Imagine, if you will, what it would be like if Christians were to hold competitions in chanting the Psalms similar to what we see below.
If Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura (1912-2000) is correct (which is disputed), it is possible that the entire Old Testament was once chanted. Listen to this NPR report below:
Here is Haïk-Vantoura’s rendition of Psalm 23.
Other samples of her musical reconstructions can be found here. Is Haïk-Vantoura’s thesis plausible? I wouldn’t presume to judge, but it is intriguing, if nothing else.
August 10th, 2010 | 1:18 pm | #1
[...] – Singing the Psalms: Suzanne Haïk- Vantoura » Evangel | A First Things Blog- The tunes David sang? I used this material recently in a presentation on the music of the Old [...]
August 10th, 2010 | 5:02 pm | #2
In order to perform a piece of music you need to know the tuning system (or tuning systems, because western performing musicians negotiate between at least two), what kinds of sounds are considered musical and what aren’t, rhythmic systems, tempi, instrumentation….it’s a long list. And even with traditions supported by both unbroken oral tradition and written documentation musical performance is controversial; my wife is part of a unbroken line of teachers/students going back to J.S.Bach, Beethoven, and Debussy and we have no problem is getting music by these composers yet there are still substantial disagreements on how the music of these composers should be played today.
Now go back the “3,000 years” that Haik-Vantoura melodies claim to represent. No unbroken teacher/student tradition and the only “documentation” the signs that Haik-Vantoura deciphers. But Haik-Vantoura claimed that her melodies, using equal temperament and a seven note scale (both of which are relatively modern inventions) and sung in a fairly bel canto manner without ornamentation (and even accompanied by vocal counterpoint and chords) were just that, the real “music of the Bible.” Nope, probably not. It’s impossible to resurrect that ancient tradition and a bit irresponsible of a scholar to suggest that it can be done. Her compositions may or may not be interesting settings of the Hebrew texts but they have to be evaluated as 20th Century examples of music, not authentic reconstructions of a musical practice of the Levant three thousand years ago. There just isn’t the evidence to support that kind of claim
August 11th, 2010 | 9:39 am | #3
Some years ago I sang with a local chamber choir, and we performed a work in concert composed in unequal temperament. It was quite a challenging piece, but we were supported by a keyboard that could be switched to this archaic tuning. I can no longer recall the audience response, other than the obligatory applause at the end, but it certainly sounded odd to our ears, accustomed as they now are to equal temperament.
I’ve played the guitar for decades and I found it frustrating in the early years that, if I moved the capo up the finger board, I’d have to retune the strings. I never understood why until I was in this chamber group.
All of which is to say, Mike, that you are probably right in your assessment. That said, I wonder whether there is something to be said for seeking musical connections to today’s middle eastern music, e.g., Turkish and Arab. Kenneth Bailey has a made a career of interpreting the Bible in its middle eastern context, discovering that natives of the region even now understand certain biblical customs that perplex westerners. Could contemporary Arabs and Turks have some insight into how the psalms were sung millennia ago?
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