YOSEF TOBI
Music and Musical Instruments in Spanish Medieval Hebrew
Poetry:
The Praise Poem of Yosef Ibn Saddīq (Justo)
by Yosef Tobi [University of Haifa]
Music has always been an essential and inevitable element of
poetry, oral as well as written. Ancient Hebrew poetry, as reflected, for
instance, in biblical book of Psalms, is abundant with musical elements, such
as musical terms and instruments. This is not the case with post-scriptural
liturgical poetry, that is, the Eretz-Israeli school known as piyyut (2nd־10th
centuries), due to the religious ban on musical instruments imposed by the
Rabbis after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE). The musical element
was re-inserted into Hebrew poetry only in 10th century with the advent of its
new school that was heavily influenced by Arabic poetry. The social milieu of
Hebrew poetry changed, rising from egalitarian synagogical circles to the elite
upper class. Accordingly, the first known 'secular' poem, composed by Dunash
ibn Labrat around 960, depicts a banquet at the court of Hisday ibn Shaprut,
the Jewish vizier in Cordova, and is replete with musical elements.
The function of music in Spanish Hebrew medieval poetry was
evidently strengthened in the first half of the 12th century by poets who lived
in the Christian domain in northern Spain, beginning with Moshe ibn Ezra.
Without doubt, the increasing share of muwashshahs in Hebrew poetry
since Moshe ibn Ezra's verse exerted a significant effect on the role of
musical motifs in poetry, as muwashshahs were a priori meant to be
musically sung to the accompaniment of musical instruments.
One of most typical expressions of this tendency is a muwashshah
written by Yosef ibn Saddīq (Justo, 1075–1149) in praise of the linguist
Yishaq ibn Barūn. Ten of the twenty-five lines of this poem, which as
expected has an Arabic kharja, depict the ‘ūd and its
player, whose fingers are likened to those of the praised person who, as a man
of letters, "plays" with the scribe's pen.
In later Provençal Hebrew verse we even find the character
of the troubadour, namely the poet who wanders with his fiddle, although he is
not one of the central figures of poetry.