Quantitative reading. kd-'ish 6-vad 6-tsar za-hav / we-'a-har khan yim-tsd-'d-hfi

Qualitative reading: ke-'ish o-ved o-tsar za-hiv / we-'-i-har khen yim-tsi-'e-hat

Three other poems, of which one is Modena's by ascription, and the others his by assumption, occur in the prefatory matter to Salamone Rossi's Hebrew "Songs."93 They are rich in their musical vocabulary, as in the following selection of verses:

"n"p'noin (cf. Divan, 131 [no. 96]). Or are the words to be read as a reference to Clerli's being a musician ("because he is involved in music")?

90. "nrna 'tw p,'i•n • a 111j, (ibid.). 91. "aIlt'I

, •1 t'1x ,, (Divan, pp. 133-134 [no. 90]).

92. "irVwP ?x ' rin'nInSl' •5 n rp,

' ',,

tr, (line 3). 93. The one with a firm attribution to Modena figures in his Divan, pp. 82-83 (no. 37). It

constitutes the third poem in the music collection, separated from the first two by Modena's foreword. That the first two are by Modena may be presumed on stylistic and contextual grounds. Stylistically, the three poems are cast in similar language. Contextually, at least three points bear mention: the author of the first poem identifies himself as "a confidant [of the composer] . . . one of his great admirers, his friend" (m•x > ... Itt ar. i 115 vrt~ i t IVn...,

-"117'11 ... InvP '•2nIM); he must have written the second one as well, for it bears the caption "He then went on to say" (" V g? TrY •?o,");

since Modena introduced the third poem with the related caption "Therefore I will go on reciting wonders" ("l'•n o

rbol, 'mn TD,,; after Isa. 29:14: jn,,

"inn ~grn-nx a nk ;* 'nMan), he appears to have connected it, in content and presentation, with

the first two (the key word is "go on"). The one loophole in this argument is that "Therefore



36 DON HARRAN

Poem 1 (a sonnet)94

All those who handle the lyre, drum, and harp,95 Today start the music96 and, further, do your best To play a loud fanfare;97 and listen to this song,98 All you fortunate singers99...

Poem 2 (an octave)'"

The roots of the songs above'0' and over their place'02 This Solomon studied without idleness; The prince of musicians,'03 indeed, he is the gladness of all:'1 He taught the singers with much delight ...

Poem 3 (nineteen distichs, with each line a decasyllable in three versets)'05

I will go on reciting wonders" may refer not to the "wonders" already recited in the first two poems, but to those recited in the intervening foreword.

94. First quatrain: ,Irpn - v Ijp nra'n T / iatn la n)l/aC w itn / mr / r nlm ,29 •m

. mn ~,

-"bn ,•,vtr nn

,'nY b /. For a quotation of the second quatrain, see above.

95. Cf. Gen. 4:21: "l2ll 112v~ Mrvn-• ')x,; 1 Sam. 10:5: "111 57'~m in CN1 a,51,,;

2 Sam. 6:5 (also 1 Chron. 13:8): "-o•:l a:l•nl mni•l,,;

Isa. 5:12: "-'bm in 92n 1

-' : n i i ,,.

96. Ps. 81:3: "in-1mn1 n-I-1tw,,. 97. Ps. 33:3:

"-nfalm na 1.3

'3',,; also 1 Sam. 4:6: "nriann 1-y, and Ezra 3:12: Prann,,

98. Jer. 6:17: "~1Iv '1ij nt•p. 99. Ps. 16:6: " ,,I'b'st 1 '1) 3 ~n n,,. 100. First four lines:

•v•e an In 1•1 '1• I / n tS 'ml t nfbS t-l / n/n 'Yl xfml'bT

',t•,, "nlh :l 7b", T,'rllvab

/ yba; and, from the end of line 6 to the conclusion: " ... in chorus / Sing in the Temple and in the study hall / To the lofty abode of the Cause of all Causes"

("-v• ~b5 i'' 'v 1? rt,?y / t*mNI1 b 'n pn r-v In, /nnpz . 101. Wordplay on nl~l'b ("songs") / nfalI ("vines," as implied by 'vi• , "the roots of')

and on 'y ("divine," i.e., "God's songs") / y ("above"); cf. Ezek. 8:17: lbn-Tan-•nx

n7l tna,,

102. Cf. Josh. 11:13 ("-orn-vY

nl-7t n ,avni-b). 103. Ps. 68:26: "vo.b inxf anip~ 1rijp,. In the original (see above) the poet plays on the

double-reading rn, I•V ("prince of players") and :aw 1l1r ("we sang: 'Gardens ...' "). 104. Cf. Job 8:19 ("la~'rt lVb Kn-1,,). 105. ' 'b• / l a' 21P 127- '1-1 [2] .,V) l,[2

'fiTllbt '1nzy ' n/

'' pn / ,v) ,'2

" f '" lnfv [1],,

,,'I) r'-) ' ')'1 [41 .['lK 4 111l' 1132 l' 1IP2 / fI• J11/ ' 'PI l•T) l ' "

[31 . 'ln[ •irn bl ' flw l ?mnfl

ifl'tm [8] xn ' , 1 r ' ln , vlin'/'p/ 1pplflb ' .lp"0122" K12'. [7] trmvni ,' 'Vtro v1'V -rv/ a'1v '2n




(1) Send / as a present'06 / to Jesse's son [David] this composition / of songs / in music.107

(2) May there be rejoicing / and joyous song / in his heart ...

(3) There arose / in Israel, / may God be blessed!, someone named / after his son [Solomon] / and having great might.'08

(4) He is accustomed / to appear amidst princes / and before princes,'09 singing / to his own dukes / and nobles."0

(7) He set / the music, / which he published, to the words / of [David's] psalms, / using joyful melodies

(8) To be presented / in joy and song"' / before the Ark on the Sabbath, / all feast days, / and festivals.

(10) Whenever / anyone wishes, / he will find songs / and hymnsll2 / ready

(11) For honoring / the Lord of the Universe, / as angels opening their mouth / to the sound of pipes / and strings."3

Whether these poems were meant to be sung is an open question. Given the musical contents and functions of so many other poems by Modena, including a number of wedding odes,"14 it is likely they were. Poem 1 is

'1 nv•n 'l'l'l nV / X'lb 1 ' ,1''l •r1171113 '1 "'1n [101] .g231bT' "t•m b•'l, i' 1"

v / 71I-K '2 'rii b~ 'b

.*" r37' - n•L"2'1

737 ' • nl, n / I*-'I7K '

"1 ly' 1-'7Kz , -• [[111] .3113616 106. Cf. Ps. 68:30 ("'v D n 1',*1' ) ,,).

107. 2 Sam. 23:1: "bK1w' Malit 1 y3 ... 'l '-p -T at,. 108. Cf. Isa. 40:26 ("td ~'nan v niK ia1 xn ojr o b,,). 109. Cf. Job 34:19 ("at~, '• ox-•'

r I•nv,,).

110. For the word tr3lwVn in the context of song, see Ps. 68:32-33: Iy '.z."

~'2b vn .M..,, ".n o 'TTr X rvim rrx fInv xI nln7b

111. Cf. Isa. 35:2: "1T!1 nb 'l a 01 nmon til,, (and, similarly, 49:13 and 52:8-9). 112. Cf. B.T., Sukka 5, 4: "nian nv 1

-•V '1tT n7i-."3b 5 aV1m1,,; and Sanhedrin 94a: tn 1ri,,

"'T•3 ninzvini mv an bxv•?xnv "1z 5N'•m, Ib. 113. Cf. Ps. 150:4: "2f21PI

.~.= m v*

nb•, ln1 1n l I nn 7,-,. 114. Discussed in Harrin, "From Music to Matrimony: The Wedding Odes of Rabbi Leon Modena (1571-1648)," in Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, 1977 (in preparation).



38 DON HARRAN

clearest in this respect ("... start the music . . . listen to this song ..."). Yet the joyful character of the other two marks them as intended for celebrations, be it for an occasion in the school or home or for one in the synagogue. Celebration, for Modena, as for Jews at large, is usually connected with song.

In Defense of Art Music

Beyond poetry, music appears, more substantially, as the subject of two rabbinical responsa. It will be recalled that, after 1604, Modena, on his own initiative, introduced part music into the synagogue services in Ferrara. Along with the general voices of approbation, others of discontent could be heard. The most virulent objector, Moses Coimbran (his name has already been mentioned) rallied others to his cause. Modena reports:

Outside and on the streets he spoke out, saying we sinned to our Lord God, and how is it possible for scholars whose task it is to guide others in preserving tradition to commit this offense openly and publicly. "How can we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land?" the scriptural passage goes [Psalm 137:4], and in the writings of our learned sages one finds a prohibition against doing so ever since the Destruction. These are the things he goes around saying until he turned against us some of the unknowing: they speak of us arrogantly and believe we have transgressed customs and changed laws."'

