'Scalerica De Oro (Stairway Of Gold) 'Scalerica De Oro (Stairway Of Gold)
"Judy Frankel's clear, sweet soprano voice...Her renditions are emotional enough to raise 'goose bumps'...""Judy Frankel, the lady with the golden voice. . . ""Judy Frankel combines her beautiful voice and her love for Sephardic culture in this collection...""Your recording is quite beautiful...I plan to purchase your cassettes..."(Scalerica de Oro and Sephardic Songs Of Love And Hope)
These two lovely recordings make a fine introduction to the music of the Sephardim. Jews who took their Spanish culture and Ladino language around the Mediterranean after their expulsion from Spain in 1492. If you haven't liked Sephardic music before, give it another chance, for Frankel's assured and unpretentious delivery is in welcome contrast to more-often-encountered recordings by some sub-par Sephardic revival groups. Frankel's sources are singers hailing from Bulgaria. Turkey. Greece, Rhodes, and Egypt, and they've shared with her many songs not generally available. Frankel is at home with Straight Spanish styling yet easily shades into more exotic delivery, accurately ornamented, for Near Eastern material. Her voice is graceful, ravishing on quieter songs. Her pronunciation, though foreign, is easy on the ear.
For folks wanting to learn some Sephardic songs, there's no better place to start. Global Village has generously provided full text and translation for every song, and Frankel's strong lead will be easy to follow.
-- JP
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By the late 15th century, Spain had become a unified kingdom. In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella reconquered Granada and took back the Alhambra Palace, expelling the Moors. Also in that year the Edict of Expulsion decreed that the Spanish Jews too, were to be banished from the land.
In the 15th century, the area that is now Portugal and Spain was referred to in the Bible as "Sepharad". Many of the Spanish Jews, Sephardies, welcomed into the Ottoman Empire by Sultan Bayazid II, settled into the area that is now Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. They considered themselves Spaniards, bringing with them their cultural heritage, Castilian dialect and the literature, poetry and music of their beloved homeland. Much of this both influenced, and became influenced by, the cultures of their respective host countries. New and original songs were created manifesting a continuously evolving Sephardic culture in which, for example, old Castilian songs emerged with ornamented melismatic Turkish melodies, and Spanish words were sung to Greek melodies.
The language of these songs, Judeo Spanish (commonly referred to as "Ladino" by Sephardies today), is an archaic Spanish dialect which retains many features that characterized 15th century Spanish. For this reason the songs are of value to historians and scholars of the Spanish language.
Sephardic Spanish was both a spoken and a written language, incorporating the Hebrew alphabet, and written from right to left. The written tradition, which died out at the end of the 16th century, focused on Bible translations and religious issues. It was referred to then as “Ladino”. Contemporary “Ladino”, spoken in the 20th century, has evolved from this earlier dialect and includes vocabulary learned in the post-explusion Diaspora: words in Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Italian, French, etc. The greatest divergence from Castilian is due in part to the infiltration of words from the host countries.
Hebrew, the religious and scholarly language of the Jews, usually spoken by the men, contributed words like: mazál = luck, teshuva = repentance, kiduschin = marriage vows, etc., which appear as part of the basic core vocabulary common among all the Sephardi exiles. Archaic Spanish words are also included in this core.
It has been my good fortune to have had the opportunity to gather and to share, in the oral tradition, songs in Ladino sung to me by Sephardies who learned them from parents and family members. The songs included in this collection come from the descendants of Spain who grew up in Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Rhodes, Egypt, South America and The United States.
---Judy Frankel
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