Ancient Jewish Instrumental 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 (see I Kings 1:38-40). Hebrew
music was both instrumental and vocal. Singing was marked by responsorial,
antiphonal, and refrain forms, and singing and dancing were accompanied
by instruments. The first instruments mentioned in the Bible are
the kinnor, evidently a lyre similar to the kithara,
and the ugab, possibly a vertical flute. Other instruments,
more of ceremonial than of musical value, included the hasosra,
a trumpet, and the shofar, a ram's or goat's horn, the least
musical of all and the only one still in use.
When the kingdom of Israel was established, music was
developed systematically. The part played by music in the Temple was
essential and highly developed. New instruments were the nevel,
a harp; the halil, possibly a double oboe; the asor,
a 10-stringed instrument probably like a psaltery; and the
magrepha, an instrument of powerful sound, used to signal the
beginning of the service. Various types of cymbals originally
used in the Temple were prohibited after its restoration. 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 His notation superseded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).
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]
Instruments used to accompany 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 music, 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 honor 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).