הילד והצפור השבויה | Ha-yeled ve-ha-tsipor ha-shvuya | The Child and the Captive Bird (1912)
Artist: Abraham Zvi Idelsohn (1882-1938)
Lyrics: From Ha-Zamir
Tune: Sephardic Melody
The text of this song was published in Ha-Zamir (Odessa, 1903: p. 36), with instructions that Idelsohn omitted in Sefer Ha-Shirim. A different melody was published in Ta'ame Zimra le Shire Ha-Zamir (Warsaw, 1904: p. 36).
In “Ha-yeled ve-ha-tsipor ha-shvuya”, a captive bird desires her freedom. One day, the bird’s owner, a child who feeds her with sugar, goes out with his friends. In the meantime, the bird dies. The child returns home and bemoans the bird’s death.
Idelsohn added instructions and roles to the singers in the following order: choir, a child, the bird, the child, choir.
The melody is taken from a Sephardic liturgical song, sung on the Jewish High Holidays. The melody is performed with the text of the piyyut "Et Sha'are Razon Le-hipatah" [At this Time, When the Gates of Good Will Are Soon to be Open] as well as to the text of the piyyut "Yigdal Elohim Hay" [Exalted Be the Living], which is sung on many occasions in the Jewish calendar.
Later, Idelsohn includes the piyyut "Yigdal Elohim Hay" with this melody in his "Thesaurus of Oriental Jewish Melodies, The Sephardim" vol. 4 (1923: no. 52), which is based on his fieldwork with the Sephardim of Jerusalem during his stay in Jerusalem (1907-1922) and from printed sources.
The melody is in a major key.
Included in
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Transliteration
