Ancient Jewish Choral Music

See Jewish Influence on Early Christian Hymnody
See Jewish Liturgical Music

The Bible and the Talmud record that spontaneous music making was common among the ancient Jews on all important occasions, religious and secular. Hebrew music was both instrumental and vocal. Singing was marked by responsorial, antiphonal, and refrain forms, and singing and dancing were accompanied by instruments.

When the kingdom of Israel was established, music was developed systematically. Ritual music was at first only cantillation, i.e., recitative chanting, of the prose books of the Bible. Later the prayers and biblical poetry were chanted, presumably in a modal system similar to the ragas of Hindu music or the maqamat of Arab music, i.e., melodies with improvisations.

After the destruction of Jerusalem under Roman rule in A.D. 70, much of the chant was preserved among congregations of Middle Eastern Jews and arguably remains intact today, but the instrumental music was lost when the dispersed peoples, as an act of mourning, ceased playing instruments. A system of mnemonic hand signs for traditional chant had been developed in the Temple, and after the Dispersion this became the basis for the development of a system of notation. In the 9th cent., Aaron ben Asher of Tiberias perfected the te'amim, or neginoth, a system of accent signs. His notation superseded all other systems and influenced the development of the earliest Christian neumes, which became a precise system, while the te'amim retained their vague character (see musical notation).

With the growth in importance of the synagogue came the rise of the chazan, or cantor. Among the Sephardic Jews in Arab-dominated Spain Arab music had great influence and was introduced into the synagogue.

See A. Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Music in its Historical Development (1967); A. M. Rothmüller, The Music of the Jews (tr. 1954, rev. ed. 1967); A. Sendrey, Music in Ancient Israel (1969); E. Werner, A Voice Still Heard (1976).

[From Infoplease.com]

Organized CHORAL music in ancient Jewish tradition

The Old Testament provides ample evidence of the existence of well-organized choral singing in ancient Israel. David, when he made preparations for bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, 'spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy' (1 Chronicles xv.16). Of the leaders appointed at that time, three were assigned the honour of signalling with cymbals, and 14 (eight with psalteries and six with harps) were designated to play the string instruments which constituted, then and later, the typical accompaniment for Jewish choral music. Chenaniah, appointed to supervise the singing, 'instructed about the song, because he was skilful' (1 Chronicles xv.22). He proved to be an able teacher; when the first Temple establishment was formally organized shortly afterwards, David found it possible to appoint 288 skilful Levite musicians -- 24 groups of 12, each group with its designated leader. For ordinary occasions these small groups may have served in rotation, but at more important ceremonies the entire body of Levite musicians performed.At the splendid ceremonies conducted at the dedication of Solomon's Temple, this already large choir was further augmented by the addition of 'an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets ... the trumpeters and singers ... as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord' (2 Chronicles v.12--13).

Several times, during periods of apostasy or adversity, the Temple choir was disbanded, only to be restored subsequently to its original splendour. A choir school was maintained in which Chenaniah's successors trained generation after generation of cantors and choristers. The levitical choir was officially composed of only adult males, but Levite boys were allowed, probably in the role of apprentices, to add the sweetness of their voices to the singing. There is insufficient evidence to support the view held by some authorities that women were allowed to perform with the levitical singers, but, notwithstanding their probable exclusion from the official choir, women no doubt participated in the congregational acclamations and responses introduced into the singing of psalms. The choirs of many synagogues, though more modest in size and usually lacking accompanying instruments, were modelled on that of the Temple in Jerusalem. In the Temple and synagogues, Jewish choral music, which was monophonic, was often performed responsorially or antiphonally. Certain psalms bear superscriptions which have been held to refer to performance by a soloist with responding chorus, and antiphonal singing is described in several biblical passages (e.g. Nehemiah xii.31--9). That the ancient practice of antiphonal singing was still in existence among Jews of the 1st century is shown by Philo of Alexandria's description of congregational antiphony as practised by a Jewish sect known as the Therapeutae (De vita contemplativa, §29):

From: New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians  (personal online subscription: $30.00 month.; $295.00 year.) This excellent general resource has several articles containing information on Jewish music. Music Ref ML100.N48

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