Jewish Renaissance Music Gets “Obscene” with Ensemble Lucidarium

For some time Ensemble Lucidarium has been exploring and recreating Jewish music from medieval times and the Renaissance, and they brought one of the programs to Town Hall Saturday night under the auspices of the Early Music Guild.

Titled Una Festa Ebraica—Celebrating Life, the program covered the music of joyous Jewish occasions, from the bris—when a baby boy is circumcised—to weddings, even a song predating Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man, from infancy to the doddering centenarian. It was performed without intermission by the seven musicians, including three singers (two sopranos, one baritone), and four versatile instrumentalists playing a variety of recorders (sometimes one person playing two at once), lute and gittern (a small early guitar), hammer dulcimer, hand drums, and tambourine.

The short pieces came mainly from the 15^th to 17^th centuries, mostly from southern Europe, with words in Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish, and from the solemn to the bawdy.

Some were sung cantorial style with the nasal tone and the slight sob, others had a folksong quality, and most were expressive, upbeat, cheerful and rhythmic.  Dance rhythms were frequent, even one which might have worked for a Scottish reel. The large audience had translations for the words, but it was sometimes difficult to work out which song was bring sung, though others were unmistakable.

In “Doz Mensh Geglikhn,” the song for celebrating the bris, Enrico Fink described every age by decades until he reached 100, when he appeared totally decrepit, sang the verse in a cracked voice and collapsed full length on the floor. Given his appearance— lanky, bearded, wild grey curls peaking out from under a brightly striped yamulka, it was very effective, and much appreciated by the audience.

Sopranos Gloria Moretti and Anna Pia Capurso had high pure voices, sometimes singing in duet, one song considered politically incorrect today in its advice for submission by a bride if her husband strayed or slapped her.

There was plenty of earthy humor as well as highflown advice in these songs. Indeed, one of the many wedding songs, according to the program notes, is so shockingly obscene that the group did not include the words. They performed only one tenth of “El Divrei Habaress” as suitable for tender 21st century ears, although the singer sang parts in English. All we heard was that the bride might bring skin diseases, weevils, and mice to the marriage while he would pluck a louse out of his beard and drop it on her!

Researching the music in depth, scholar-musicians and skilled performers like these bring a microcosm of life as it might have been lived at celebrations all those centuries ago. The EMG brought Lucidarium here in 2008 and it’s to be hoped it will bring the group back again.

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