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This article appeared in the Autumn 2002 issue of Notes from Zamir.
The Italian Renaissance gave rise to not only a dazzling efflorescence of artistic expression, but also to an unprecedented humanism. This was the age of the artists Michelangelo, Boticelli, DaVinci, and Raphael; the explorers Columbus and Magellan; the astronomers Copernicus and Galileo; and the composers Palestrina, Lassus, Gabrieli and Monteverdi. And this was an age when the power of the Church began to wane, and notions of the essential equality of all humankind began to be entertained.
The court of Mantua was, par excellence, the seat of royal luxury and artistic magnificence. At the end of the 15th century the duchess Isabella d'Este Gonzaga brought many of the finest musicians of Italy to Mantua to compose new music and perform it for the entertainment of the royal family. During the reign of Gugliemo Gonzaga, in the second half of the 16th century, there was a permanent cappella, a professional musical ensemble in residence within the castle walls. Gugliemo's successor, the duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, at the turn of the 17th century, brought music to an even more magnificent scale. The composers Moneteverdi, Gastoldi, Rossi, Wert and Viadana provided the most fashionable new music for banquets, wedding feasts, musical-theater productions and chapel services.
Jews were not only tolerated in the enlightened duchy of Mantua, but they were often allowed to intermingle freely with non-Jews. In this liberal atmosphere, Jews were affected in an exceptional degree by the prevailing literary, artistic and humanistic tendencies.
Some of Mantua's most famous dancers and choreographers were Jews. Isabella's dancing instructor was the Jew Gugliemo Ebreo Pesaro, the author of one of the most important treatises on choreography written in the 15th century.
For a 100-year period, starting in the middle of the 16th century, there was an active Jewish theater troupe in Mantua, known as the Universit<0x00E0> Israelitica. The citizens of Mantua were all aware of the Universit<0x00E0>'s unusual schedule: on Fridays performances would be held in the afternoon rather than in the evening, so as not to interfere with the festa del sabbato.
While originally devised for the entertainment of Jews by Jews, this troupe received frequent invitations from the Gonzaga dukes to perform for Christian audiences in the palace. In fact, their reputation was so great that they traveled for run-out gigs to some of the neighboring duchies. The success of this troupe at its height can be attributed to three of its leaders: the playwright Leone Sommo; the choreographer Isaaco Massarano; and the Gonzagas' own theater composer, Salamone Rossi.
In Renaissance Mantua, Jews achieved a remarkably successful synthesis between their ancestral Hebraic culture and that of their secular environment. It was one of the rare periods when absorption into the civilization had little corrosive effect on Jewish intellectual life. Those who achieved distinction in the general society as physicians, astronomers, playwrights, dancers, musicians, and so on, were, in many cases, loyal Jews, conversant with Hebrew, and devoted to traditional scholarship. The Hebrew language was revived and used in poetry, literature, and even in spoken conversation.
The Mantuan scholar Azaryah de Rossi published in 1573 Meor Eynayyim, a collection of Hebrew essays, most of which are devoted to biblical scholarship. What made Azaryah's work so controversial and so representative of this period was the fact that in addition to drawing on Jewish sources, he quoted some 100 non-Jewish authors, including Homer, Virgil, Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, Hippocrates, Plutarch, Julius Caesar, Dante, Petrarch, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Augustine.
In this context it is not surprising to see Jews involved in all areas of Renaissance humanism, including music. Throughout the 16th century we find a series of Jewish vocalists and instrumentalists in the service of the dukes of Mantua, contributing to the splendor of the court of the House of Gonzaga. There was Abramo dell' Arpa (Abraham the harp player) and his nephew, Abramino dell' Arpa; Isacchino Massarano---an excellent singer, dancer, lutenist and composer; Madama Europa (the stage name of Salamone Rossi's sister), one of the most sought-after sopranos of Mantua; her son, Asher de Rossi, the composer; and Asher's sons Giuseppe and Bonaiuto, the guitar players; Allegro Porto, composer of madrigals; and Benedetto Sessigli, lutenist.
But standing head and shoulders above all other Jewish musicians of the Renaissance period, and a considerable musical figure in any context, was Salamone Rossi---singer, violinist, and composer at the court of Mantua from 1587 until 1628.
In Rossi we see the apex of the Jewish participation in the Italian Renaissance. On the one hand he was a gifted secular composer who collaborated with the musical giants of the era, including Monteverdi and Gastoldi. During the period of his employment at Mantua, he wrote volumes of songs, dances, and concert music for his Christian patrons who, in gratitude, exempted Salamone from wearing the stipulated Jewish badge of shame.
But at the same time, here is the Jewish composer who proudly appended to his name the word "Hebreo"---Salamone Rossi the Jew. He was descendant from the illustrious Italian-Jewish family "de Rossi" (which is the Italian translation of the Hebrew family name "Me-Ha'Adumim"). This family, which included the famous and controversial Bible scholar, Azaryah de Rossi and a number of fine musicians, traced its ancestry back to the exiles from Jerusalem, carried away to Rome by the Emperor Titus in the year 70 C.E.
As a young man, Rossi made his reputation as a violinist. In 1587 he was hired by Duke Vincenzo as a resident musician at the court of Mantua. In addition to his performing, Rossi also composed music for violins and for voices.
His first published work (appearing in 1589) was a collection of 19 canzonets, short compositions for three voices with dancelike rhythms and amorous texts. Like his colleague Monteverdi, Rossi also excelled in the composition of serious madrigals. In these settings of the romantic verses of the greatest poets of the day, Including Guarini, Marino, Rinaldi, and Celiano, we hear how Rossi succeeded in uniting the arts of poetry and music.