The opponent's argument, then, was that with the dissolution of the Second Temple the Jews, in exile, had no place for art music. How could they rejoice, displaying art, when they are condemned to mourning? Modena sought to show that no unimpeachable legal jurisdiction could be invoked, in the rabbinical tradition, for the exclusion of art music from the synagogue. He then submitted his responsum to five Venetian rabbis for their ratification, which was unanimous.

Where and when are Jews allowed to make music? Is it proper for them to rejoice by singing or playing instruments? Is instrumental music

115. From the letter to Judah Saltaro da Fano (1605): 'i ,'ibNS 1 ip n' mainnI nimMlnMl,,

"pin i30n mnn rn' 'in (Igrot rabbi Yehuda Arie mim-Modena, p. 110).




unconditionally forbidden? Are there restrictions on vocal music? Is secular music illicit? These are the major questions that Modena addressed in his responsum. He distinguished six categories of music, of which the first two are its "species," viz., instrumental and vocal music, and the next four the different "purposes or occasions" for music making: while drinking wine; during secular merrymaking; at weddings or ritual occurrences; for study or practice."6

Opinions are quoted for and against the six categories, from the writings of Maimonides, Rashi, and other rabbinical authorities. Modena points up differences that preclude a unilateral application of their decisions. He per- ceives no restrictions on vocal music, except when feasting or banqueting "over wine" or indulging in secular diversions, as do "sons of kings." As for instrumental music, he seems to uphold its prohibition ("instrumental music is the most circumscribed for everyone concerned"),"' though he soon softens his assertions. Indeed, both instrumental music and singing "over wine" are admitted, "as every child would know," when rejoicing for a bride and groom and on "similar" (i.e., hallowed) occasions."8 Quoting from Rabbi Joseph Karo, Modena says, in fact, that "for the purpose of a pious act, as in the house of a bridegroom and bride, everything is permitted.""ll9 As far as rehearsing music is concerned, how is it possible "to praise God and use music for every pious act if it is not studied beforehand?""20

The ambiguities in Modena's argument derive from the uncertainty that surrounds the concept of "sacred" or "pious" in the Jewish tradition. Songs "for praising God and singing to His exalted name on all sacred occasions"--thus one reads in the title to Rossi's collection of Hebrew songs,121' in whose defense Modena republished his responsum--would imply, literally, that they were to be performed on Jewish feasts and holidays. Yet the composer said,

116. riwn1• 1 rnoInD, I'r ,72nptr im -)nn ,"I• x,

n) S O•imnllimna ,'Isn rl ?n 71.)) -IP•rny. n1n, Innw,,• I?= 130 ,'71 , .lmnv -1- 1v? "In ,xwD -I,'T twjt' ,I3'T w 'ny ,N-11

.13?v Ininz Yn-INI "nmi nn = nrrint• nn poynrn? IK n•znn r r nnx n7 ri9•

) m ,13 b KI t my .1.7 Inn nnv? (Modena's responsum).

117. " ln•YT '1 nn v"•• K•n K•1-n T X- n y '"No, (ibid.).

118. xsin'T 1X-$1 *v, X-m ,y xn " '11w "ninb rin3'nn, Y3 xyrni -.1i 7nn Inn -.117 -12-T? rrr, ON IN,

"fl1 nn xxl' n .1' Ibi nn '13 nf'i1 fln'1 npfltnl Inv 7l.V ",l flnfWI31 (ibid.). 119. 7l11rna -.1171 1-1

, pl,aln n l

,•alpl 1'p [no [rls '12-1 2111n l,'wlniKin =N 1

:al pon plz, "[lt TY] 3 "" ," vv b 3;i1 il 7nn nn: the reference is to Karo's compendium Shulhan 'arukh, orah hayyim ["The Prepared Table: Mode of Life"] 560:3, as commented by Moses Isserles.

120. " -1* nn , n,

13K nxnt "IVY-) : -M76 1'2-7 bi Mf ... (responsum).

121. -nVa7np'alln '12-7 bn l'ft

ll, v -Mb 'In? nvw

.....



40 DON HARRAN

further, that they "were intended for joyous occasions and feast days,"'22 which might mean their applicability to times of rejoicing at large. Modena blurs the distinction between the one and the other usage by noting that the works were to be sung "for every pious act."'23 The expression "pious act" has a literal sense as all ordinances the believer by religious law (halakha) is enjoined to uphold, yet also a figurative sense as all forms of charitable behavior.

There are various kinds of rejoicing: on religious holidays; or because God gives us reason to rejoice (as is clear, particularly, from the Book of Psalms, of which two examples will suffice: "O let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for You will judge peoples righteously and govern nations on earth"; and "For You gladdened me, Lord, with Your acts; in the works of Your hands will I rejoice");124 or in acting benevolently, after His commandment "Love your neighbor as yourself' (Leviticus 19:18). Thus when Modena speaks of rejoicing at weddings and on "similar occasions,""'25 he expands the bounds of "sacred" to comprise all forms of rejoicing in, and because of, the Lord. Quoting Rabbi Isaac Alfasi, Modena says that "words of songs and praises and the remembrance of the favors of the Holy One, may He be blessed, are not avoided by any man of Israel. It is the custom of all Israel to speak them in the houses of bridegrooms and in houses of feasting to the sound of songs and to the sound of rejoicing, and we have not seen anyone disapprove of it."126

The composer Rossi introduces further confusion, in his dedication, by acknowledging sacred and secular reasons for his "Songs" and their usage. On the one hand, they were written under divine inspiration ("the Lord has been a support for me, and He placed in my mouth new songs, which I prepared according to [the rules of polyphonic] composition").'27 On the other, the voice that guided the composer, prodding him to greater endeavor,

122. "'Ir 'u1? t•r

l a ~•q ,ap 'tJ -

•t ... (from Rossi's dedication to his collection). 123. "mia7n '12r b'a,: poems 1:14 and 3:9 (the latter with

"...b•ib,). 124. Ps. 67:5 ("nflo Mann Y•3n au n lM Rw JKa, tUlaown'-i na,'v 'inv1 infa',,) and 92:5

125. -.~,

n', I tnn5 n ;mitn n ,-r....

(from responsum).

(ibid.; after Isaac Alfasi, Hilkhot rav Alfas ["Laws of Rabbi Alfasi"], ed. Nisan Zakash, 2 vols. [Jerusalem: Rabbi Kuk Foundation, 1969], 1:25).

127. "7r0 'n'v~ I "Rnlvwrn

nDTY '5 PIn'1 '•

5 ,7V, 'n 'nl,, (Rossi's dedication).




was that of his benefactor Moses Sullam. "You placed your glory over me and over the work of my hands. ... How many times, at your command, did I toil until I discovered how to order my songs with joyful lips, and thus the voice comes from you."'28 As to their purpose, they were meant for "praising the [heavenly] Rider pleasantly and with a voice of rejoicing and thankfulness, for it is for the voice of man to honor the Lord with whatever He bestowed upon each one according to His blessing."'29 Yet the Lord soon becomes the lord Moses Sullam, to whom Rossi offers the collection, as if "offering a sacrifice in your temple, my lord"; and praises to the Lord soon become praises to Sullam: "with my songs will I praise you.""' Rossi thus mixes sacred and secular in explaining his motivations. The metaphor is transparent: the Lord is the ruler, yet the prophet Moses, here Sullam, is His spokesman. Rossi praises the one, he thanks the other---the ambiguity resides in the Hebrew word lehodot, meaning both "to praise" and "to thank." All this is very clever, and as will soon be argued, it was probably Modena who wrote the composer's dedication.

Toward the end of his life Modena composed, as his last responsum, an essay on the admissibility of repeating God's name in art music."' A controversy over the issue appears to have erupted in 1645, on Shemini 'Atseret (the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles), in the community of Senigallia (near Ancona).'32 At least six texts can be traced in connection with the controversy, one of them by Modena.'33 In the quaestio, Modena writes that, beyond dissatisfaction with repetitions of God's name, voices were still rumbling over the use of part music in the prayer services: 34

128. ,n -Dvio l•n'n3ny , ,nrixi ,nyrf IMran tritmran ...'r, -)-r ?Yv ,t7i

- fl)

- n r

.... p"...pl

12 12 rw 7:Im ,Mr•nn (dedication). 129. "ox

ot , im-ano ria n n "rm3 uNrn ?ip ra ,% -nrim rin n

pa mhin n a nn mnt7 .... "-r12D (ibid.).

130. "-'Tirn ,?va p-rK jr3nn mt n nip .. (ibid.). 131. For the Hebrew text, see Modena, She 'elot u-t'huvot, pp. 176-178 (no. 131). 132. For details, see Israel Adler, "The Rise of Art Music in the Italian Ghetto," in

Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 321-364, esp. 350-353.

133. It is discussed, along with the others, by Adler in his La pratique musicale savante dans quelques communauts juives en Europe aux XVIIe-XVIIe sidcles, 2 vols. (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1966), l:chap. 5 (for their quotation, see 1:257-262 [nos. 22-26], and for Modena's text in particular, p. 262 [no. 26]).

