In Search of Jewish Musical Antiquity in the 18th-Century Venetian Ghetto: Reconsidering the Hebrew Melodies in Benedetto Marcello's Estro poetico-armonico

Ten of the fifty Psalm settings comprising the Estro poetico-armonico by Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739), employ as melodic inspiration eleven melodies adopted by the composer from the liturgical repetoires of the synagogues of the Venetian Ghetto. Musical transcriptions of the original Hebrew melodies (printed from right to left) appear at the top of the piece in which they are quoted. These Hebrew melodies comprise one of the earliest, tangible documents of traditional synagogue music and as such they stimulated the interest of scholars of Jewish music and Jewish studies, as well as of Western music historians.

This study treats the origin, meaning and reception in the scholarly literature of Marcello's Hebrew melodies. It stresses the fascinating ethnomusicological side of the work carried by Marcello in Venice, as well as the impact of interfaith relations in 18th-century Venice on this work, the identification of Marcello's Jewish sources and the intellectual roots of his fascination with the Jewish religious music of his time.

After a survey of how the Hebrew melodies by Marcello became emblematic specimens of "Hebrew" music to many generations of scholars, the historical and methodological aspects of Marcello's fieldwork are discussed. The introductory texts that Marcello wrote for his Estro are read in the context of the Arcadia movement in Venice and its renewed consciousness of the classic Hebrew and Hellenic contributions to Christianity. Finally, the melodies are analyzed in the light of the surviving oral traditions as a source for historical study of Italian Jewish music traditions.