The use of foreign (i. e., non-Jewish) secular melodies in the Hebrew hymns
piyyutim (sing.
piyyut) and
baqqashot (sing.
baqqashah), is one of the outstanding features that characterize the dynamism of the Jewish Middle-Eastern musical tradition. The integration of foreign melodies into Jewish liturgical and paraliturgical music is done in two ways: (1)
contrafactum and (2) “musical adaptation”.
Contrafactum, the term originated from the Medieval Latin word
contrafacere, meaning “to imitate, ” has been used in Western-vocal art music. It is generally defined as the substitution of one text for another without substantial change of the music (Falck and Picker 1980: 700).
Contrafactum is applied as a key term to the study of Jewish Sephardi music (Avenary 1960; 1969; 1978, Katz 1968; 1986). Another crucial term in the study of present day Jewish liturgical and paraliturgical music tradition is “musical adaptation” (Bahat 1986, Seroussi and Weich-Shahak 1991). Bahat clarifies the distinction between the two terms: he defines
contrafactum as the creation of a new text on the basis of a pre-existing song, in which the new text perfectly fits the melody, as well as structure and sometimes even the phonation of the opening lines of the original song. “Musical adaptation” on the other hand, is the singing of an existing text with a melody adapted from another pre-existing song (Ibid.), something that a soloist may do on the spot.
This paper focuses on the two musical phenomena,
contrafactum and “musical adaptation” as they have been practiced in the Jewish Middle-Eastern community in Jerusalem during the 20
th century. In so doing it also casts light on the historical and cultural dynamism of the Jewish musical tradition.
Contrafactum has been used as a technique for composing new Hebrew hymns for more than 400 years. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492), newly founded centers of Jewry in the Middle-East were receptive to music as an element fortifying religious-spiritual aspects of life. Under the Kabbalistic mystical movement of Safed, new
piyyutim were created through
contrafactum, primarily for singing in social religious meetings. A number of Hebrew hymnals were published from the 16
th century on. In these books we can find titles of the original foreign songs with whose melodies the Hebrew texts were sung. The most important hymnal was Yisrael Najara's
Zemirot Yisrael (1587, 1599 and 1600). The songs in
Zemirot Yisrael were organized according to magam (Arabic musical modal system), a type of organization which became a model for later Hebrew hymnals in the Middle Eastern Jewish communities.
A great number of
piyyutim were composed by means of
contrafactum in Jerusalem during the 20
th century, and were included in the new books of
piyyutim and
bagqashot:
Sefer Shir u-Shuvahah (1905 and 1921),
Sefer Shirey Zemirah (1936) and
Sefer Shirey Zemirah Hashalem (first edition 1952). Many of the new
piyyutim are based on popular Arabic songs, especially those of the famous Egyptian singers, such as Umm Kulthum (1904?-1975) and Muhammad 'Abd al-Wahhab (1911?-1991).
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