134. inn q•,,n ' tr,• ar n [n nn no= inn Dnt,,n nerv

t in-n )nn "m n

lrnna mn mnp P"Pn" riTZI 1311111

f bil 13" TY113 -.6n own on nro rian *= ripmin ir-nion-nn -7nx pm n nipn rn mP o nonp



42 DON HARRAN

In a certain holy community, on the occasion of the festivals, a group of singers in the synagogue was wont to sing together with the cantor, as one of the singers, the Qaddish, [the blessing] Barekhu, the Qedusha, songs, and praises in part music. They repeated the word keter'35 as well as the holy name [adonai] in Elle mo'adei adonai,'36 thus restating the holy name. Each one would restate it once in his own part, not reiterating it after the example of music composers who sometimes repeat a word to embellish the melody. Then many people rose up against them, saying that it is not proper practice to perform art music in the synagogue, and that it is particularly offensive on their part to repeat the word keter and the holy name, as we know from both the scholars of Kabbalah and the laws of Gemara. It is as if someone were to say "Shema', shema' " or "Modim, modim"'37 only to be silenced.

Modena intended to address the issue in full, treating three points, which he summarized at the outset. "First, is it permitted, in that kind of song [i.e., part music], to repeat the word keter? Second, is it permitted to repeat the holy name in the verse Elle mo'adei adonai? Third, and most important of all, is it

permitted, in the synagogue, to perform praises to our Lord in part music?"'38 He did not get beyond the first of the three.

U1::10:11Dlb : [n6116 n,110 ,n=1 M

"355 n12 l Tim X5,

): 5 .b ny 7 an,5: on-ft

nbp ,m,11-n jpvn?n5 b1= 6117~N 33 1= 111 rnbrr MrNlb rn nnprn : [-5]n

rv* 7-n ow irom 7n3 nri 5?b :5

?im? n •xn nwn

"in71 ppnn'T 1'31nm o3n1 ba , (She 'elot u-t shuvot, p. 176). 135. "Crown," from the Qedusha ("keter yitenu lakh"); in the kabbalistic doctrine of the

sefirot, it refers to God in His most hidden essence. 136. "These are the festivals of the Lord" (Lev. 23:4). 137. The first from Shema' Yisra'el ("Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One,"

the Jewish confession of faith, read in the morning and evening prayer services), the second from the prayer Modim anahnu lakh ("We thank You, for You are the Lord our God," etc., the eighteenth benediction of the prayer 'Amida ["Standing,"so named because it is recited in a standing position]). On the talmudic prohibition of repetition, cf. B.T., Berakhot ["Blessings"] 5, 33b: "Anyone who says 'Modim, modim' is silenced, as if he who says 'Modim, modim' were to say 'Shema', shema ""'

(nT•, at1N-'z ~,Y V yb, , 1•i pn.t-'~ 'tr• •, "

11 ?,,

"'n•b '~a'nTr). The repetition of "keter and the holy name" is reprehensible for its implication of two gods.

138. n ib 13?t 47n -m T•'.17=' *•.ri" ;n n n3 t •n=x

v I. n3 Jim 5 atb 1 7?t a,•v t nx.

"I3rap5 n~nmvin [nr onw r11] "rn:

m" o np~?oa "i*5 n b (from beginning of responsum; She 'elot

u-tshuvot, p. 176).




As a point of departure Modena appears to distinguish between two or more statements in single voices, which one might call horizontal repeats, and one statement in each, leading to what one might call vertical repeats (better "simultaneities"). The composers of art music reiterate words horizontally, or so Modena seems to be saying, for the sake of rhetorical ornament ("music composers who sometimes repeat a word to embellish the melody"). Yet in his responsum, he is concerned with the second kind of repeats, to which, it might be remarked, no one in his right mind could possibly raise any objection, unless of course he was basically inimical to part music.

It is now clear why, for Modena, the question of word repeats could not be separated from the larger question regarding the admissibility of part music. He implies that only the kabbalists would be concerned about vertical repeats of the word keter and other divine appellations, because of their special connotations in kabbalistic doctrine. Pleading ignorance of its principles ("I can't say anything about them, for this science [Kabbalah] ... is far removed from me ..."),139 Modena conferred with two renowned

kabbalists (Joseph Hamits and Moses Zaccuto).140 Since they were lenient toward repeats, Modena concluded that the kabbalists were not of one mind in prohibiting them. Moreover, "they did not know and did not understand the meaning of the word keter in this context, which is none other than an expression of praise and tribute. The proof that it is not meant to stand alone is that we say '[a crown] will they give you,' that is, praise that derives from one's fellows and not [to designate] a single person's name or quality."'41

139. ;ip-nin- ii in~ 1rf ? x ? i ? Tn m• -•1,313 ,13

wn Kn - ?C X1inn -):5f -

:-1 YT Px ....

,,...4)7b Xn (ibid., p. 177). On Modena and Kabbalah, see Howard Adelman, "Rabbi Leon Modena and the Christian Kabbalists," in Renaissance Rereadings: Intertext and Context, ed. Maryanne Cline Horowitz, Anne J. Cruz, and Wendy A. Furman (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), pp. 271-286, esp. 273-276; and at length, Moshe Idel, "Differing Conceptions of Kabbalah in the Early Seventeenth Century," in Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Isadore Twersky and Bernard Septimus (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 137-200.

140. The two were connected; indeed, after turning to Kabbalah, Hamits (d. ca. 1676), Modena's erstwhile pupil, published along with Zaccuto (d. 1697) an expanded edition of the Zohar hadash, with glosses on the Zohar (entitled Derekh emet, 1658). On Modena's controversy with Hamits over the relation between Kabbalah and philosophy, see Idel, "Differing Conceptions of Kabbalah," p. 155.

141. 17•7sm 'lN

x balb-n tab M-108 Tl

3,. ,-t1 mrxv. mnr nb Dnr r 'lz

o ,n

irnr x N h....

"u-t 'srh vo 1 x V ow 1 1rt n ' av fl n nno ' n'r)123, ', v)1?n ix N nx x 7xl7z 3T-i (She 'elot

u-tshuvot, pp. 177-178).



44 DON HARRAN

Had Modena dealt with the third point, that is, the larger question of whether part music is permitted in the synagogue, he would doubtless have reinforced his basic inclination toward its usage there, as is clear from at least two sources: his first responsum, published in 1605, then again in 1622 in connection with Salamone Rossi's Hebrew "Songs"; and the information on the music academy that Modena ran from the late 1620s on--its members rehearsed part songs for performance in the synagogue and elsewhere (see below). His basic argument, in the responsum, was that if one singer praised the Lord in a beautiful voice, what could possibly be wrong with many singers doing the same polyphonically?'42

If he [the cantor] were able to make his own voice sound as if it were ten singers together, would it not be good? ... If singers, endowed by God with a knowledge of the science [= art music] in full, were to use it for honoring God, would they be sinners in their souls? God forbid! ... No sensible person or sage ever thought of forbidding the praise of God--may He be blessed!-with the most pleasant voice possible and with this science [= art music] that awakens souls to [acknowledge] His greater glory. Many recent writers have gone to great lengths in relating its perfection.

Nathaniel Trabotto, rabbi at various times in Mantua and Modena, wrote two responsa in connection with the same controversy. In one of them (dated November 9, 1645), he recalls having heard, many years back, Rossi's ensemble. Its musicians, he said, never repeated the word keter 143 Trabotto is referring, however, to what we have designated horizontal repeats. A check of Rossi's "Songs" corroborates his statement. The word keter, in the Qedusha, is heard once, simultaneously, in all voices.'" So is the word adonai, in

a1v nflT ? y1'r K' ... -.*"ft ?mfl1V= 'almo , '.1 -13 1= trXK31-.1-1-T70D ny-f7fl 1'-K'X ', 11

"01•'1nKf~ b 0'31 I 1D03 'ID1u1n nInw nv' K vz n111'5 (Modena's first responsum, on art music).

143. X5 05=1 "•nD nu-n77 xp-101= n-in ...

.nyfol aa•lun In m.-n X5 Own• ,InyW 51",

"nnK 1

p" n1nn i1V (after Adler, "Art Music," p. 357). On Trabotto and other members of his family, see Joseph Green, "Mishpahat Terabot ["The Trabot Family"], Sinai 79 (1976): 147-163.

144. "Songs of Solomon," no. 7, mm. 1-7: the word is extended in the four voices by elaborate melismas (the melisma is a succession of three or more notes sung to a single syllable). There are enough notes in the melismas to accommodate a twofold statement of keter in each of the voices, but Rossi specifically notated a single one.




Elle mo'adei adonai.'45 There is only a single instance of the word adonai (horizontally) repeated elsewhere, albeit with no other intention than to fill in a blank in one of the voices (the quinto), according to the rationale that Trabotto (after Modena) adduced, in his responsum, for (horizontal) repeats in art music (namely, that they are allowed "for the sake of improving the melody").~46 Modena, who edited the collection, did not revise the passage. Clearly, it was, for him, too minor a textual infraction, and too common a musical procedure, to be reprehensible.

