"Have you ever wondered what music in the time of Jesus sounded like? Based on several years of intense study and research, Christopher Moroney and SAVAE [San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble] have imaginatively and brilliantly reconstructed the music that Jesus might have heard in the temple and synagogue of the first century C.E. The ensemble learned to play reconstructed instruments of the period especially for this new recording- varieties of plucked and bowed strings, wind instruments like the shofar, flute and duduk (Middle Eastern clarinet), and percussion. The music has been recreated from Hebrew melodic fragments, Babylonian Jewish music, and traditional songs that have passed down through the ages from the time of Jesus. The end result is an amazing restoration of what Jesus would have heard. Highlights include settings of the Lord´s Prayer and the Beatitudes, Miriam´s Song of the Sea, the Ten Commandments, and the traditional Shema Israel (Hear, O Israel)."

Mr. Moroney himself (as he told me) informed the publishers that the melodies he and SAVAE worked with (from the synagogue, at any rate) could not be proven to date from the time of Jesus. WLP's public relations campaign, however, refused to budge. The liner notes in the recording set the record more or less straight, though it still suggests the long-standing view of the age of the oldest synagogue chants:

Rediscovering Music & Chant of Middle Eastern Spirituality

In 1907, Abraham Zvi Idelsohn (1882-1938), the generally acknowleged “father” of modern musicology, settled in Jerusalem. The great diversity of musical traditions he found among the Jews living in the region led to the creation of his monumental musicological collection, Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental Melodies. Idelsohn examined the traditional melodies of Hebrew music from Jewish centers throughout the world, and found recurring motives and progressions that were not found in any other national music. This suggested a common origin for these musical phrases that went back to Israel/Palestine in the first century c.e., prior to the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans and the Jewish Exile.

He found that these motives fell into three distinct tonal centers, which corresponded to the Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian modes of the ancient Greeks. Each of these modes elicited a distinct psycho-emotional response. The Dorian Mode tetrachord was used for texts of an elevated and inspired nature; the Phrygian for sentimental texts, with their very human outbreaks of feeling, both of joy and grief; and the Lydian was used in composing music for the texts of lamenting and confessions of sins.

Idelsohn further categorized and defined these motives as ones that either prepared a musical phrase, began it, or conluded it. In the hopes of creating an echo of first-century authenticity on this recording, the melodies for the Dead Sea Scrolls text and the prayers and sayings of Jesus were carefully composed using the motives and melodic fragments collected by Idelsohn. It is very likely these sacred texts and prayers were chanted and sung, as that is the both the Jewish and Middle Eastern tradition.

Singing, chanting, and breathing the sounds of a prophet’s words not only allows us to feel the meaning of these words at a deeper, embodied level, but it also connects us to the conciousness of the prophet who spoke them. The remaining pieces on the recording (with the exception of the “Song of Seikilos,” B’tseth Israel, and Bircath Cohenim) come directly from Idelsohn’s collection.

(Samples of all the tracks, in RealPlayer and Windows Media Player formats, are available on the publisher's Web site.)

Originally, neither SAVAE's own Web site, nor the press reviews it cited, nor yet the publisher's own Web site breathed a word about the source of one of the two most popular musical works on the recording: the "Bircath Cohenim" (sic) in its two versions (the other being "Ze Eli meode" [sic]) . In the latest update of the Ancient Echoes CD Web site, however there is the following mention of that source, as taken from the liner notes of the CD itself. It is repeated here on SAVAE's own Web site. (The addition of boldface and italics, and of some very slight editorial changes, are by this author.)

15. Bircath Cohenim (reprise) Numbers 6:24-26
Melody deciphered from the Masoretic cantillation symbols of the Bible by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura

Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura, a French composer, organist, and music theoretician, undertook one of the most fascinating attempts to retrieve the lost Biblical melodies of the Levites. She developed a system of deciphering the musical signs (te`amim) of the Tiberian Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible. These ancient signs, which appear above and below the Hebrew letters, were indicators of chironomy—a type of music “notation” which was conveyed through the use of hand gestures. Haïk-Vantoura devoted herself to finding the key to decoding the musical meaning of these signs. In 1976 she published the results of her work in her book, “La Musique de la Bible Révélée” (The Music of the Bible Revealed). In the years following, she published several volumes of musical scores as well as supervising a number of recordings based on her restitutions.

Y’varekh-kha adonai w’yish-m’rekha
yah’ér adonai panaw eley-kha
wihun-neka.
Yis-sa adonai pahnaw eley-kha
w’yasém l’kha shalom.

May the Lord bless you and protect you.
May the Lord shine His face upon you
and be gracious to you.
May the Lord lift up His face upon you
and give you peace.

Translation by Christopher Moroney

The above text is connected with the second of the two renditions of Haïk-Vantoura's reconstruction of the Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6:22-27). The original sung text was taken from Haïk-Vantoura's first recording and corresponding score (the latter of which Mr. Moroney found and downloaded from my Photo Galleries). Its melody, slightly embellished to evoke the musical evolution already occuring by the end of the Second Temple period (according to the Talmud), was arranged by Mr. Moroney.

A "straight" solo performance of the Blessing with added vocal and instrumental harmony (Track 8), and a choral "reprise" (in "fantasia" style) of the same text (Track 15), are included in the recording. Both are very beautifully performed. (A portion of the second track may also be heard on or downloaded from the Ancient Echoes CD Web site.) These tracks have (by SAVAE's own admission to me) an inner emotional and spiritual radiance not present in any of the other tracks on the recording. This is what one might expect, as the original biblical cantillation (the work of inspired professionals) had an interrelationship of words and melody that is lacking in the synagogue cantillations (the work of primitive or folk musicians).

This recording is also available at Amazon.com.