Three Early Modern Hebrew Scholars on the Mysteries of Song

Don Harrán is Artur Rubinstein Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has written extensively on Italian and Jewish art music (its composers, singers and instrumentalists—male and female, and theorists) in the early modern era.

• Introduction: Music in Hebrew Writings from the Bible to the Early Seventeenth Century1. Judah Moscato on the Spirituality of Music2. Sounds for Contemplation on a Lyre 3 Leon Modena on the Legality of Art Music in the Synagogue4 Is Art Music Permissible in the Synagogue?5 Abraham Portaleone on the Practice of Music in the Ancient Temple 6 Music as Practiced in the Temple and the Modern EraEPILOGUEThe Jewish Contribution to Music Theory in the Early Modern EraAppendix The Texts in Hebrew1. Moscato: Sermon 2. Modena: Response3. Portaleone: Selected ChaptersBibliographyAbbreviations and Acronyms in HebrewLexicon of Hebrew Musical TermsIndex of SourcesGeneral Index

Harrán’s approach is thorough, meticulous, and very readable. His knowledge of this subject is impressive. In addition to a lengthy bibliography and an index, he provides a lexicon of the Hebrew musical terms that he noted in his translations (again, transliterated), and an index of the biblical, rabbinic, and classical sources that the three writers used. Books on Jewish musical theory are rare, and this is an excellent addition to the corpus. Recommended for academic libraries with comprehensive collections focused on Jewish music --Beth Dwoskin (Beth Israel Congregation, Ann Arbor, MI), AJL Reviews Vol V, No.4The volume on the whole is extremely accurate, the English translation is generally very faithful to the Hebrew text, and there is a rich set of footnotes, mostly of a philologicallinguistic nature and concerning the sources used by the authors. The book is an essential tool for all those who want to study in detail one of the crucial chapters in the history of Jewish music. Don Harrán passed away on 15 June 2015. May his soul be bound in the bond of life. --Gabriele Mancuso, Medici Archive Project, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. LXX, No. 2