Leon Modena and Salamone Rossi

For the practical results of Modena's concern with art music, one may turn to Salamone Rossi's "Songs of Solomon," already mentioned several times, and to the activities of Modena's academy (next section).

The story of Rossi's "Songs"--how they started, how they developed-is still not clear.147 To all appearances, Modena played a major role in shaping them from their inception to their completion. He may have met Rossi in Ferrara, a stone's throw (so to speak) from Mantua, in the years he spent there as an up-and-coming young rabbinic scholar (1604-7); or on various occasions when he visited Mantua;'48 or during one of the composer's visits to Venice to supervise the printing of various collections (Rossi signed three of

145. "Songs of Solomon," no. 6, mm. 3-4: there is no possibility of a repetition, for in all voices the three syllables of adonai are each assigned to a single note.

146. Cf. "Songs of Solomon," no. 20 (Psalm 128), mm. 54-56. In another example, the word adonai is repeated within the repeat of a longer portion: no. 24 (Psalm 29), mm. 49-61 (in the tenor: "Break did He, the Lord, the cedars of Lebanon; [repeat] the Lord, the cedars of Lebanon"). Trabotto knew his Rossi well, for he caught the passage, though justified it, as Modena would have too, on musical grounds: "If, in the psalm 'Havu ladonai benei elim,' they repeat one verse twice or three times, there is no reason for alarm, for they sing the same verse two or three times for the sake of improving the melody, as is customary in art music" (a•...,,

"npr-olnb 12T 1

•a•n llpnf l n c1 am ,I '

, In ' ~mn; Trabotto's responsum, loc. cit.).

147. A possible scenario is mapped out in Don Harrin, "Salamone Rossi, Jewish Musician in Renaissance Italy," Acta musicologica 59 (1987): 46-64, esp. 61-62. For the "Songs" in Rossi's repertoire at large, see idem, Salamone Rossi, Jewish Musician in Late Renaissance Mantua (Oxford University Press, shortly forthcoming), esp. chap. 7.

148. He was in Mantua, for example, in 1620 (Sefer .hayyei

Yehuda, p. 68), as he was, further, in 1623 (ibid., pp. 78-79).



46 DON HARRAN

them from Venice).149 The composer may have paid further visits to Venice, as yet undocumented. While there, he could well have stayed in the house of Sara Copio, the daughter-in-law of his Hebrew patron Moses Sullam, and herself a patroness of writers, among them Leon Modena (it was to Sara that he dedicated his play Ester).1so After settling in Venice in 1607-8, Modena, related to Sara's father on his wife's side, became her close friend and advisor. The idea of the Hebrew songs may have started from a meeting between the composer and Modena, in Venice, perhaps, with or without Sara as an intermediary, sometime in the years 1610-12. In 1622, the year of their publication, Rossi was, indeed, in Venice, and he and Modena must have had animated discussions on various editorial problems (Modena was entrusted, as will soon be seen, with the task of preparing the materials for publication and of proofreading the copy). He might have even tried out some of the songs in Sara's house or in one of the Venetian synagogues, which, if he did, was probably the Italian one where Modena officiated as cantor.

Modena may have been the person who originally implanted the idea of composing Hebrew part songs in Rossi's head-in one of the prefatory poems there is mention of their having been "sown" and "planted."'51 We already know of Modena's attempt to introduce part music into the synagogue at Ferrara and of his concern over the decline of musical skills among the Jews in their exile. Modena conceived the music of the ancient Temple as

149. Book I of madrigals a 5, 1600; the fourth book of instrumental works, 1622; and the Madrigaletti, Rossi's last collection, 1628. The remaining collections, eight in all (excluding reprints), are signed Mantua, which is inconclusive. It means either that Rossi was not in Venice at the time or, if he was, that the dedication was prepared after his return to Mantua.

150. L'Ester (Venice: Giacomo Sarzina, 1619), pp. 3-7, where the author praises his patroness for her frank yet delightful conversation, her singular manners, and her sundry virtues and talents, among them her skills in, and understanding of, Italian poetry. "Avendomi Vostra Signoria fatto degno dell'onesta e gentil sua conversazione, la quale per le sue rare maniere, et molte vertfi e scienze . .. . bramata da qual si sia pih ingegnosa persona, come quella che della poesia italiana in particolar modo si diletta, intende e vi si adopra," etc. On Sara Copio, see various writings by Carla Boccato, particularly "Lettere di Ansaldo Ceba, genovese, a Sara Copio Sullam, poetessa del Ghetto di Venezia," La rassegna mensile di Israel 40 (1974): 169-191; and "Sara Copio Sullam, la poetessa del ghetto di Venezia: episodi della sua vita in un manoscritto del secolo XVII," Italia: studi e ricerche sulla storia, la cultura e la letteratura degli ebrei d'Italia 6 (1987): 104-218. For her musical preoccupations, see Don Harrin, "Doubly Tainted, Doubly Talented: The Jewish Poet Sara Copio (d. 1641) as a Heroic Singer," in Musica Franca: Essays in Honor of Frank A. D 'Accone, ed. Irene Aim et al. (Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 1996), pp. 367-422.

151. "iY 1 n i1o'1 h .. 1TN3 T-T t•In't nb• ',, (first poem, lines 9-11).




a glorious practice, which, with characteristic Renaissance fervor, he hoped to restore by educating the Jews in the rudiments of art music. "Who could ever forget King David as an old man and the efforts that he expended, in advance, on the orderly teaching of a lesson in music to all the sons of Asaph, Heman, and Yedutun, as written in the [first] book of Chronicles [25:6], in order to make them understand how to produce sounds," etc.?'52 The Levites thus, according to Modena, were well instructed in what they performed.

Others had fantasized about the wonders of music in the ancient Temple. Around the time when the "Songs" were probably first conceived, Abraham Portaleone went on at great length about its particulars, which he described after the example of sixteenth-century art music."'5 The lure of the ancient Temple and its music was also felt by Samuel Archivolti, with whom Modena studied in 1581 and corresponded thereafter-Archivolti seems to have been particularly influential in molding his thought.154 Certain passages in the prefatory matter to the "Songs" appear to have been modeled directly on Archivolti's comments on music, mainly in chapter 27 of his 'Arugat hab-bosem (1602). Thus, in connection with music in the Temple, Archivolti says, as Modena was to say a few years later:

Woe to us, for ever since we wandered from our country because of our sins, the voice of Jacob has diminished, and during our exile songs and dances in Israel have ceased. What good is it for me to long for them if, among us, there is nobody who knows something about the music of Zion? Who will explain to us its proportions and great charms? Who will guide us in its paths? As it is, it has been put to rest in our sleep, and all its muses are forgotten. 55

-"...1P nflffn mnr s,•5d trn ,T -n 0 i

no•n fniim lM qox (from Modena's foreword to Rossi's collection).

153. Portaleone, Shiltei hag-gibborim ["Shields of Heroes"] (Mantua: n.p., 1612); the portions that deal with music may be consulted in Hebrew Writings Concerning Music, ed. Israel Adler, pp. 243-285. For Portaleone in a broader context, see Don Harran, "Cultural Fusions in Jewish Musical Thought of the Later Renaissance," in In Cantu et in Sermone: For Nino Pirrotta on His Eightieth Birthday, ed. Fabrizio della Seta and Franco Piperno (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1989), pp. 141-154.

154. Cf. Adelman, "Success and Failure," esp. p. 213, where Archivolti is said to have "shape[d] Modena's activities for the rest of his life."

155. For musical passages in 'Arugat hab-bosem ["Bed of Spices"], including the one in question, cf. Hebrew Writings Concerning Music, pp. 96-102, esp. 98

(1n•, T? 1 '3 12 5 K• 1 1,,

x7n1x t,• 5wnN n, w *-n

,minnn ,,tS1m anot nrx,,Sa 1'-m' "npr 5vp 51 2

,-m~ n ,r n ni'n



48 DON HARRAN

Archivolti himself leaned on similar statements in the writings of his predecessors."56

The difference between Modena and previous commentators is that where the latter bemoaned the loss, Modena decided to repair it. He joined forces with the most illustrious Jewish composer of his day, Salamone Rossi, to revive Jewish art music after the example of music in the ancient Temple. Of this music little remained beyond the story of its fabled practice. The only way to emulate it, Modena recognized, was, as a pragmatic expedient, to learn from Christian art music. Or rather to "relearn" from it what the Jews had forgotten: the Christians had "stolen" music from the Jews, as Modena notes after Immanuel ha-Romi;'57 the Jews in their wanderings had lost all memory of it; eventually, though, "their ears picked up a trace of it from their neighbors, as the remnant of the city [Jerusalem] in these generations at the end of time."158

Modena was thus not in the least concerned that Rossi, in the process of reclaiming his patrimony, "took from his profane works to add to his

"',Vl n12 ); and for Modena's parallel comment, the quotation in n. 9 above. 156. Profiat Duran, Ma 'ase Efod ["Work of Ephod'"] (1403), from introduction; cf. Hebrew

Writings Concerning Music, pp. 126-130, esp. 128: ". .. and so it was, in all its perfection, in the Temple, with its singers and instruments; and they achieved great learning in it, ... but this learning is absent from us today" (,•ni•~'ri aln

- rtp K! 2 fln?7Vn

•,T ,?fil n ' amnf n'm...,,

"u1rn n2l nVn 2 ntl ?nznnfl ... nt f fl fn n -t n'.I). Immanuel ha-Romi ("the Roman"), in the fourteenth century, wrote that "the art of music is a wondrous science, yet today it has disappeared from our dwellings" ("...12',rmnr

n •a,,

n ~21 aflKm an f ,K a711~. a nwn,,), from his

unpublished commentary on Gen. 4:21; cf. Amnon Shiloah, "A Passage by Immanuel ha-Romi on the Science of Music," Italia: studi e ricerche sulla storia, la cultura e la letteratura degli ebrei d'Italia 10 (1993): 9-18, esp. 14.

