History of Chazzanut and Congregational Singing, Cantorial Terms Nusach, Scarbove, MiSinai, Freygish,...

History of Chazzanut and Congregational Singing (Nigunim)

The Cantorial Terms: Nusach, Scarbove, MiSinai, Freygish, Ahavah-Rabbah Mode, et al

Zogekhts: Sections of the liturgy that are traditionally chanted by the cantor in a brisk tempo (allegro) with minimal or no repeating of words. Examples are U-v'kheyn Teyn Pakh-d'kho, Atoh V'khar-tonu, Atoh Zoykheyr and Atoh Nigleyso for the High Holydays; Atoh V'khar-tonu and Mi-p'ney kha-to-eynu for the Sholosh R'golim; and Tikanto Shabbos Rotsiso Korb'noyseho for the Sabbath -- as opposed to a retshtativ, below.

(Also spelled Zogachts, Zogechts, Zogachtz, Zogechtz.)

RetshtaTIVn (singular: retshtaTIV): Recitatives / Cantorial Solos - Sections of the liturgy that are traditionally chanted by the cantor in a dramatic operatic manner, with much repeating of words. Nowadays, are rarely used during actual synagogue prayer-services, as their use unduly lengthens the services to the dismay of today's worshippers. Instead, retshtativn are usually performed only at Cantorial Concerts. A good example is Cantor Murray Bazian chanting V'Nireyhu Ayin B'Ayin and Av HoRakhamim Hu Y'Rakheym Am Amusim (plays streaming using RealPlayer).

freygish (פֿרייגיש): To read what exactly this term means, go to this page on the KlezmerShack website, which is entitled "The Sub-Mode System of the Ahava Rabboh Mode (Freygish)." (Also spelled freigish, פרייגיש)

oberkantor (אָבער־קאַנטאָר): chief cantor (also spelled ober-kantor, obercantor, אבערקאנטאר ,אבער־קאנטאר )

khazn sheyni (חזן־שני): second cantor (also spelled chazzan sheini, chazzan sheni, khazan sheyni)

The first reference below is an email from Cantor Sherwood Goffin of New York's Lincoln Square Synagogue, from his email posted on the aishdas.org website. I have edited and annotated Cantor Goffin's words -- Yos'l, March 2004.

Date: Thu, 10 July 2003
From: Sherwood Goffin <chaz@lss.org>
Subject: Re: Nigunim in Shul (Congregational Singing in the Synagogue)

Dear Mr. Dixler, amv"sh

The oldest source is the Sefer Chassidim (R" Yehuda Ha Chasid) 1148-1217 c.e., who forbids using the melody of one part of the tefillah (prayer service) or kriah (Bible reading) for a different tefillah or kriah. We know that the Maharam MiRuttenberg, about 50 years later, started to standardize the musical nusach hatefillah. For instance, in his day, all the Kaddeyshim for Yom Tov used the tune of Tal/Geshem. During his lifetime they began to evolve into separate melodies for Maariv Rosh HaShonah, Shacharis, Musaf, Neilah, etc.

The Shulchan Aruch (1488-1575) extensively quotes the Maharil (R' Jacob Moelin - chief Rabbi of the Rhineland c.1375-1450) as to minhagei tefillah.

The Maharil was the Posek (Halachic authority) for the largest Jewish communities of the day - Worms, Speyer, Mayence, Regensberg, etc. He was upset at the "foreign" elements intruding in the melody of tefillah, and he set out to determine which versions were the true ones (MiSinai or Scarbova). He was able to do that because of the Crusades that brought Jews from all over Europe to seek safety in the Rhineland. He examined the different musical strains, and determined which were authentic. His P'sak (Halachic ruling) - that "Ein L'Shanos" - one may not change the musical Nusach of a community, is standardized as Halacha by the Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 619). You can, of course, see that in the Mishneh Brura as well. He was also responsible for standardizing Nusach Ashkenaz in the form that our Siddur takes, and in many minhagim, such as the chazzan (cantor) starting to chant HaMelech from his seat, (before ascending to the Omed), etc.

After the turn of the 20th Century, The nascent Young Israel Movement sought to bring young people into shul by emulating the Chassidim by introducing Nigunim (rhythmic congregational singing) to their minyanim (heretofore this was verboten). Until then, no one "sang" (i.e., with a fixed rhythm) Kel Odon or L'cho Dodi - there is a nusach (classic arrhythmic chanting) that you even hear today -- that was carefully adhered to.