In the field of instrumental music Rossi was a bold innovator. He was the first composer to apply to instrumental music the principles of monodic song, in which one melody dominates over secondary accompanying parts. His sonatas, among the first in the literature, provided for the development of an idiomatic and virtuoso violin technique.
But it is undoubtedly in the field of synagogue music that we find Rossi's most daring innovations. Since the beginning of the last diaspora, some 1,900 years ago, Jews have clung to an ancient and exotic musical tradition. Instruments were banned from the synagogue as a sign of mourning for the destruction of the ancient Temple. New melodies of gentile origin were considered a deviation from the pure Near Eastern tradition and, as such, were forbidden. Change was frowned upon; prayer tunes were kept in their original form; no harmonization was allowed.
But the times were changing. From within---the Jews of Mantua and Venice and Ferrara had developed a taste for le nuove musiche, the new music of the Renaissance. They began to question why the music of their synagogues should continue to sound so old-fashioned. And from without---the Counter-Reformation demanded enforcement of the laws that separated the Jews from their neighbors. The first strictly segregated Jewish neighborhood was established in Venice in 1516. Named after the foundry located nearby, it was called the "ghetto." The enforced segregation in Mantua culminated in Duke Vincenzo's establishment of a barricaded ghetto in 1612. Now, at the peak of the Renaissance, Italian Jews were forced to turn increasingly inward. Now their appetites for le nuove musiche would have to be satisfied within the confines of their own community. The synagogue would provide the venue for this fine art.
In Padua and Ferrara synagogue choirs existed at the end of the 16th century. In Modena there was an organ, in Venice a complete orchestra. Flaunting the centuries-old tradition, these practices came under heavy criticism from many conservative members of the community. Rabbi Leone of Modena wrote about his experiences organizing a choir in Ferrara:
We have among us some connoisseurs of the science of singing, six or eight knowledgeable persons of our community. We raise our voices on the festivals, and sing songs of praise in the synagogue to honor God with compositions of vocal harmony. A man stood up to chase us away saying that it is not right to do so, because it is forbidden to rejoice, and that the singing of hymns and praises in harmony is forbidden. Although the congregation clearly enjoyed our singing this man rose against us and condemned us publicly, saying that we had sinned before God!
Yet so strong was the Renaissance spirit that a number of enlightened rabbis defended the new musical practice in published responsa. Among them was Rabbi Leone, who wrote:
I do not see how anyone with a brain in his skull could cast any doubt on the propriety of praising God in song in the synagogue on special Sabbaths and on festivals. Such music is as much a religious obligation as that which is performed to bring joy to bridegroom and bride whom it is our duty to adorn and gladden with all manner of rejoicing. No intelligent person, no scholar ever thought of forbidding the use of the greatest possible beauty of voice in praising the Lord, blessed be He, nor the use of musical art, which awakens the soul to His glory.
Most significantly, Rossi is the first Jew ever to compose, perform, and publish polyphonic settings of the synagogue liturgy for mixed choir. In the preface to the publication of this synagogue music, Rossi acknowledged the spiritual inspiration for his art:
The Lord has been my strength and He has put new songs into my mouth. Inspired, I wove these into an arrangement of sweet sounds, and I designated them for items of rejoicing on the holy festivals. I did not restrain my lips, but ever increased my striving to enhance the Psalms of David, King of Israel, until I set many of them and shaped them into proper harmonic form, so that they would have greater stature for discriminating ears.
In the year 1630 Mantua was stormed by invading Austrian troops. The Jewish ghetto was ravaged and its inhabitants fled the town. The Renaissance was over for the Jewish community. Choral music disappeared from most synagogues. Salamone Rossi probably died in that year and was soon forgotten.
It was some 200 years later that the Baron Edmond de Rothschild, on a trip to Italy, stumbled on a strange collection of old music books bearing the name Salamone Rossi Hebreo. Intrigued by what he found, Rothschild handed over the manuscripts to Samuel Naumbourg, Cantor of the Great Synagogue of Paris. In 1876, Naumbourg, published a modern edition of 52 of Rossi's compositions. Still for another hundred years Rossi would remain for the most part hidden in the shadows. Not until the past four decades has Rossi's music been extensively and seriously published, performed, recorded and studied.
Why has it taken so long for Rossi to be accorded his due? For several centuries after Rossi's death, as the Jews of Italy retreated into their ghettos, there was no context for his synagogue polyphony. Furthermore, in the non-Jewish world, for most of the 18th and 19th centuries the styles of the pre-classical period were considered passé. But in the 20th century, a growing understanding of and enthusiasm for "early music" emerged. Fortunately, in recent years we have seen a renaissance of Rossi. Prof. Don Harran has prepared scholarly editions of Rossi's complete works, and has written an intriguing biography of the composer. Currently there are 15 compact discs available devoted exclusively to Rossi's music. The first Rossi conference was held on November 10 and 11, 2002, in New York City.
The Zamir Chorale of Boston, whose recorded interpretations of Rossi's music were recently dubbed "the finest treatment yet" by Fanfare magazine, will be focusing on Rossi this season, as part of our year-long investigation of the music and culture of the Jews of Italy. And this coming summer we will have the privilege of bringing back to Italy the music of its first, and perhaps greatest, synagogue composer.
Lufthansa is the official airline of the On Wings of Song Heritage Mission to Italy and the sponsor of our raffle.
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