| It is with greatest interest that I listened to the recording of the magnificent music
you reconstituted for the Psalms of the Bible. I admired the intimate harmony that exists between words and music,
expressing in turn ardent faith and hope, with moving accents that touch the heart. It heralds plainsong… |
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Marcel DUPRE
Member of the Institute of France, Former Director at the Conservatoire National
Supérieur de Musique de Paris
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| Admirable are the patience and faith with which this outstanding musician has managed
to accomplish so ambitious a task. Instinct and reason, wisdom, sensitivity and intelligence also served her in
her pursuit (…) How can one not be impressed by the alluring poetry which pervades the musical texts, drawing them
so harmoniously closer to the literary texts, and bestowing upon them such an accent of authenticity? |
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Henri DUTILLEUX
Composer, Professor of Composition at the Conservatoire National Superieur
de Musique de Paris
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| …Like Champollion facing hieroglyphics you have sought the key to the enigma. By repeated
experimentation, comparison and hypotheses verified one by one, you have established the musical meaning of these
enigmatic signs (…) Humble and haunting is the way this music appears to us, unearthed from ages and thousands
of years old (…) A fundamental discovery -- perhaps one of the most significant of this half century. Could world
music have a single source? |
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Bernard GAVOTY
Music critic / Member of the Institute of France
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| …I read your book with very great interest during a holiday in Jerusalem and want to
express to you all my admiration for your fine and very thorough work that is so convincing. I wish you all the
success it amply deserves. |
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Ernest GUGENHEIM
Chief Rabbi, Former Director of the Ecole Rabbinique de France
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| …The melodies you have recorded are moving to hear in their restitution of our ancient
airs. As for your book: THE MUSIC OF THE BIBLE REVEALED, this work will bear authority. I heartily congratulate
you on it. |
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Jacob KAPLAN
Chief Rabbi of France
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| …It took a valiant musician to delve into the enigma with passion, patience and thoroughness
and little by little emerged the marvelous monodies buried under the dust of centuries. (…) Starting with precise
points, obvious cadences, Madame HAÏK-VANTOURA managed to find the "Ariadne's thread" leading to
the stupefying discovery of an entire art dating back to Antiquity. (…) This revelation takes on vital importance
from both a musical and historical point of view. |
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Daniel LESUR
Honor. Inspector General of Music at the Ministry of Culture
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| I must tell you that I find this work completely remarkable and I emphasize the seriousness
as well as the undeniable logic of your interpretation (…) I am happy that we in Israel had the opportunity to
learn about this new decipherment which, I hope, will become dominant in the near future. In regards to this you
may count on my help. |
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Ami MAAYANI
President of the League of Composers in Israel and Professor in the Department
of Theory and Composition at the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance, Jerusalem
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| As a musician and deeply devout, I can only admire the beauty of the biblical musical
texts reconstituted by Madame Suzanne HAÏK-VANTOURA. The biblical music offered to us here approaches the
Gregorian cantilena and the semi-chromatic modes of India (in much simpler form in both cases). Since biblical
music preceded these two great traditions, it is thrilling to be able to sing or hear sung the result of the immense
work of Suzanne HAÏK-VANTOURA -- who, like Champollion's at last reading Egyptian hieroglyphics -- has brought
to life a musical past almost 3,000 years old. |
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Olivier MESSIAEN
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| …I looked with intense interest into the important discovery you have made on the biblical
cantillation signs (…) Your extensive work deserves to be widely known and I wish you success in this important
enterprise. |
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Darius MILHAUD
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| We are very happy that you were so willing to come to Jerusalem to give a conference
on the biblical accents in the setting of a seminar at our Academy (…) After the various reactions we have heard,
it seems that your musicological work is not only of great importance, but also of intense interest. |
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Mendi RODAN
Co-Director of the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance, Jerusalem
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| By the simple form and position of signs and tonic accents Madame HAÏK-VANTOURA
has succeeded in making an overwhelming discovery. The results of this discovery are all the more remarkable since
the prosody of the texts is scrupulously observed. This convergence between prosody and cantillation makes the
discovery legitimate… |
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Henri SCHILLI
Chief Rabbi, Former Director of the Ecole Rabbinique de France
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| As an Israeli composer familiar with both Hebrew and the biblical cantillation of the
various Jewish communities (…) I can attest to my profound amazement at Madame Suzanne HAÏK-VANTOURA's work
in deciphering the cantillation signs of the Bible. Her strictly personal approach to the signs accompanying the
biblical text led her to extraordinary results, in the exactitude of transmitting content as well as from a purely
musical viewpoint (…) Madame Suzanne HAÏK-VANTOURA has succeeded in forming an organic whole, convincing by
its mere simplicity. |
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Mordechai SETER
Recipient of the Italia Prize (1962) and the State of Israel Prize (1965)
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| …I consider this to be a major work of research from a musicological point of view, a
real discovery of enormous importance. The deciphering is based on incontestable facts and the result of this "Benedictine
labor" gives us a poetically fresh and penetrating song. |
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Alexandre TANSMAN
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