By: Philippa Kiraly
The latest program offered by the Medieval Women’s Choir this past weekend was of particular interest, one which could only have been mounted by someone who is not only a musician steeped in early performance practices, but a profound scholar of medieval music as well.
At Temple Beth Am, founder and conductor of the choir Margriet Tindemans presented a lively, consistently absorbing program of Medieval Jewish music, none of it originally written down, much of it put together by a combination of musical knowledge of the era and informed speculation.
The result is how songs might have sounded then in communities of Sephardi or Ashkenazi Jews, although they would mostly have been sung by men, and only by women in the privacy of their own homes or with other women.
At least one of the songs is well known today, a jaunty setting of words from the Song of Solomon, Dodi li which, as my Orthodox Jewish seat-neighbor remarked, is the “greatest hit of Jewish summer camp.”
The songs were largely sung in unison: some romantic ballads or narrative songs, some dances, others sung to nonsense syllables, some influenced by forms of Arabic poetry, plus more settings from the Song of Solomon. At the end, the program jumped a few hundred years to a couple of works by Salamone Rossi, an Italian Jewish composer active around the turn of the 17th century. These were sung in parts.
Many of the earlier pieces had solos sensitively performed by soprano Linda Strandberg and followed by the full choir, while others were antiphonal. Song groups were strung together with instrumental improvisations and music from the Cantigas de Santa Maria of the court of King Alfonso X of Castile, played by Tindemans herself and Shira Kammen on medieval fiddle, with Peggy Monroe on tambourine and hand drum.
All these were set using the haunting Middle Eastern scale still prevalent today, and sung largely in Ladino.
The nonsense songs, or Nigunim, imitate instruments. Only in these did we hear, from soprano soloist Marian Seibert, the artful, slight slurring up to notes and typical small trills and ornamentation on notes that can be heard today in music from the Middle East.
The Medieval Women’s Choir is an unauditioned, amateur group which Tindemans has built into an excellent choir with quality far above most of that genre. Intonation was accurate (except for a little slippage in the Rossi), words and rhythms crisp, the singers’ ensemble well together. Strandberg’s pure voice suited her solos, while Seibert’s very different timbre fit hers. I would have liked to hear more sung with that Middle Eastern inflection.
The entire program lifted a curtain on an area of music most of us don’t know well, if at all. While some of the words are familiar to temple goers, and some of the melodies are not unknown, to hear them put together in a full length performance gave listeners a chance to hear a body of work devoted to the genre. I found it an enlightening experience.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear Ms. Kiraly,
Thank you for this review. As a member of the choir and one of those who repeatedly requested such music be added to our programming in our evaluations, I plead guilty to not having known how much work the research for it would involve. I appreciate your gratitude for Margriet’s work in researching, assembling, recruiting and basically creating this program. I also wish we could do other medieval repetoire, but Margriet says it’s difficult to acquire written documents of works. At least we can expand with contemporary compositions.
I felt that Molly’s improvisations in this concert seemed to put the audience at ease (almost palpable in the response), a power the rest of us don’t always realize probably because we’re not as talented or experienced. Margriet has worked over the years to help us learn to improve our performance techniques (and our work with Nancy Zylstra is a large part, but not the only one), much of which is in our attitude toward performance. I think this repetoire surprized us by its difficulty (language) and accessability (of melody). I am so grateful for the support of our audience, and particularly for your listening insights.
Dear Ms. Kiraly,
Thank you for this review. As a member of the choir and one of those who repeatedly requested such music be added to our programming in our evaluations, I plead guilty to not having known how much work the research for it would involve. I appreciate your gratitude for Margriet’s work in researching, assembling, recruiting and basically creating this program. I also wish we could do other medieval repetoire, but Margriet says it’s difficult to acquire written documents of works. We can expand with contemporary compositions.
I felt that Molly’s improvisations in this concert seemed to put the audience at ease (almost palpable in the response), a power the rest of us don’t always realize probably because we’re not as talented or experienced. Margriet has worked over the years to help us learn to improve our performance techniques (and our work with Nancy Zylstra is a large part, but not the only one), much of which is in our attitude toward performance. I think this repetoire surprized us by its difficulty (language) and accessability (of melody). I am so grateful for the support of our audience, and particularly for your listening insights.