157. From the beginning of his foreword to Rossi's "Songs": 'lln v n "x p~v n nI= no•,,

-',r 'n 'an ,nnna >

[:?]•,'nn -i nan nn 1Kn nf, 1•'mn•nn ("The lip of truth shall be

established forever, or to refer to the poet who wrote in his notebooks [as follows]: 'What does the science of music say to others? "Indeed, I was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews" [after Gen. 40:15]' "; Mahbarot 'Immanu 'el ha-Romi ["Immanuel ha-Romi's Notebooks"], ed. Dov Yarden (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1957), p. 120 (notebook 6, line 341; there the wording was not "to others," but "to the Christians [a5'i9ln 1]," which, in Modena's time, came under the censor's knife).

"n'-'nl n,' n K n ~-2 r m 'Ix i r'ni slw (from foreword).




sacred ones,"'59 or to put it bluntly, that Rossi fashioned his sacred works after his Italian madrigals.160 The important thing was that the sacred texts were composed polyphonically, that is, with all the skills of the ars musica, and that the Christians would no longer have any reason to accuse the Jews of musical illiteracy ("no more will bitter words about the Hebrew people be uttered, by the proud, in a voice of contempt; they will see that they [the Jews] have full understanding of it")."16 After years of darkness, a new light shone in Salamone Rossi, who "restored the crown of music to its pristine splendor, as in the days of the Levites on their tribunes."162

After implanting the idea, what exactly did Modena do to nurture and cultivate it? He probably advised the composer, at his behest, on all matters concerning Hebrew liturgy and language:163 what texts to choose, how they should be divided when they called for congregational responses,164 how to read them syntactically, how to vocalize the words, how to accentuate them. He followed the progress of the collection, encouraging the composer to overcome the obstacles in the way of its completion. It was no easy task: Rossi admitted that he "toiled" until he found the right way to order his songs.'65 The collection formed over a number of years: "day by day," Modena tells us, probably as a synecdoche for "year by year," Rossi "would write into his notebook one or another psalm of David; or a certain prayer text; or praises, hymns, and songs to God. Eventually he succeeded in gathering some

159. "In

nen "11nIn "tam

. Tpn "t ~-ln? rj?'1 r n vym 5 1'15K in w It, (from Modena's foreword to Rossi's "Songs"). For the dichotomy "profane"/"sacred," cf. Lev. 10:10, Ezek. 22:26, 44:23 (nM 51 p •'.1) and, in the Havdala service, "Blessed are You, O Lord, who distinguish between sacred and profane" (51Mn v~rT

1'1 ''Ta-n n ,'n n 161.); and for adding from the one to the other, B.T., Rosh Hashana 9a: " T • 5Y 51nn 13T'o1o,,.

160. Then what is Hebrew in his "Songs"? See Don Harrin, "Salamone Rossi as a Composer of 'Hebrew' Music," in a Festschrift for Israel Adler (forthcoming).

161. ', tr0a/ / ron ' n nxn,' 5=• wr' •, / ,t•,i,•

im , p'in-, / ,-1-i tr , ,'•• -,'-i l, y 5", "tr'2"it, ' n fl,~ 1?n (from Modena's third poem, distichs 12-13).

162. ''i'D / nrni',5 ,'-n.n-i 'vy,, wr / v .11 11n 'a't' 5n' n / nyvin ItD n D " ' i

"t•oa 'T ' a15 '. (ibid., distichs 5-6).

163. Assuming Rossi needed such help: on the relatively low level of Hebrew learning among Italian Jews, and Modena's program for reform, see Adelman, "Another More nevukhim."

164. As is the case in certain prayers in the collection (nos. 1 and 16, Qaddish; 3, Barekhu; 7, Qedusha).

165. From the composer's dedication (see above for quotation).



50 DON HARRAN

of them into a collection and they amounted to several in his possession."'66 That Rossi "gather[ed] some of them into a collection" suggests there were more songs than actually got printed, as the composer himself confirmed (by saying that he made "a choice of his songs" for publication).167

Rossi hesitated: an occasional performance of his part songs in the synagogue or private homes was one thing, but a printed edition, exposing him to public opinion, was quite another. The debate on the admissibility of art music in the liturgy had been going on for some time now, and Rossi, by "going public," no doubt feared a reactionary outcry. It is here that Modena and other friends stepped in, to build up his confidence. "I, too," he wrote, "from the time I was counted among his admirers, entreated him earnestly and pleaded with him until meeting with success, thanks to the Creator of all, and he reached the crucial stage that I hoped he would reach with us here: he finally agreed to fulfill his vow to print what he said he would."168 Modena promised the composer his support as both a rabbinical authority and an expert editor. In anticipation of protest, he assembled a battery of prefatory materials of a magnitude unknown to any other printed collection of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century music.169 It included a dedication by the composer, a foreword by Modena, three laudatory poems; Modena's early responsum on art music together with its approval in five rabbinical declarations, and, at the end, a statement of copyright. It is my contention that Modena was the author not only of his own portions, but of all the rest; he probably ghostwrote Rossi's preface, composed the three poems (as was demonstrated above), and framed the terms of copyright. The style is too legal and logical in its mode of disputation, too learned in its scriptural and rabbinical quotations, as is evident from the sources to which ample reference has been made in the footnotes, to allow us to conceive of anyone

"I-rf Dtmxr 1 sI nmi nr1- Jpup K1 5~ ~b '" (from Modena's foreword). 167. "...'Inrwn T ?n

• i 5n bxl N' ...,, (Rossi's dedication).

168. xn5? y,,nux

in T"Y ,,•n'1

ry ,nynim "•xi "i

-innyvi ,nn:•

ix nw?= -in-jm z -)=x t3f,,,

"T111V2• (from Modena's foreword). 169. Cf. L 'crivain face a son public en France et en Italie d la Renaissance, ed. Charles

Adelin Fiorato and Jean-Claude Margolin (Paris: Vrin, 1989), especially part 1, devoted to what is now commonly called the "paratext," viz., the prefaces, dedications, introductions, and postscripts by means of which authors tried to influence readers and control their responses.




else but the polymath Modena as the most likely author.170 Or so it would seem, given Modena's close connection with Rossi's collection in its genesis and maturation.

To assuage Rossi's fears of editorial and orthographic blunders, Modena also took on the job of readying the works for publication and proofreading them. Only a person with a solid background in music would have dared to offer his services. The major problem in their preparation was deciding on, then implementing, the procedure for underlaying the Hebrew text--no easy matter, for Hebrew is read from right to left. Should the music be printed from right to left to accommodate it to the Hebrew? Or should the normal order of Hebrew be reversed to accommodate it to the music? After reviewing the options, Rossi decided that "it was better for the readers to pronounce the letters backwards and read the words of the song, which are well known to all, in the opposite direction than to reverse the order of the [musical] symbols from the way they are customarily notated and have the singers move their eyes from right [to left], as we Jews are used to write, lest they lose their minds.""' Rossi thus hit on a compromise solution: instead of having single syllables printed in reversed order, he did as much with whole words, leaving it to the singers to break them into syllables (to use the last five words as an example, they would have been arranged as "syllables into them break to," or printing and reading them from the right as in Hebrew, "selballys otni meht kaerb ot").

170. Cf Lorenzo Bianconi, "Il Cinquecento e il Seicento," in Letteratura italiana, 7 vols. in 10, ed. Alberto Asor Rosa (Turin: Einaudi, 1986), 6:319-363, esp. 320, on composers and printers who commissioned men of letters to write or revise their dedications. In his autobiography, Modena provides a list of twenty-one Hebrew works, among them Salamone Rossi's "Songs of Solomon," to which he added "poems and prefaces" ("ninpnl o•n'V,",; note the plural form of both); cf. Sefer hayyei Yehuda, pp. 75-76. On guides to Hebrew writing, including Modena's unfinished project entitled "Guide to the Perplexed in Writing in Our Sacred Tongue" (More nevukhim bi-kh 'tiva bi-1'honenu haq-qaddosh), see Adelman, "Another More nevukhim," esp. pp. 104-106.

