The Library's music division collection is remarkable
in scope, quality, and beauty. From this rich lode, we cull a dozen
nuggets: works by Jewish composers on Jewish themes. All but two are
manuscripts in the authors' own hand.
The first great Jewish musical figure was the biblical King
David, to whom Lord Byron paid tribute in one of his "Hebrew
Melodies," a series of poems written at the request of the poet's
friend, the Honorable D. Kinnaird, to be set to music by Isaac Nathan
THE HARP THE MONARCH MINSTREL SWEPT
The King of men, the loved of Heaven
Which Music hallowed while she wept....
It softened men of iron mould,
It gave them virtues not
No ear so dull, no soul so cold,
That felt not, fired not
to the tone
Till David's Lyre grew
mightier than his throne!
It may well be that young Nathan himself initiated the project, and
indeed in 1815 the poems were simultaneously published, with their musical
edition, A Selection of Hebrew Melodies, Ancient and Modern, with
Appropriate Symphonies and Accompaniments, by J. Braham and I. Nathan;
The Poetry Written expressly for the work by the Right Honorable Lord
Byron. The work was "published and sold by 1. Nathan,"
to whom Byron had generously granted the copyright to his "Hebrew
Melodies," of which he wrote to Nathan in January 1815:
Murray being about to publish a complete edition of my poetical effusions
has a wish to include the stanzas of the Hebrew Melodies-will you
allow him that privilege without considering it an infringement on
your copyright. I certainly wish to oblige the gentleman but you know
Nathan it is against all good fashion to give and take back. I therefore
cannot grant what is not at my disposal....
The Hebrew Melodies was then Nathan's project, and a Jewish
project he meant it to be. in the Preface to this two-volume work, Nathan
The Title under which this Work appears before the Public, requires
that a few words should be said in explanation of what are the pretensions
of the Music. "The Hebrew Melodies" are a Selection from
the favorite airs which are still sung in the religious Ceremonies
of the Jews. Some of these have ... been preserved by memory and tradition
alone, without the assistance of written characters. Their age and
originality, therefore, must be left to conjecture. But the latitude
given to the taste and genius of their performers has been the means
of engrafting on the original Melodies a certain wildness and pathos,
which have at length become the chief characteristic of the Sacred
Songs of the Jews....
What gives special distinction to this two-volume copy of A Selection of Hebrew Melodies, Ancient and Modern, with Appropriate
Symphonies and Accompaniments by J. Braham and 1. Nathan-The Poetry Written expressly for the work by the Right Honorable
Lord Byron is that the first title page bears the signatures of both Braham and Nathan, the second of Nathan himself who was truly the
sole composer of the music. Braham, a popular soloist of the time, was "brought in" to give the publication the benefit of his
Lord Byron and I. Nathan, A Selection of Hebrew Melodies..., 2 volumes, London, 1815. Music Division.
What is described here in elegant Georgian English
is what cantorial creativity does to melody. The signatories to the
Preface, J. Braham and 1. Nathan, were both sons of synagogue musicians. Braham, the son of the chorister of London's Great Synagogue, had prepared for the cantorate; Nathan, son of the
cantor of the synagogue in Canterbury, studied for the rabbinate. Braham
became one of the leading singers of his time, Nathan a respected musicologist.
To the music of the "Hebrew Melodies," Braham contributed
no more than his already well-known name, The work was all English-born
Nathan's who, after a career as a music teacher in England, emigrated
to Australia to become that continent's first resident professional
composer. The Library's copy has the signatures of both Braham and Nathan
on the engraved title page of volume 1, and that of Nathan in volume
Sources: Abraham J. Karp, From
the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress,
(DC: Library of Congress, 1991).