We are pleased to announce that a new music course will be offered in Trinity Term 2022, taught by Dr Diana Matut.
The number of places available for this music class is limited. Priority will be given to applicants who are current university students, but other candidates will be considered. This class is free of charge and will take place on Mondays, via Zoom, from 6 to 7pm (UK time). **The first day of class for this course will be Monday, 25th April 2022.**
Please submit your completed application form to the OCHJS Academic Administrator, Ms Priscilla Lange, by email to academic.administrator@ochjs.ac.uk no later than two weeks before the start date of the class, that is on or before 11th April 2022. Please find the application form here.
Course Description:
This course will introduce students to art music and song culture of the period from ca. 1500-1750.
The focus of this course lies on Italy with its diverse Jewish communities and distinct musical practices as well as on the Western Sephardim, especially in Amsterdam, who incorporated Western Art music into their services and cultural life in general.
Music was written by Jewish composers like Salamone Rossi or Abraham Caceres but also by non-Jewish musicians like Giuseppe Lidarti and served distinctly Jewish functions such as festivals, weddings, Synagogue inaugurations or the trial of new cantors. Of interest will also be Benedetto Marcello who in his L’Estro Poetico-Armonico recorded piyyutim, psalms and prayers from the Jewish communities of his home town Venice, which he then used as basis for some of his intricate psalm-compositions.
Furthermore, the Hebrew adaptation of Georg Friedrich Händel’s Esther (probably serving as a kind of Purim-shpil in Venice) and various cantatas will be part of the curriculum as well as the unique Hebrew and Yiddish song culture that arose in Italy and Ashkenaz.
The course will last eight weeks and the following themes will be discussed:
1. The Place of (Art) Music in Early Modern European Jewish Cultures
2. A colleague of Monteverdi. Salamone Rossi in Mantua
3. The Lawyer who Liked Jewish Singing: Benedetto Marcello and his ethnographic endeavour
4. Singing Yiddish in Italy and Beyond: Jewish song culture
5. Händel and the Rabbi or: A Hebrew Esther
6. Grossi and the Cantata Ebraica/Saladin: Canticum Hebraicum
7. Dancing and Dance Music in Early Modern Ashkenaz
8. Crossovers: Jair Dala and Israel in Egypt/New Jewish Music in an Old Garb: Elam Rotem and Profeti della Quinta’s Qui amore langueo
If you have any queries, please contact Ms Priscilla Lange, academic.administrator@ochjs.ac.uk.