171. 'I"nln nl*n rinn? IX-vir n"1n14m nmn n CN, .11n2 110 no "1nnn Tv? nX.13 n• nxn nwr '•,

",nyi .p n (the word lintot was printed with a double stroke to show its affinity to nota or notare; from Modena's foreword). That Rossi, and not Modena, decided on the typographical procedure for aligning music and text may be assumed from the expression "it appeared to the mehabber" ("•innn T' nx,,). In poem 3 (distich 18) and the statement of copyright, mehabber ("author/composer") refers distinctly to the composer (see also the next quotation, where Modena speaks of Rossi's hibbur or "composition," as well as the quotation in n. 175).



52 DON HARRAN

Getting an exact coordination of text and music complicated, for one thing, the preparation of the manuscript; for another, the work of the typesetter-never having printed part music with Hebrew texts, he was bound to made mistakes; and, for a third, the task of proofreading the copy. Modena complied with Rossi's request "to be on his guard against any mishap that might come to the composition, to prepare and order it for printing and to proofread the copy, keeping his eyes open for typographical errors and inaccuracies."'72 Even as seasoned an editor as Modena, with all his musical and philological intelligence, could not be expected to treat the work lightly. Let it be known to all, he declared, that "it is no easy task, for there was no beginning like this before or earlier, hence mistakes become as gains."'73 For a collection of over 3,500 measures the results are incredibly accurate. As far as the text underlay is concerned-and that is the most difficult parameter in editing and proofreading the work-there are, in all, eleven examples of dislocated words (and only a handful of omitted ones).174

Through Rossi's "Songs" Modena hoped for a renascence of art music among the Jews. To this end, they were to serve as a didactic model. "You will teach them to your children," he writes, "for them to understand the science of music, with the knowledgeable man teaching the student, as was said of the Levites. Indeed, I am certain that as soon as this composition is published, those who study music will increase in Israel, singing to the magnificence of our God by using the 'Songs' and others like them."'75

172. ~7 Y'' nvml j1 111 'm r 11.*1fl 1nrr iiri rin ?

K• •nv y, n it, n - r7 j? "n fly )X ,nlt1,

"rDnn1 nlcUMIn M1 n' (Modena's foreword). 173. tS1DY3

X? ') Men X'qn n ?13 x4 $• Dn aq*'9yotn •,9n1m nnxvnl 7,9Y ?y =,3 qx' [In ox] D,,X ran,

",'nT n ai nIV ~i j a I02 T n Yn i nno (ibid.). 174. On the accuracy of word-tone correspondences in Rossi's treatment of the texts, as

distinct from accuracy in matters of orthography or typography, see Don Harran, "Salamone Rossi as a Composer of 'Hebrew' Music." For a full discussion of textual and musical errors, in both the composition and the recension, see the introduction to volume 13 in Salamone Rossi, Complete Works, ed. Don Harrin, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 100 (13 vols. in 5), vols. 1-12 (Neuhausen: Hinssler-Verlag, 1995), vol. 13 (forthcoming).

175. tiMr ,nn'MM0.1 TI 1'9*, "lnxn Tqnn t T I,=• tjrn nnnnn Iqnrn• tq= nxo inx tnmn•, "Mon X 1 T

i•'1•'n K il-nt

' rr ' " l2t ' n fn y .W, 1? 1$1n n

f- l 11Kin y n inn ni K (from Modena's foreword). On didactic models in Renaissance literature, see John David Lyons, Exemplum: The Rhetoric of Example in Early Modern France and Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).




A Music Academy in the Venetian Ghetto

Till now, we have met Modena in various musical capacities: as a cantor, intoning prayer melodies or cantillating Scriptures or chanting hymns, as a singer of part songs, as a writer on art music and its conventions, and as a music editor. An even more active role in music making may be assumed from two documents that identify him as the director of a "music academy." The first is by a former student, Samuel Nahmias, or, after converting to Christianity, Giulio Morosini,176 in a book from 1683; the second is by Modena, in a letter from 1639.177

Morosini tells us that around 1628, a "music academy" (accademia di musica) was founded in the Venetian ghetto, and that Modena, his "teacher" (maestro), served as its "director" (maestro di cappella).178 The reason for its foundation, we learn, was the influx of musicians from Mantua. They were fleeing the Imperial armies, which, in the War of Succession that followed the death of Vincenzo II Gonzaga, the last of his line, invaded and ransacked the city, especially its ghetto. The musicians included singers and instrumentalists, and to all appearances it was they, and not Modena, who founded the academy, or pressed for its founding, as an outlet for

176. Morosini was Modena's student before 1628 (the date that, in the' present document, may be taken as a terminus ad quem); he apostatized in 1649. On Modena as his teacher, see David Simonsen, "Giulio Morosinis Mitteilungen tiber seinen Lehrer Leon da Modena und seine jiudischen Zeitgenossen," in Festschrift zum siebzigsten Geburtstage A. Berliner ', ed. Aron Freimann and Meier Hildesheimer (Frankfurt: Kaufmann, 1903), pp. 337-344; and for his anti-Jewish stance, Benjamin Ravid, "Contra Judaeos in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Two Responses to the Discorso of Simone Luzzatto by Melchiore Palontrotti and Giulio Morosini," AJS Review 7-8 (1983): 301-351, esp. 328-351.

177. Morosini, Via dellafede (see above); Modena, a letter preserved, in draft, in London, British Library, MS Or. 5395, fol. 23. The two documents have variously been discussed by Cecil Roth, "L'accademia musicale del ghetto veneziano," La rassegna mensile di Israel 3 (1927-28): 152-162; Eric Werner, "Manuscripts of Jewish Music in the Eduard Birnbaum Collection," Hebrew Union College Annual 18 (1944): 397-428; Israel Adler, "Art Music in the Italian Ghetto," esp. pp. 344-349; and most recently, Howard Adelman, "Success and Failure," pp. 635-636, 692-693, 771.

178. ". .. in Venetia del 1628 in circa ... si formo ... nel Ghetto ... un'Accademia di musica ... e '1 mio maestro Rabbi Leon da Modena era maestro di cappella" (Via della fede, p. 793).



54 DON HARRAN

their talents.'79 Over the course of the next two years, the academy, which included, beyond Morosini, "some of the ghetto's main and affluent figures, who supported it," met fairly regularly two evenings a week,'8" performing, assumedly, part music for voices and instruments. In 1628, it might be remembered, Salamone Rossi was in Venice, supervising the publication of his Madrigaletti. Yet it is doubtful that he stayed on, for if he had, Modena would probably have deferred to him as more qualified to lead the musicians.

One event that Morosini describes with particular relish took place in the Spanish Synagogue on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, Shemini 'Atseret ("The Eighth Day of Convocation"), and the following day, Simhat Torah ("Rejoicing in the Law"). The singers performed music to Hebrew texts, among them psalms, for two choruses in "figured style," i.e., polyphony, as part of the prayer services and, beyond them, as an extension of the festivities (on the second day) well into the night.'•' Remarkable is Morosini's reference, if it can be sustained as trustworthy, to the use of instruments, toward which, we know from Modena's responsum, the rabbis had, from earliest times, been unfavorable. "The explanation for their prohibition," Modena tells us, "lies in the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of our people: how can we rejoice while our Holy Sanctuary lies fallow and we are in dispersion?"'82 Even more remarkable is Morosini's reference to an organ, which was brought in especially for the occasion, but which, too, was banned by rabbinical injunction, the more so "since the instrument," according to Morosini, "is regularly played in our churches."'83

179. "... quando da Mantova per causa della guerra fuggiti gli Ebrei, se ne vennero in Venetia. E coll'occasione che fioriva la citti di Mantova in molti sorti di studii, anche gli Ebrei havevano applicato alla musica e agl'istromenti" (ibid.).

180. ". . . nella quale si cantava due volte per settimana di sera e vi si congregavano solamente alcuni principali e ricchi di quel Ghetto che la sostentavano, tra i quali io pure mi trovavo" (ibid.).

181. ".. . fecero nella Scuola Spagnuola ... fare due cori ad usanza nostra per li musici, e le due sere cioe nell'ottava della festa Scemini Nghatzeret e Allegrezza della Legge, si canto in musica figurata in lingua ebraica parte della Ngharbith [= 'arvit, evening service] e diversi Salmi, e la Mincha [= afternoon service], cioe il Vespero dell'ultimo giorno con musica solenne, che duro alcune hore della notte ... " (ibid.).

