Alberto Hemsi was a Sefardic Jewish man who lived in the Ottoman Empire until moving to Paris in 1957 following political unrest in Egypt. He is often compared to Béla Bartók as his work in ethnomusicology has followed a similar scale and fervency with regards to Sefardic Jewish folk music, and traditional music of Turkey and Egypt. During his work in ethnomusicology, Hemsi collected 232 folk songs in the Hispanic-Judeaic tradition and set 60 of them for voice and piano, titling them Coplas Sefardies. The text is written in Judaeo-Spanish – a variation of Old Spanish with borrowed vocabulary from Semitic languages and others spoken on the Iberian Peninsula. The piano writing is idiomatic and incredibly subtle in approach to canonic melody writing and colourful supporting harmonies.
- Des las altas mares traen una cautiva
- Una matica de ruda
- ¿De qué llóras, blanca nina?
- Avrid mi galanica
- Cien donzellas van a la misa
- Abaxéx abaxo, galanica gentil
Francesca Alexander – voice
Nicholas Busch – piano
Recorded in Von Kuster Hall, Western University.
Nicholas Busch 