I have come across this before, but this time I decided to analyse it in a bit more depth. This transcription is approximate. There are two performances both quite close to the pitches I have chosen. Unfortunately 5 flats is not the easiest key signature for the eyeball! But I didn't trust my ear to transpose it to a sharp key. Richard Dumbrill's transcription and reasoning is available in a PDF here.
Clearly this is tonal, but not conforming to our requirement to have a hymn start and end in the same key. This could not be accompanied with an instrument that has fixed pitches, nor would it lend itself to much in the way of what I understand as modal or harmonic cadences, but there are clear rest points.
What really surprised me at first were the sequences, particularly the rising third. In music formed by the verses and interpreted by the te'amim in the Hebrew Scriptures, there are understood rest points, and there are clear phrasal structures formed by the te'amim among many verses and also connections between verses and groups of verses. But I have not observed the idea of sequences.
A second feature of this song is the five note descent (in so many multi-modal variations). I wondered if this might influence the interpretation of some ornaments among the te'amim, e.g. as treated in Appendix 4 of David Mitchell's The Songs of Ascents.
What I am asking myself is what influence would this sort of music have had on Biblical singing in the temple. In solo singing, there might have been more adjustments of the pitch of the notes by a few cents up or down here and there. But I don't have any example of a Biblical melody ending on anything other than the tonic it started on.
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| Transcription by ear of Hurrian Song below |
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