182. 13X1 ,' nnw?t• nail 3-tT-12 w1 =0 'X ,' xI, ,

n nn r1•,' '3b,

'9I3=DX3 -1,1 ,?ny -Inn ?',1"rr,,

,,rla'1 (Modena, responsum on art music, originally 1605). 183. "Tra gl'istromenti fu portato in Sinagoga anche l'Organo, il qual pero non fu permesso

dai Rabbini, che si sonasse per essere instromento che per ordinario si suona nelle nostre chiese" (Via della fede, p. 793). On rabbinical attitudes to the use of the organ in the synagogue, see Meir Benayahu, "Da'at hakhmei Italya 'al han-negina be-'ugav bi-t'filla" ("The Opinions of




Modena may, nevertheless, have provided a loophole, in his responsum, for understanding, and justifying, the use of instruments, at least in the case of Simhat Torah. Would anybody in his right mind, he asks, think of prohibiting voices and instruments to celebrate a wedding? Where there is rejoicing, as for a bride and groom "and similar examples," "even instrumental music and singing over wine, which are the two most severely restricted divisions [of music practice], . . . are allowed."'84 The joyous festival of Simhat Torah is traditionally conceived as the meeting of two bridegrooms, one completing the annual cycle of readings from the Pentateuch, or the Groom of Torah (hatan tora), the other commencing a new cycle, or the Groom of Genesis (hatan bereshit). Yet Modena goes further, saying that if rejoicing is allowed at weddings, then why not on special Sabbaths and feast days, as well as on regular Sabbaths and festivals?'8

I do not see that anyone who has a brain in his skull would cast doubt on praising God with music in the synagogue on special Sabbaths and feast days. It will be called a pious act, just as rejoicing for a bridegroom and bride, for every holy Sabbath is, for us, a bride, and we are obliged to adorn her and rejoice over her with all kinds of rejoicing. Of the festivals,186 moreover, it is said: "[Rejoice] on the day of your happiness and in your festival seasons."'87

It could well be that instruments were used in the synagogues in early seventeenth-century Venice, if not on a regular basis, then at least on the more festive occasions of the liturgical calendar, and this in contravention of the conventional wisdom about their prohibition; and if not in prayer services, then for other joyous events marked in the synagogue or private homes or schools (weddings, circumcisions, the completion of a tractate of the Talmud, the inauguration of a Torah scroll). Said otherwise, many of the sacred works

Italian Sages on Organ Playing in Prayer Services"), Asufot, sefer shana le-mada 'ei hay-yahadut ["Collections, Yearbook for Jewish Studies"] 1 (1987): 265-318.

184. xKn'T XK-inT * D , -,'T ,X-M "-il "inn-'T ,in•, " IY3 Hyi r• nl7 i 117n "•12-?T ntn, -Im

-n"rnn xyrni

rnzi 7nn )=a nrann -nrmn m n7*nn -no 7-no 7,,n nnnonni (from responsum). 185. ninnon [non n -z

ni '• un ,nn

rriny n'•p'p na• 17 ,p

nit * Irv ) po ?-,nv-'. ,I:, m.

"'0mv911 u innbW '1, nrnirn 7n' m rvnjvil [.]'mnno T "n annrnIlv (Modena, responsum). 186. Among them the Feast of Tabernacles, concluding with the two feast days just

mentioned (Shemini 'Atseret, Simhat Torah). 187. Num. 10:10.



56 DON HARRAN

of Salamone Rossi, printed without a continuo part, could, under various circumstances, have been provided with an instrumental complement. As much may be assumed for whatever other sacred works in polyphony were performed in the early seventeenth-century Italian synagogue. Of these works we know nothing, with one exception, MS Mus. 101 of the Eduard Birnbaum collection in the library of Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati.

MS Mus. 101 awakens particular interest because it has, in the secondary literature, been associated with Modena and the activities of his academy."18 It contains the single part, or canto secondo, of what appears to have been eight-voice settings, i.e., for double chorus, of twenty-one Hebrew texts, some of them prayers, others

piyyu.tim. The composer is not named, nor is the

manuscript dated. Salamone Rossi may be ruled out, for the writing is more punctuated, more declamatory, than that in his "Songs of Solomon." Still, the manuscript belongs to the same general style period, though whether six, ten, or more years later than Rossi's collection remains to be determined. (I say "later" and not "earlier," because the manuscript employs the method first elaborated by Rossi, as we know, for aligning the Hebrew with the notes.) Beyond Rossi, no other Jewish composers of Hebrew music are known from his time (Davide da Civita and Allegro Porto, of whom we have few biographical details, left secular Italian works only).'"8

It was natural to ask whether Modena himself might have been the composer. Eric Werner believed he was, citing the coincidence between the contents of the collection and Morosini's description of the celebration, by members of Modena's academy, on the last days of the Feast of Tabernacles. The works in the manuscript are for two choruses, they include several examples for Simhat Torah, and their texts are quite jubilant. Israel Adler

188. The manuscript has been discussed by Werner in "Manuscripts of Jewish Music" and, most recently, by Adler in his inventory of Hebrew Notated Manuscript Sources up to circa 1840 (RISM B IX'; 2 vols., Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 1989), 1:394-401.

189. As skimpy as it is, the standard source for Civita is still Eduard Birnbaum, Jiidische Musiker am Hofe von Mantua von 1542-1628 (1893), in rev. Ital. trans. by Vittore Colorni as "Musici ebrei alla corte di Mantova dal 1542 al 1628," Civiltd mantovana 2 (1967): 185-216, esp. 192. On Porto, see variously in Don Harrin, "Allegro Porto, an Early Jewish Composer on the Verge of Christianity," Italia: studi e ricerche sulla storia, la cultura e la letteratura degli ebrei d'Italia 10 (1993): 19-57. Both composers have tenuous Venetian connections.




took a different stand: he rejected the attribution to Modena as "unwar- ranted," seemingly because we have no evidence of his having engaged in composition.190

The debate should be reopened. There is much to be said for the correlation of the works in the manuscript with the information in Morosini's description. As to whether Modena composed them, there is no compelling reason why he could not have. His musical ability is well known, both as a singer of cantorial chant and part music and as the editor of Rossi's "Songs." Only a person familiar with the art of composition could have taken on and responsibly performed the task of preparing the "Songs" for publication and weeding out errors in the printed text. Moreover, his poetry hints that he not only wrote his poems, but also may have invented their melodies.

One last point might be considered: Modena was maestro di cappella, or music director, of his academy. Unless the term was an empty appellation, it usually meant, as may be substantiated by abundant examples from the history of music, a person skilled in leading a musical ensemble and in writing music: thus Modena as conductor and composer. Modena's talents were adequate for fabricating the rather simple, if not sometimes simplistic, music fragmentarily preserved in the Birnbaum manuscript. Certainly, the madrigal and motet literature of the period burgeons with works by composers of second- and third-rate capacities. I am not saying that Modena did compose the works, but unless other information can be assembled to disprove such a contention, there is no reason to disqualify him out of hand.

"The science of music," of which Modena spoke in his responsum, meant, practically, the composition of songs and their performance. As such, the notion ran through Italian literature, beginning with Immanuel ha-Romi (before 1335)191 and continuing with Moses Rieti (1412). Immanuel writes that the science of music is of two kinds, practical and theoretical, and under practical he ranges "the invention of various types of melody that are perceived through the musical instruments, natural or artificial, adopted for them. . . . The master of the practical science of music will notate the

190. Cf. Hebrew Notated Manuscript Sources, p. 133. The reason for rejecting the attribution is not given, but may be assumed from Adler's "Art Music in the Italian Ghetto," p. 347 ("we have found nothing to suggest that he had ever attempted musical composition").

191. Immanuel (to whom Modena referred in his foreword to Rossi's "Songs") relied on Ibn Falaquera, Reshit hokhma ["Beginning of Wisdom"] (1240), pt. 2, chap. 5 (par. 5), itself based on Arabic sources (in particular, Al-Farabi). See, for Ibn Falaquera's exposition, Hebrew Writings Concerning Music, ed. Israel Adler, pp. 66-68.



58 DON HARRAN

rhythms and melodies and their combinations to be performed on the [vocal and manual] instruments that are customarily used for their production.""92 Rieti summarizes the passage in a poetic paraphrase.193 Like Immanuel and Rieti, Modena was well schooled in the rudiments of hokhmat han-niggun.

If Modena were a composer, he could also have been responsible for whatever musical interludes were added to his plays. Two plays are known: Rachel e Giacobbe (1603), no longer extant, and Ester (1619). Modena calls the first a "pastoral" and the second a "tragedy."194 The pastoral would clearly have contained intermedi, in conformance to tradition (the most important pastoral of the late sixteenth century was Guarini's musically loaded Pastor fido).195 It is less certain whether the tragedy contained them. Since, in its subject matter and date of dedication,196 it was connected with Purim, and the Jewish tradition was to celebrate the holiday with song and dance, it probably did. The first Hebrew play, Leone de' Sommi's Comedy of Betrothal (from the 1550s), was performed at Purim, and there are indications that it, too, had intermedi, as was the custom in other Purim entertainments.197 Parallel to the Jewish theater in Mantua, with which Leone de' Sommi and Salamone Rossi were associated,198 there was one in the Venetian ghetto, though, like

192. Im Yno tri -it " -) Pstrwriin ,r~i Kn wn,• ,

n-m -ltrw " wn, nvywj 7113-.1 nnl n,

*rrm -iwx tr'5n triv -ryn wr•ll•Mvr

?m nnirr1 .iwr i nvyn l pr m

rnnn ?Yn

....nnx•nn "-n nftnlp (after Shiloah, "A Passage by Immanuel ha-Romi on the Science of Music," pp. 15-16).

