The liturgical music of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in London since c1657.

The music of the Spanish & Portuguese congregation is unique in liturgical music (and in other areas as well), being a tradition of Iberian Diaspora Sephardic music, heavily influenced by the Baroque and 19th century performance practices pertaining in the various countries to which the communities in question found themselves exiled during the years of the Spanish Inquisition. In the case of the London community, the congregation was founded in 1657, bringing its traditions over from the Amsterdam community founded in the late 16th century, and influenced throughout its history since then by the musical milieu (both Jewish and non-Jewish) in which it has existed for the last three-and-half centuries, up to the present day.

This project will examine the development of the London community's musical tradition in the centuries since it split from the Amsterdam parent community, looking at the various influences that have gone in over the centuries to form the tradition in its present guise. In particular, it will address the question of to what degree the variance of the tradition from its Amsterdam roots can be explained by simple and inevitable oral-musical transmutation over the course of time, and on the other hand to what extent it has been subjected to more positive culture-specific influences, for example by the appointment of Hazanim (Cantors) and Ministers from other cultural backgrounds, the absorption by the community of immigrants from the Middle East, and the composition of new musical settings for addition to the canon, as well as the changes that general musical life in London was undergoing during the 18th and 19th centuries. The project will explore which sections of the musical-liturgical oeuvre have been more subjected to one or other of these competing pressures, and indeed which parts have remained largely the same over the centuries. It will attempt to explain why different parts of the canon have been affected in different ways.

In addition to the completion of a PhD thesis the non-academic outcome of the project will be the preparation of a complete and exhaustive edition of the London tradition of this music (no such edition has ever been published before), which the synagogue wishes to produce, and it has invited Eliot Alderman, Director of Music, to undertake this edition.

The research will straddle the boundaries of several disciplines, notably music, ethno-musicology, history, cultural studies. Musicology and British-Jewish History will be at its core. Prof. Cesarani will supervise the historical aspects of the research in particular, the various waves of Jewish immigration to London through the centuries, which have all had an effect on the congregation and its music. Dr Rachel Beckles-Willson will supervise the musical and musicological aspects.

The Spanish & Portuguese Jews' Congregation of London has since its foundation in the mid-17th century played a pivotal role not only in the internal history of British Jewry but also in the articulation, continuous redefinition and restatement of the relationship between British Jewry and the British state. In musical terms the liturgy of this congregation has contributed substantially to these articulations, though this precise function has been but little understood hitherto. On the one hand the religious music of the Sephardi congregations of London served as a bridge between these communities and sister congregations on the European mainland and in the Americas. On the other this liturgical tradition formed a most significant element in the developing relationship between the Jews, as immigrants to the UK, and the host populations.

The congregation's music has never been fully documented, and only a small selection has been published before from the repertoire of congregational melodies. Nothing whatsoever has been published, or indeed even written down, from the cantorial chants of the tradition, which represent the vast bulk of the musical material used in the services.

Additionally, the congregation is now facing a situation where the last few Cantors who were trained to lead the full range of services throughout the year in the traditional style are well past retirement age, and some are extremely aged. Unfortunately no young Cantors have in recent years been trained-up in the complete cycle of the cantorial chants, but only in certain portions of it, and therefore the congregation is in severe danger of losing large portions of its musical-liturgical heritage - indeed this has already become a reality in certain occasional and little-used extremities of the tradition, and therefore for these parts, the edition may be more of a 'reconstruction' than a 'documentation'.

This research therefore becomes even more important, inasmuch as it represents not just a way fully to document and analyse the tradition before it becomes further eroded, or lost completely, but also to provide an indispensable tool for the accurate and complete training of new Cantors before those few remaining from the old generation pass on, and there is no longer any 'chain of tradition' to be salvaged.

The benefits of the research will, however, not be limited merely to the host community - on the contrary, it will allow this music to be disseminated easily and widely to both Jewish and non-Jewish interested parties. In the secular world this will enable this beautiful music to be heard in concert and recital settings, and thus brought for the first time to a wider musical audience, whilst in the Jewish world the edition will allow suitable liturgical elements to be absorbed into synagogues of other traditions, and thus enhance and enrich their congregants' devotional experience. In this sense the edition will be continuing the process begun well over a century ago with the publication by the Ashkenazi United Synagogue of the handbook of synagogue music 'The Voice of Prayer and Praise'; the book included a number of London S&P melodies (some perhaps culled from de Sola's 1857 publication 'Sephardi Melodies'), in order that certain prayers 'may now be with advantage chanted in accordance with the more devotional use of the Sephardim'.

This unique project will result in a thesis and a critical edition of music that will become part of the heritage of British Jews, world Jewry, the Sephardi Jews, in particular, and join the stream of ethno-religious music that forms part of the cultural inheritance of London, of Great Britain and of the wider world. There may also be possibilities for the commercial exploitation of the collection through live performances and recordings.