A 14th Century Purim Piyyut
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jewish community in want of authenticity will claim that their melodies are the original: "given all the way back at Sinai and unchanged ever since!" However, that's not the reality for any Jewish melodies. There is no evidence to support that even Torah tropes, which perhaps constitute some of the oldest melodies in our canon, date all the way back to Sinai. The simple fact is that melodies change with time, with people's ears, and to suit a community's needs. With that said, there are quite a few medieval melodies that survive in Jewish communities worldwide, and they provide a fascinating glimpse into the past!
Inspired by Purim, I took a look at a piyyut called "Kikhlot Yeini." The earliest version of it is housed in the Masekhet Purim manuscript in the Italian Biblioteca Palatina, is dated to the 14th century, and was, perhaps incorrectly, attributed to R. Shlomo Ibn Gabirol. It was printed for the first time in Pesaro in 1513, and the text it accompanies, Masekhet Purim, was written by the Italian-Provençal Rabbi Kalonymus ben Kalonymus ben Meir Hanasi. (For more information, check out Ayelet Ettinger's Hebrew-language article on this exact topic.)
It appears to have spread quickly and widely across the Jewish world, although we will focus on the German versions which proved extraordinarily popular through the centuries. It was sung in German-speaking regions even through the 19th century; it was also printed in an 1846 anthology of Hebrew texts for the young, and can be found here: Kochbe Jitzhak: Ein Sammlung ebräischer [sic] Auffässe… 6 Heft (Vienna, 1846), pp. 25-6.
The song itself is about being served watered-down wine, and how unfortunate that is. One stanza even says (in rough translation), "how can bread taste good when the wine is basically water?" The connection with Purim is obvious. The melody is the piece of the puzzle which has been least explored. Thankfully, the National Library of Israel has published two German melodies dating from the first half of the 19th century. (The article also includes more information on other versions of the song, including in Sephardic communities and its modern Israeli context, if you're so interested!)
The two melodies are very similar, indicating that they are likely a variants of a well-known melody. The version I chose to focus on is attributed to cantor Itzik Offenbach for Purim 1833, who worked in Cologne for most of his career. Cantor Offenbach wrote quite a few tunes over the course of his career; one of his sons, according to Jewish Virtual Library, was the operatic composer Jacques Offenbach. Many of Itzik's songs are held in the archives at Hebrew Union College. Set in a classical style, the tune sounds like this:
As a student of klezmer, a music which appears to have developed in Eastern Europe in the 19th century, my interest in the song comes from an interest in what we call "transitional repertoire." Essentially, transitional repertoire are songs that pull strongly from other European genres that surrounded the original klezmorim. Often, Jewish songs of the past are evaluated by communities based on if they "sound Jewish" or not (a designation which is itself worthy of further interrogation, as tends not to account for anything that isn't an Eastern Ashkenazi sound), by which people typically mean that it has a minor mode (such as the freygish mode), ornamentations, and a klezmer ending.
The newly reopened materials of the KMDMP, though, have added many hundreds of tunes that haven't been heard in over a century back into the klezmer repertoire. It turns out that a substantial number of these songs constitute transitional repertoire. These songs, to our US ears, sound distinctly "un-Jewish." Maybe they sound German, or French, or Roma, or Transylvanian, or Polish: mazurkas, for example, feature prominently in the KMDMP hefts. Why would these songs be included in the repertoires of working musicians? Just like all musicians have from time immemorial, klezmorim took gigs and worked with people outside of the Jewish community. An example of this transitional repertoire can be found in this circa 1919 recording of the Israel J. Hochman Orchestra interpreting a polonaise:
I thought it might be a fun challenge to try and klezmerize this tune this week. In reflection, a week was somewhat short given that I'm teaching an overload at my full-time job and also teaching 7th graders preparing for their B'Mitzvahs, so it's not finished yet… I'm hoping to have a recording out on Youtube sometime next week! If I manage to finish it, I'll update you in next week's column.