193. Quoted in Hebrew Writings Concerning Music, pp. 284-285. For full edition, see Rieti, Miqdash me 'at ["The Lesser Temple"], ed. Jacob Goldenthal, in II Dante ebreo, ossia il picciol santuario . . . dal Rabbi Mose, medico di Rieti ... per la prima volta ... pubblicato (Vienna: P. Zollinger, 1851).

194. Sefer hayyei Yehuda, pp. 77-78. 195. Cf. Achille Neri, "Gli intermezzi del Pastor Fido," Giornale storico della letteratura

italiana 11 (1888): 405-415; and Arnold Hartmann Jr., "Battista Guarini and II Pastor Fido," Musical Quarterly 39 (1953): 415-425.

196. To Sara Copio on Purim, February 28, 1619. 197. For Sommi's play, see Ham-mahaze ha-'ivri ha-rishon ... ["The First Hebrew

Play: 'The Comedy of Betrothal' by Judah Sommo"], ed. Yefim Schirmann (Jerusalem: Sifrei Tarshish, 2nd ed. 1965), esp. pp. 98-104 (for musical indications). On other plays performed at Purim, cf. Schirmann, "Hat-te'atron we-ham-musiqa bi-sh'khunot hay-yehudim be-'Italya" (as above).

198. For a combined study of the two, cf. Don Harran, "Jewish Dramatists and Musicians in the Renaissance: Separate Activities, Common Aspirations," in "Musicologia humana": Studies in Honor of Warren and Ursula Kirkendale, ed. Siegfried Gmeinwieser, David Hiley, and J6rg Riedlbauer (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1994), pp. 291-304, and, further, in




part music, it awakened voices of protest in religious circles.199 Modena's connections with the Venetian theater remain obscure; we do know, however, that in 1604, his brother-in-law Moses Simha acted in it (see above).

The later years of the academy were less halcyon than its beginnings. Its activities, Morosini observes, were as ephemeral as a "flash in the pan."200 Modena provides us with fuller, though still incomplete information in a letter from 1639.201 It was written in response to an appeal by a young Jewish choral director, who had formed an ensemble and hoped to collaborate with Modena's group. We learn that at the outset the academy consisted of several worthy singers and instrumentalists, yet the plague that struck Venice in 1630 caused the death of "the best members"; as a result, over the following years, meetings were held only sporadically.202 Until Modena's letter, then, the academy had been operating for eleven years, with its heyday in the late 1620s.

The name of the academy, Modena reveals, was the Accademia degli Impediti, i.e., "of the impeded," "in allusion to the unfortunate state of our captivity that 'impeded' the completion of any valorous action."203 In line with its name, the academy had as its motto the phrase Dum recordaremur Sion ("while we remembered Zion") from Psalm 137, verse 1. In verse 4 the psalmist asks how it is possible to "sing the song of the Lord in a foreign

Leone de' Sommi and the Perfoming Arts, ed. Ahuva Belkin (Tel-Aviv University Press, 1997), pp. 27-47.

199. Rabbi Samuel Aboab (1610-94) was adamant in his opposition to theatrical spectacles, writing a responsum later published, along with others, in his Devar Shemuel ["Samuel's Word"] (Venice: Vendramin, 1701-2), fols. lv-2.

200. "Tutto questo fu un fuoco di paglia, dur6 poco l'Accademia" (Via dellafede, p. 793). 201. See above (n. 177) for source reference. 202. "Hebbe una volta il nostro Congresso musicale nome giustamente d'accademia perche

v'erano alcuni non indegni d'esser connumerati tra musici e di voci e di mano. . . . Ma aggiuntasi lo sciagura che l'anno della peste perdemmo i migliori suggetti che v'erano, nostra compagnia rimase si sola . . . allora per communi impedimenti rade volte siamo insieme e imperfettamente vien esercitata." On the plague of 1630, see Carla Boccato, "Testimonianze ebraiche sulla peste del 1630 a Venezia," La rassegna mensile di Israel 41 (1975): 458-467; and in a broader context, Carlo Cipolla, Fighting the Plague in Seventeenth-Century Italy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981). Yet "the show" went on; for theatrical activity in 1630, see Boccato, "'L'Amor possente, favola pastorale di Benedetto Luzzatto hebreo da Venezia,' composta durante la peste del 1630," La rassegna mensile di Israel 43 (1977): 36-47.

203. ". .. et il nome era degli impediti tutto per alluder all'infelice stato della captivita nostra che n'impedisce ogni atto virtuoso la compitezza" (Modena's letter).



60 DON HARRAN

land"--we have already encountered the motif in Modena's description of the Jews' "foreign dwellings and restless runnings" and in his report on Moses Coimbran's ranting words about part music; the question raised in verse 4 hung heavily on his conscience. The members of the academy were "impeded" from "singing the Lord's song" in "foreign" Venice by the tragic events that beset their existence. In later years, Modena admits, there was no point in retaining the name "academy": an academy was meant to convene regularly; so the group became a mere compagnia, or "society."204 Thus Modena signs his letter "The Society of Musicians of the Ghetto of Venice" ("La Compagnia dei Musici del Ghetto di Venezia").

In answering the letter of his youthful correspondent, Modena implies that various composers had once been associated with the academy, but alas, the "fertile plant of composers" (including Modena?) had since withered. Modena regretted, therefore, that no musical works could be offered to the fledgling ensemble. Still, he wrote, he would be grateful were the new group to provide the fruits of its own efforts for the benefit of his "compagnia."205

". .. while we remembered Zion": Modena held high hopes for a revival of art music in the form that he believed had existed in the Temple. He made efforts in this direction in the first decade of the seventeenth century. Modena's collaboration with Rossi, which resulted in the latter's "Songs," marked a high point in the realization of his goal. With the academy Modena pursued his aspirations even further.206 But the academy was short-lived, as was the dream of resuscitating art music after biblical precedent, repressed by the harsh realities of Jewish life "in a foreign land"; what remained of the ancient glories was more the yearning for them than their recuperation. Only with the Emancipation in the latter part of the eighteenth century could a new Jewish musical practice begin, though one still exercised in exile from Zion.

What Modena is trying to tell us in his writings on music, and in his striving to inculcate a taste among Jews for its learned composition and

204. ". .. riservando il nome infatti, poiche non piix accademia" (ibid.). 205. "... godremo cosi volentieri l'effetto della sua cortesia se ne far-a parte de' frutti

maturi che saranno prodotti nella nova loro Academia che ne significa, poiche di qua non gli potemo offerir altro tanto non havendo pianta fertile di Compositori" (ibid.).

206. For the political idealization of biblical Israel, see Saul B. Robinsohn, Hinukh bein hemshekhiyyut li-f'tihut ["Education between Continuity and Openness"] (Jerusalem: School of Education, Hebrew University, 1975), esp. pp. 13-69 ("The Biblical Hebrew State as an Example of Ideal Government in the Writings of Political Thinkers in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries" [in Hebrew]).




practice in sacred music, is that through musiqa, or art music, we arrive at a knowledge of higher things concerning God's ways and intentions. These "higher things" are, to summarize his vocabulary, order, relation, proportion, beauty ("sweetness"), understanding, and wisdom (hokhma, as in hokhmat han-niggun, "the science of music"), for which we render thanks unto God in hymns of praise. The more artful the composition and the more joyful its performance, the more suitable the music becomes to divine worship. In time, God will reward the singers with "His mercy," and there will be "songs in the house of the Lord and in the whole congregation with greater gladness and exultation for all His goodness."207

Musiqa served Modena as a metaphor in his search for "harmony," or the reconciliation of God with His people; for the redemption of the Jews; and for a new era of peace and prosperity. It served him as a metaphor for the "Songs of Zion," which the Jews sadly remembered in their dispersion, and, in expectation of their return, fervently tried to restore through various attempts, including Rossi's in Mantua, and Modena's in Ferrara and Venice, to introduce part music into the synagogue.

It is no wonder, then, that the "Songs of Solomon," probably at the urging of Modena, have as their first and middle numbers (1, 16) the (full) Qaddish, which concludes with the verses: "May there be much peace from heaven and a good life for us and for all Israel; and say amen. May He who makes peace on His heights make peace, in His mercy, for us and for all Israel; and say amen." We share Modena's hope for a world of "harmony," with peace and prosperity unto Israel, amen!

Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel

207. Modena, from the foreword to Rossi's "Songs."



Dum recordaremur Sion-Leon Modena

Documents

Transcript of Dum recordaremur Sion-Leon Modena