Kantigas Ulvidadas

 

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Liner Notes

Kantigas Ulvidadas, the second cycle of Ladino-based songs by Ofer Ben-Amots, is a setting of three songs to contemporary Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) texts by Israeli poets Miriam Raymond and Shlomo Avayou.

The composer views this work as contrasting in several ways to his earlier cycle, Songs from the Pomegranate Garden (2004). For one thing, whereas the Pomegranate songs are, in his words, principally contemporary arrangements of traditional Ladino folksongs, both the music and the poetry of Kantigas are original throughout the work. Then, too, while in Pomegranate one of his aims was to emphasize that folkloric material can have embedded potential power for contemporary treatment as well as possibilities for modern interpretation, in Kantigas he has attempted to endow the music with a flavor of age coupled with nostalgia—even what he calls a “forgotten sound.”

Kantigas opens with a solo piano prelude in imitation of a guitar or oud, which establishes the desired mood and ambience for the songs. The musical material of the prelude becomes the accompaniment for the first song, Solo kon ti (Only with You). The second song, Yo kon amor (I, with Love), is more slowly paced in the nature of a lament. Its rhapsodic introduction later becomes part of the accompaniment, which, throughout, underpins the vocal line as an extended, drawn-out drone. The nostalgic words of the third and final song, Civda de mi chikes (City of My Childhood), imagine a woman returning to her childhood hometown and recalling the sights, sounds, fragrances, and tastes of her past. For the piano part, Ben-Amots chose the style of a typical 1930s French chanson. Its piano ritornello suggestively echoes sonorities and idioms of an accordion. 

Ladino songs have been part of popular Israeli culture not only since the birth of the state, but even dating to the period prior to the War of Independence in 1948. A formal reconsideration and heightened awareness of Sephardi culture—language, music, and literature—however, began in the late 1960s. That development was marked by two plays written by the then president of Israel, Yitzhak Navon: Sephardi Romancero (1968) and Bustan Sephardi (Spanish Garden, 1970). These plays were well received at their successful performances by Habimah, Israel’s national theatre in Tel Aviv. 

In 1996 the Knesset passed the National Authority for Ladino Culture law with several objectives in mind, among which were the preservation and promotion of so-called Ladino culture and the establishment and expansion of related activities. Another step in the renewed exposure and expansion of this heritage was the Festiladino in 2003—an annual international song competition designed not only to preserve the Ladino musical tradition but also to enhance it through concert performances of artistic, classically oriented symphonic arrangements. In the 2004 festival-competition, Ofer Ben-Amots’s song Deshame Entrar was awarded first prize for both musical composition and orchestral arrangement. It was sung at that event by its lyricist, Odelia Dahan.

Ben-Amots has expressed the hope that Kantigas, along with Pomegranate, will stimulate increased interest in Ladino language and heritage and contribute even if modestly to its preservation and renewal. 

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Lyrics

• English
• Ladino

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Credits

Composer: Ofer Ben-Amots

Performers: Debra Ayers, Piano;  Jeanne-Michele Charbonnet, Soprano

Additional Credits:

 Publisher: The Composer's Own Press

Text by Shlomo Avayou and Miriam Raymond