The Young Israel initiative started the trend in non-chassidic shuls to use nigunim (congregational singing) to supplement the nusach (NOT replace it). Believe it or not, through the 1950's and even the 1960s it was still frowned upon by mainstream shuls (and by reactionary sticklers like Yos'l).

Many of the first Young Israel nigunim were taken from the reform choral pieces of Germany and Austria, such as the entire Hotsoas Hatorah (taking out of the Torah from the Ark) melody, including "Vayehi Bin'soa HoOron"/ "Ki Mitzion." Even (rythmic melodies like) the universal "Shma Yisroel" were all reform compositions. But, there was very little else out there, and that is why they used them. Today, we have to be careful not to use nigunim where they don't belong, and not to erase the nusach (classic arrhythmic chanting) as a result.

Some (like Yos'l) think it is now frumer to NOT sing nigunim, and that is a bit of hisnagdut (opposition). Nigunim are part of Zeh Keli V'Anveyhu. We just have to use seychel (common sense). My guidelines are the 4 M's: Mode (nusach), Mood, Meaning and Min HaMikdosh (not from secular sources).

Incidentally, many of the favorite KAJ melodies are these aforementioned compositions of The Reform - Lewandowski, Sulzer, et al. I guess we have "kashered" them over the last century and one-half by using them in Avodas Hakodesh (Synagogue Prayer-Services).

Shalom, Chazzan Sherwood Goffin, Lincoln Sq. Synagogue, N.Y.,
Faculty Belz School of Jewish Music at Yeshiva University

The next reference is the website entitled The Origins of Chazzanut at Chazzanut.com. At this website there is an excellent definitions of the word scarbova (or skarbove). The following quotes are from that website.

The period between the wars (World Wars I and II) is generally regarded as the 'Golden Age of Chazzanut.' This is the time when legendary Chazzanim such as Kwartin, Sirota, Hershman, and Rosenblatt flourished. Simply put, these men had the ability to make people cry. Their singing and pleading with the Almighty would send shivers up and down the spines of their congregants, and they were able to raise them to high levels of communion with G-d.

(It is, perhaps, beyond the scope of this article to rationalise this, but I'm certain that it was the environment in which people lived that enabled these cantors to achieve it. People living in poverty, who could not afford to see a doctor when they were ill and were frequently out of work, were more easily moved than we can be today in our more affluent society. When the Chazzan pleaded with the L-rd to grant people who were unemployed and living through a war 'a life of peace, a life of sustenance, and life in which there's no shame and reproach...,' it was not difficult to make them cry.)

...........

There are also many melodies, rather than modes, which are very ancient. In the Ashkenazi (European) rites they are referred to as Scarbove Niggunim, (the word Scarbove is probably a corruption of the Latin word sacra meaning 'sacred'), or MiSinai-melodies, i.e., melodies transmitted from Mount Sinai (!). These titles undoubtedly came about as a means by which to invest them with sanctity, and so discourage Chazzanim from altering them.

Most of these Scarbove tunes came from Southwestern Germany, from the old communities of Worms, Mayence and the Rhinelands. Examples of them are Aleinu for the Yamim Noraim (High Holidays), and Adir Hu for Pesach.

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The following is quoted from the UAHC website

The two pillars of Jewish melodic continuity are: a) the cantillation of the Torah, and b) the chanting of certain prayers for a given liturgical function. Cantillation (in Hebrew: Ta'amey Haneginah or Ta'amey Hamikra, or in Greek: Trope -- also the Yiddish Trop) is the musical reading/chanting of the books of the Torah: the Five Books of Moses, the Prophets, Book of Psalms, Book of Ruth, etc.

The pattern of chanting of specific prayers (Nusach Hatefillah), as well as the Cantillation of the Torah has survived -- in spite of its unavoidable evolutions and regional adjustments to the tonality of the musical environment in the many countries of the Jewish diaspora.

Before we proceed to analyze the sources of these musical motifs, which were the basis of the "tradition" (Minhag), let us examine the form of worship, the "Service" in the Holy Temple (the "Bet Hamikdash") in ancient Jerusalem, which influenced the later "Service" in the Jewish Synagogue, and the even later format of the Christian Service:

In the Bet Hamikdash, the Priests (Kohanim) were in charge. They would perform the animal sacrifices, would bless the Congregation (Lev. 9:22), and on Yom Kippur the Priest would confess his sins and the sins of all of Israel (Lev. 16).

