Hardback

eBook

Musical Exodus

Al-Andalus and Its Jewish Diasporas

Edited by Ruth F. Davis

For nearly eight centuries — from the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711 to the final expulsion of the Jews in 1492 — Muslims, Jews and Christians shared a common Andalusian culture under alternating Muslim and Christian rule. Following their expulsion, the Spanish and Arabic- speaking Jews joined pre-existing diasporic communities and established new ones across the Mediterranean and beyond. In the twentieth century, radical social and political upheavals in the former Ottoman and European-occupied territories led to the mass exodus of Jews from Turkey and the Arab Mediterranean, with the majority settling in Israel.

Following a trajectory from medieval Al-Andalus to present-day Israel via North Africa, Italy, Turkey and Syria, pausing for perspectives from Enlightenment Europe, Musical Exodus: Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas tells of diverse song and instrumental traditions born of the multiple musical encounters between Jews and their Muslim and Christian neighbors in different Mediterranean diasporas, and the revival and renewal of those traditions in present-day Israel. In this collection of essays from Philip V. Bohlman, Daniel Jütte, Tony Langlois, Piergabriele Mancuso, John O’Connell, Vanessa Paloma, Carmel Raz, Dwight Reynolds, Edwin Seroussi, and Jonathan Shannon, with opening and closing contributions by Ruth F. Davis and Stephen Blum, distinguished ethnomusicologists, cultural historians, linguists and performers explore from multidisciplinary perspectives the complex and diverse processes and conditions of intercultural and intracultural musical encounters. The authors consider how musical traditions acquired new functions and meanings in different social, political and diasporic contexts; explore the historical role of Jewish musicians as cultural intermediaries between the different faith communities; and examine how music is implicated in projects of remembering and forgetting as societies come to terms with mass exodus by reconstructing their narratives of the past.

The essays in Musical Exodus: Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas extend beyond the music of medieval Iberia and its Mediterranean Jewish diasporas to wider aspects of Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim relations. The authors offer new perspectives on theories of musical interaction, hybridization, and the cultural meaning of musical expression in diasporic and minority communities. The essays address how music is implicated in constructions of ethnicity and nationhood and of myth and history, while also examining the resurgence of Al-Andalus as a symbol in musical projects that claim to promote cross-cultural understanding and peace. The diverse scholarship in Musical Exodus makes a vital contribution to scholars of music and European and Jewish history.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 258 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-0-8108-8175-4 • Hardback • September 2015 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-0-8108-8176-1 • eBook • September 2015 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

Series: Europea: Ethnomusicologies and Modernities

Subjects: Music / EthnoMusicology, Music / History & Criticism, Music / Religious / Jewish

Musical Exodus

Al-Andalus and Its Jewish Diasporas

Hardback

eBook

Summary

For nearly eight centuries — from the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711 to the final expulsion of the Jews in 1492 — Muslims, Jews and Christians shared a common Andalusian culture under alternating Muslim and Christian rule. Following their expulsion, the Spanish and Arabic- speaking Jews joined pre-existing diasporic communities and established new ones across the Mediterranean and beyond. In the twentieth century, radical social and political upheavals in the former Ottoman and European-occupied territories led to the mass exodus of Jews from Turkey and the Arab Mediterranean, with the majority settling in Israel.

Following a trajectory from medieval Al-Andalus to present-day Israel via North Africa, Italy, Turkey and Syria, pausing for perspectives from Enlightenment Europe, Musical Exodus: Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas tells of diverse song and instrumental traditions born of the multiple musical encounters between Jews and their Muslim and Christian neighbors in different Mediterranean diasporas, and the revival and renewal of those traditions in present-day Israel. In this collection of essays from Philip V. Bohlman, Daniel Jütte, Tony Langlois, Piergabriele Mancuso, John O’Connell, Vanessa Paloma, Carmel Raz, Dwight Reynolds, Edwin Seroussi, and Jonathan Shannon, with opening and closing contributions by Ruth F. Davis and Stephen Blum, distinguished ethnomusicologists, cultural historians, linguists and performers explore from multidisciplinary perspectives the complex and diverse processes and conditions of intercultural and intracultural musical encounters. The authors consider how musical traditions acquired new functions and meanings in different social, political and diasporic contexts; explore the historical role of Jewish musicians as cultural intermediaries between the different faith communities; and examine how music is implicated in projects of remembering and forgetting as societies come to terms with mass exodus by reconstructing their narratives of the past.

