The two Psalm recitations in Mizmor l'david, Psalms 29 and 92, are part of the preliminary kabbalat shabbat (welcoming the Sabbath) service. Both are derived from very old, perhaps ancient, psalmodies; and both have musically documented longevity in London and Bayonne, France. Mizmor shir l'yom hashabbat, Psalms 29 and 92, are part of the preliminary kabbalat shabbat (welcoming the Sabbath) service. Both are derived from very old, perhaps ancient, psalmodies; and both have musically documented longevity in London and Bayonne, France. Perhaps to underscore its accepted antiquity, the unison and nonmetric features of this Psalm 92 melody are retained to this day in its choral renditions at Shearith Israel, even though nearly all other old tunes there have been sung in metricalized four-part harmonizations (as in London) probably since the early 20th century. The basic form of this version as it appeared in the Aguilar–de Sola compendium was taken by Sir Edward Elgar for a Jewish scene in his oratorio The Apostles.

Hashkivenu is part of every evening service—with some text variations. This Sabbath melody has a long lineage in Portuguese custom, with a modal variation in the London tradition and yet another in a Bayonne manuscript dating to the 1820s. The western Sephardi tradition in America has preserved it in the variant heard here.

Kaddish Shalem is the same text as the “mourners’ kaddish” toward the end of a service. Here it is sung as a prelude to bar’khu—the “call to worship” that normally begins a service proper. In Sephardi custom this bar’khu is repeated at the end of morning and evening services, a practice that originated to accommodate latecomers. When repeated thus in the evening service, it is preceded by this kaddish shalem. A variant of the tune appears in the 1857 London volume for the hymn Yigdal, indicating that it was by then already well known.