Abraham (Bram) Cardozo

	Musical annotations in Seder Hazanut Bradon manuscript
	Dutch melodies in his “Sephardic Songs of Praise” collection

Abraham (Bram) Lopes Cardozo (1914-2006) hand-copied the Seder Hazanut manuscript of Brandon (1866 & 1892) around 1937. He left Holland and moved to Paramaribo in 1939. In 1945 he moved to New York, where he served as a chazzan for over 40 years.

In the back of his copy he added information about the melodies used. As is obvious, he added that much later, whilst living in NY. See e.g. the header of page 140 which is written in English and mentioning e.g. on page 139 that this is how they sing in Amsterdam, both he would not have done whilst still living in Amsterdam. As he got influenced by this experiences in Paramaribo and New York, these notes on Amsterdam melodies are not always 100% accurate.

Mr. Cardozo used a numerical notation rather than musical notes. In this notation, 1 stands for do or C, 2 for re or D, 3 for mi for E etc. A dot on e.g. 1 makes it an octave higher, a strike-through a half tone etc.  There are plans to convert the notation to real sheet music.

The recordings were made by Bar Vingerling (BV). As an example, see Lecha dodi (page 133) sung with numbers and with text.

In below table I bring next to the recordings of Cardozo’s notation, next to authentic recordings by NN, NRP, AAV & JBS for sake of comparison.

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(NN*): This should be on NN tape 4b, but that tape is missing. Actually, somewhere after the war, when there is no repetition, the the first berachot were read by the Chazzan almost silently. Chacham Toledano reinstituted for the Chazzan to read them aloud. On Shabbat during Mincha we now use the Shacharit melody, with a special ending for Shabbat Mincha. The notation of the music by Mr. Cardozo may thus be a “lost melody” for these three berachot. The fact that the end of Mr. Cardozo’s notes are identical to the “special ending for Shabbat Mincha” as used, seems to prove this assumption.
(*1): There is no other documentation of this melody, just examples. NN: sample recordings and related text.
(*2) This melody differs quite a lot from the Amsterdam way, as recorded by NN. According to some, this is the way it was sung in Suriname.

Dutch melodies in his “Sephardic Songs of Praise” collection

The CD contains 61 melodies, the book 68. I compared all 61 recordings to the way we sing these melodies in Amsterdam, to filter out Paramaribo/New York influences and melodies. In total 16 melodies are identical to ours,12 are similar and 33 are different, or far related, at most.

Below I copy the sheet music (from the book) and the recording. In cases where I have a local (Dutch) recording, I add it next to Cardozo’s (BC) recording. Other recordings are from NN, SRP, AAV & JBS
The first 16 melodies are, as said, the identical to ours. For the 12 similar melodies, I will  try to “correct” the sheet music to match  ours, and again, when aviate, add a Dutch recording. The last 33 melodies have no place on this website.

The index as printed on the CD box is incorrect. I made a correct index, where I also added the results of the comparison and a link the to page in the book.
The order in below tables follows the orders of the CD. Mind that, unfortunately, the pronunciation is sometimes different from ours.

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Identical melodies

Similar melodies

For now, only the original sheet music is presented. “Corrected” versions will be added.

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