The essays in Musical Exodus: Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas extend beyond the music of medieval Iberia and its Mediterranean Jewish diasporas to wider aspects of Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim relations. The authors offer new perspectives on theories of musical interaction, hybridization, and the cultural meaning of musical expression in diasporic and minority communities. The essays address how music is implicated in constructions of ethnicity and nationhood and of myth and history, while also examining the resurgence of Al-Andalus as a symbol in musical projects that claim to promote cross-cultural understanding and peace. The diverse scholarship in Musical Exodus makes a vital contribution to scholars of music and European and Jewish history.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 258 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-0-8108-8175-4 • Hardback • September 2015 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-0-8108-8176-1 • eBook • September 2015 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

Series: Europea: Ethnomusicologies and Modernities

Subjects: Music / EthnoMusicology, Music / History & Criticism, Music / Religious / Jewish

Author

Ruth F. Davis is University Reader in Ethnomusicology and Fellow and Director of Studies in Music at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. She has published extensively on the music of North Africa, the Middle East and the wider Mediterranean, especially on her fieldwork in mainland Tunisia and in the Jewish community of Djerba, and on Robert Lachmann's archive projects in Mandatory Palestine. Her edition of Lachmann's "Oriental Music" broadcasts was published by A-R Editions in 2013, with accompanying CD set of digitally restored recordings.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Musical Exodus, Musical Incoming

Chapter 1: Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and the Formation of Medieval Andalusian Music
by Dwight F. Reynolds

Chapter 2: Judeo-Spanish melodies in the liturgy of Tangier, Morocco: Feminine Imprints in a Masculine Space
by Vanessa Paloma Elbaz

Chapter 3: The Place of Music in Early Modern Italian Jewish Culture
by Daniel Jütte

Chapter 4: Fiore d’eterno: Music and Liturgy of the Jews of San Nicandro Garganico
by Piergabriele Mancuso

Chapter 5: Enlightenment Andalus—Herder’s Search for Mediterranean Modernity in the Jewish Past
by Philip V. Bohlman

Chapter 6: Modal Trails, Model Trials: Musical Migrants and Mystical Critics in Turkey
by John Morgan O’Connell

Chapter 7: Jewish Fingers and Phantom Musical Presences: Remembrance of Jewish Musicians in 20th C. Aleppo, Syria
by Jonathan H. Shannon

Chapter 8: Jewish Musicians in the “Musique Orientale” of Oran, Algeria
by Tony Langlois

Chapter 9: Tafillalt’s “Soulmate”: A Snapshot on the Israeli Piyyut Revival
by Carmel Raz

Chapter 10: Islands of Musical Memory: Performing Selihot According to the Codex Siftei Renanot in Al-Andalus, Djerba, Tripoli, and Israel from the Eleventh to the Twenty-first Centuries
by Edwin Seroussi

Afterword by Stephen Blum
Appendix
Index
About the Contributors

Reviews

The book’s expansive timeframe, dispersed geographies, and widely varied musical traditions paint a composite portrait—by way of case study—of a vibrant and multi-layered area of Jewish music, history, and culture.
— Thinking On Music

Musical Exodus: Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas is an important addition to the literature on Sephardi musical cultures, and offers us a rich and variegated look at its many routes. While rooted in an Iberian homeland, one thing is certain, and that is that the proverbial band remains on tour and plays on.

— Musica Judaica Online Reviews

Musical Exodus

Al-Andalus and Its Jewish Diasporas

Edited by Ruth F. Davis

Musical Exodus

Al-Andalus and Its Jewish Diasporas

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