montie meyer
Though little-known to modern audiences, Salamone Rossi is an important transitional figure in composition, situated between the late Italian Renaissance and early Baroque. Notably, given the zeitgeist of the era, Rossi forthrightly appended to his name the word “Hebreo”—Salamone Rossi the Jew—and he stands out as the first composer ever to write music in Hebrew. At around the time of his birth in 1570, Pope Pius V had expelled all Jewish Italians from most areas of the papal states, with several cities establishing ghettos in which Jews were required to reside. Luckily, Rossi lived in the Northern Italian city of Mantua (situated midway between Milan and Venice), which remained much more open-minded than many Italian cities, though still requiring the yellow identification badge of its Jewish citizens. Here, Jews were not only tolerated but often allowed to mingle freely with non-Jews. In this context, Rossi entered the service of the Mantuan court under Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, first as a violist and then violinist/concertmaster of the orchestra. He became only one of two Jews in Mantua exempted from wearing the identification badge—though likely still paid for each service rather than occupying a salaried position, generally reserved for Christian musicians.
Rossi collaborated regularly with Claudio Monteverdi, and his compositional style likely influenced motives of L’Orfeo—the first opera that is still regularly performed today. Immersed in the dominant culture of polyphonic music, Rossi innovated by applying the principles of monodic song—in which one melody dominates over accompanying parts—to instrumental music. His compositional output comprises Italian madrigals, instrumental music mostly in the form of trios (often two violins and a chittarone, a lute which could reach 6 feet in stature!), and Songs of Solomon, a collection of psalms and prayers in Hebrew. These stand out for their role in Jewish sacred music—the first polyphonic settings of the synagogue liturgy for mixed choir. In developing the edition for publication, Rossi worked with Rabbi Leon Modena, sharing decisions including whether to print the music from right to left as would be the case in Hebrew text. They opted against this, apparently so that the singers would not “lose their minds.” In addition, the original published edition did not include Niqqud -- the diacritical signs representing the vowels -- given the assumed familiarity of their singers with Hebrew.
Rossi’s musical career came to a halt after the War of Mantuan Succession in 1628. Historians believe he died either during the associated invasion of Austrian troops or in a subsequent plague that decimated the area. Some of his Jewish musician peers fled to the Venice ghetto, where they founded the aptly named Accademia degli Impediti (the “Academy of the Impeded”). Rossi’s and other related polyphonic works—some with instrumental accompaniment—briefly enlivened Venetian synagogues, although one historian noted that “all of this was but an intense and quick fire….before the Academy ended and the music returned to its previous state.” Rossi was then all but forgotten until the late 1800s, when Samuel Naumbourg, cantor of the Great Synagogue of Paris, published a modern edition of his music with the intention of using it in the liturgy.
For Evensong, Cecilia will present Rossi’s setting of Psalm 124 – part of the Christian Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible, and one of fifteen psalms that begin with the words "A song of ascents" (Shir Hama'alot). Using traditional metaphors of the time, it vividly recalls the dangers from which the Lord had rescued the nation of Israel.