The Levites (Levi'im), who performed a wide variety of functions in the maintenance of the Temple were also the musicians of the Temple. They sang Psalms, prescribed for each day, played the instruments, such as the harps we mentioned earlier, the Chatzotzera, the Chalil, the Ugav and the Shofar and the cymbals.

A.Z. Idelsohn, in his Jewish Music, Chapter I, tells us that even in the First Temple (from about 955 B.C.E. under King Solomon to 586 B.C.E., when destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylonia), the Blessing before the Sh'ma (the Creed), certain benedictions, the Ten Commandments were already used and probably sung.

The Second Temple was rebuilt about 516 B.C.E. During its existence the Service was expanded, and it is from that time that certain traditions in singing such prayers as the Ahava Raba, the Benedictions of the Amidah (silent standing prayer), the Sim Shalom, the Hallel (Prayers of Praise of the L-rd), etc., can be traced. (Mishna Tamid, Mishna Arachin XI, 3-6, among the sources). The musical part of the Service was usually a responsive chanting by the Levites and the Congregation, accompanied by instruments.

Both the Biblical Cantillation and the Chanting of Prayers were taught to the Congregation by the Levites by a method which we call Chironomy: a system of hand-signs for each musical motif. This became especially formalized in the Cantillation of the Torah, which was chanted in regular intervals: every Monday and Thursday (the market-days in Jerusalem) and on the Sabbath, as well as on the Holy Days. Originally, these Tropes, the tunes for the Torah Cantillation, were taught by rote with the hand signs, which eventually were put on parchment in a pictorial way. This actually constituted the earliest musical script known in our culture. These Trope signs were eventually systematized and transcribed by Aaron ben Asher in Tiberias in the 9th century. They were then re-transcribed into the evolving common musical script, the Neumes, which were the foundation of our present musical script.

We can detect the ancient roots of the Cantillation and of some of the prayer tunes by comparing the similarity of the Yemenite, Syrian and other Oriental Jews, who for centuries lived isolated from each other; or by comparing these melodies with early Christian chants, which were sung in the Byzantine (Eastern) Church. We can follow the evolution of these tunes into the tonality of German, Lithuanian, and other European Jewish communities and see them again reflected in tunes of the Gregorian chants of the Church, the musical foundation of Catholic Liturgy.

Thus, we find that the enforced diaspora and the will for spiritual survival of the Jews brought about a way to record their original music, which in turn was used and adapted by the Christian Church, which became a dominant influence in European music for many centuries. Of course, there were elements in Church music other than the Hebrew influence, but it is this Hebrew element in Christian music which inspired many centuries of musical development throughout the Western culture.

All the patterns of musical cantillation and chanting can be categorized in a system of tonal groups called modes. Although the "mode" is the ancestor of our present "scale," and can in fact be described as a scale the tones of which are used to form a melody, the word "mode" comes from the Latin "modus," which is the root of our English word "mood," and I think this is no coincidence. A "mode" expressed a certain mood in which the tune was sung, or was meant to be sung. Thus, even though a "mode" of a prayer-tune (Nusach) may have changed in time and place, the "mood" did not, or should not. It is one of the constant factors in an ever-changing process of "minhag" (tradition).

The Modes of Cantillation vary slightly geographically, but they have certain common constant elements; the mode of chanting the Torah during the week and on the Sabbath, the mode of chanting the same Torah for the High Holy Days, the mode of chanting the Prophets (the Haftarah), and the modes of chanting other books of the Bible

The modes of prayers may be categorized into the eight modes, which more or less coincide with the early Church-Tones. These in turn were rationally explained to be based on the Greek modes, such as Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Myxo-Lydian, Aeolian, etc., which were the forerunners of our Major, Minor and eventually Chromatic (12-tone) scales.

The main modes (called "Steigers") which have survived in our Synagogue music, and which have also influenced a great deal of our Jewish folk music, are: a) the Magen Avot Mode, b) the Adoshem Malach Mode and c) the Ahavah Rabah Mode (which is also an Arabic mode, the makam "Hedjaz"). The names of these modes are taken from the initial words of prayers, which were chanted on the Shabbat. Then there are the many modes in which prayers on Holy Days were chanted, such as Hallel (Praise), Viddui (confession), Geshem (prayer for rain) and Tal (prayer for dew); and, as we said, the modes of the Cantillation.

