Salamone Rossi:The Jew Without the Yellow Badge; EMS 14 June

[doversoul1]

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and extraordinary music of Salamone Rossi, a 17th-century Jewish composer based in Mantua. He wrote a collection of psalms and motets in Hebrew, for the Synagogue, drawing on the Italian polyphonic style of composition employed by the Christian Church. In a period of intense anti-Semitism, when the Jewish community in Italy were required by law to wear on their clothing a yellow 'badge of shame', Rossi's musical skills were highly regarded by the Mantuan court. His collection was not only the first of its kind; it would also remain unique for more than two hundred years.

First broadcast 19/11/2011.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017cfh0

[richardfinegold]

Lucie Skeaping explores the life and extraordinary music of Salamone Rossi, a 17th-century Jewish composer based in Mantua. He wrote a collection of psalms and motets in Hebrew, for the Synagogue, drawing on the Italian polyphonic style of composition employed by the Christian Church. In a period of intense anti-Semitism, when the Jewish community in Italy were required by law to wear on their clothing a yellow 'badge of shame', Rossi's musical skills were highly regarded by the Mantuan court. His collection was not only the first of its kind; it would also remain unique for more than two hundred years.



First broadcast 19/11/2011.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017cfh0

I heard some Madrigals by Rossi at a concert of Chicago Acapella a few years back. They were interspersed with madrigals by Monteverdi, with which they compared very favorably.

[LeMartinPecheur]

On a half-eared listen in the car, it seemed to me that the novelty was in the words and history much more than in the music. Some rather conventional polyphonic psalm settings, nice alleluias and hey, the rest of them is in Hebrew instead of Latin! That was about it if you put aside the historical background