Alberto Hemsi |Coplas Sefardies Vol. 1

With their recording of Alberto Hemsi’s Coplas Sefardies, Assaf Levitin (cantor at the Liberal Jewish synagogue in Hanover) and his pianist Naaman Wagner recover an almost forgotten treasure of European and Jewish cultural history – just in time for the composer’s 120th birthday in 2018. Hemsi has been understood as a passionate guardian and advocate of Sephardic folklore and its musical tradition. In years of hard work, he gathered together many texts and melodies of this Jewish people which had lived in Spain until around 1500 before being dispersed throughout the Mediterranean after their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula. To a large extent, Hemsi collected and notated the monodic, unaccompanied songs in the 1920s/30s and added to them a virtuosic, atmospheric piano accompaniment. Previously transmitted orally, these songs are just as good as any of their contemporary counterparts. With his publications, Hemsi saved this centuries-old tradition from oblivion and made it available to a broad concert audience. Nevertheless, these songs have remained rarities in the performance repertoire. By publishing the first of several planned CDs Assaf Levitin and Naaman Wagner follow in Hemsi’s footsteps, laying the foundations for the first complete recording of the Coplas Sefardies.