Before we follow the development of Synagogue music from its ancient roots to the many eras and areas, let us first again go back to some of the historical discoveries of some aspects of Jewish music, which found its expression not only in the Synagogue, but also outside.

...........

MiSinai Tunes

During the 11th century, a whole group of melodies evolved among the Jews of the Rhineland in Western Germany, which were to become the traditional Nusach Hatefillah, the prayer tunes for every occasion of worship: morning, noon, and night, Sabbath and weekday, Festival and High Holy Days. These tunes were given the name of Scarbova melodies, or later MiSinai tunes. The word scarbove is a derivative of the Latin word sacra, meaning "holy." MiSinai merely underlines the traditional character of the tunes, as if they actually came from "Mount Sinai." However, they did express, in the new tonality of Western Europe, an evolved form of the traditional modes.

It is also about this time that we can see the emergence of Z'mirot — the "table songs."

The basic modes, which originated in the Middle East, and were transformed into the various tonalities under other people's influences, were:

     S'licha — mode (penitence)
     Viddui — mode (confession and vows)
     Adoshem Malach — mode (after a prayer based on psalm #93)
     Magen Avot — mode (Friday night, later used in many folksongs)
     Ahava Raba — mode (Sabbath morning, a late mode, but Mideastern)
     The Cantillation modes of many books of the Torah.

It is interesting to note that the time of the evolving MiSinai tunes also coincides with the flowering of the European troubadours and Minnesingers. There are many melodies which can be traced to a mixture of Minnesong, and Nusach. There were also a number of Jewish Minnesingers, such as Suskind von Trimberg, whose poetry we know but whose tunes were mostly lost to us.

The language of 11th century Germany was Mittel-Hoch-Deutsch or medieval German. It was the language which the Jews of that area spoke, just as the Jews of Persia spoke Persian, and the Jews of Spain spoke Spanish. But the Jews in all these countries not only adopted the language, they also adapted it, by mixing it with some Hebrew and inventing their own idiomatic words, such as scarbove for "holy," or Mazeldig for "lucky" [made up from the Hebrew mazal (luck) and the Germanic adverbial ending â€“ig].

Thus, in Central Europe, Yiddish was born -- just as in far-away Bokharia (an ancient eastern province of Persia) Judeo-Persian was born, and in Spain "Judeo-Espanol" was born, which later was called Ladino. Since the Jews saved their own Hebrew for use in worship and study (Lashon Kodesh - Holy Tongue), they spoke and wrote and sang in their adopted/adapted languages.

The Jews entered Spain in 700 C.E. together with the Moors from North Africa and built strong and prospering communities there for several centuries. Together with their Semitic cousins, they also left a very strong imprint on Spanish culture, which became especially permanent in music. Ladino songs have the kind of "Spanish" flavor which is already a result of this Semitic influence on Spain. But most of the Ladino folksongs which we hear sung today come from communities of Sephardic (Spanish) Jews who left Spain a long time ago and can be traced to other musical influences, mostly from the Mediterranean countries, where these Jews settled: Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, etc.

It should be pointed out that the reference which is made to "Sephardim" and "Ashkenazim" today, especially in Israel, bears little resemblance to the original meaning of these words: Sephardi means "Spaniard" and Ashkenazi means "German." Today it relates to the liturgical ritual customs which developed in the communities of originally "Ashkenazic" Jews in Central and later in Eastern Europe, (whose Yiddish was a Germanic language once), and in the communities of the once Spanish Jews, the Sephardim, who originally were Oriental Jews, and after their expulsion from Spain migrated back toward the East. The latter's customs and liturgy were still rooted in the Oriental origin, and therefore coincided more with the Jews who had never left the Orient, such as the Yemenite, Syrian, Iraqi and other Mideastern Jews.

Because of this common tradition, we call all Oriental Jews in Israel today "Sephardim," even though they all have had quite different historical experiences in their 2000 years of diaspora.

A final reference is the excellent treatise on The Main Modes of Traditional Cantorial Music. The website is actually entitled "The Main Klezmer Modes" -- because the modes of Klezmer Music are identical with the modes of Cantorial music. Go to "The Main Klezmer Modes, by Josh Horowitz" at the Klezmershack website

In case you've heard chazzanim use the term "Freygish" and wonder what exactly that means, go to this page on the KlezmerShack website, which is entitled "The Sub-Mode System of the Ahava Rabboh Mode (Freygish)"

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