Comments

May 11, 2008 at 9:22 pm

(1) Kosher Holiday says:

The melody for Hatikvah is based on “La Mantovana”, a 16th century Italian song. Its earliest known appearance in print was in early 17th-century Italy as “Ballo di Mantova.” This melody gained wide currency in Renaissance Europe, being recorded variously as the Spanish hymn “Virgen de la Cueva” (“Virgin of the Cave”); the Sephardi melody for the Hallel prayer; the Yiddish folk song “ the Prayer for the Dew,” the Polish folk song “Pod Krakowem,” a Swedish folksong Ack, Värmeland; and as the Ukrainian “Kateryna Kucheryava.”. This melody had been famously used by Czech Bedřich Smetana in his symphonic poem celebrating Bohemia, “Má vlast”, as “Vltava” (Die Moldau).