Links
Here are some links to sites of related interest.
Liturgical Music of Shaar Hashamayim
This is a site I made for the London Sephardi community, that contains MP3 recordings of the almost the entire cantorial repertoire of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation of London, recorded by their Senior Hazzan, the Revd. Halfon Benarroch.
http://sites.google.com/site/shaarhashamayimlondon/
Customs of the S&P of London
A website dealing with the customs of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Community of London, is currently in the initial stages of construction at:
http://sites.google.com/site/londonsephardiminhag/
Video clips of the Choir of the London S&P
Some lovely clips of the choir singing in Lauderdale Road Synagogue at a celebration concert in honour of their retiring choirmaster, Maurice Martin. The choirs of Bevis Marks and Lauderdale Road combined for this performance, and instead of singing from the Tebah, as they do for services, they stood in front of the Ark. This occasion provided a rare opportunity to record the pieces in their synagogue setting.
The Ancient Melodies (Aguilar and de Sola, 1857)
This is a collection of sheet music of the London S&P tradition, preceded by a scholarly 20-page historical essay from the pen of the Rev. D. A. de Sola (aka "the learned hazzan of Bevis Marks" and a composer in his own right). The book has been digitized and made available online by Google. De Sola's own well-loved melody for Adon Olam can be found on the very last page. The contents of the book (minus the essay) have also been incorporated into the first half of a larger volume of S&P music, published by the London S&P and still available from them.
View the book online at Google here
PDF download: The whole book (5 MB)
PDF download: De Sola's essay (1.5 MB)
"Whitesleeves"
In the fifties three LPs were released by the London S&P. The sound is stark, and the four-part harmony was omitted in favour of unison to be more "authentic" (sigh). A digital download of the first of the three LPs is available for purchase (I have no commercial connection with the seller):
http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=1612
A Sephardi Celebration (CD)
A few years ago the London S&P released a CD of some of the best loved tunes. A couple of the tracks appear - with permission - on this site. The complete CD can be purchased at the following site (I have no commercial connection with the seller):
http://www.sephardimusic.com/recording
Hazan Daniel Halfon
Hazan Daniel Halfon is a leading expert on the S&P minhagim of London, New York and Amsterdam (apart from being e very good friend of mine). He has produced a set of CDs and a book that provide many beautiful examples of S&P music, set to new arrangements by Raymond Goldstein. You can hear some lovely clips on his site:
Music of Mikveh Israel
Congregation Mikveh Israel, Philadelphia, is the second oldest synagogue on the United States, founded in 1740, and follows the S&P minhag. The congregation's rabbi, Albert Gabbay, has made some recordings available here:
http://mikvehisraelmusic.org/index.html
Notes and recordings of the hazzanut are available here:
http://www.mikvehisrael.org/Hazzanut/
S&P MID recordings
The following site is of limited interest as the recordings are mostly midi without words, which is only really of any use to those who've already heard the words sung to the tune and just need a reminder. There's no indication who the creator of the site is.
http://www.sephardim.org/liturgy/index.html
The Amsterdam Esnoga
The music of the Amsterdam S&P is very similar, though slightly stiffer and more Germanic. Interestingly they often seem to take a descant addition to a melody and replace the melody with it. Hear some examples on the following site:
http://www.chazzanut-esnoga.org/
Music of the Portuguese Community of Bordeaux
The music of the Bordeaux Community is less well known. The French language site below contains many examples. Click in the Exemples (sic) link in the left column.
Pan-Sephardi Selihot Service, London 2011
https://sites.google.com/site/londonsephardichoirarchive/selihot-2011
Page last updated: 11 October 2011