Composed by: Salamone Rossi

Purchase sheet music at Broude Brothers

sample PDF

Voicing: SATB (or TTBB)

Event/Holiday: Tish’a Be’Av, Holocaust memorial

Language: Hebrew

Difficulty: moderate

Country: Italy

Solos: none

Instruments: none

Lyrics: Psalm 137

Publisher: Broude Brothers

Year Composed/Published: 1622

Timing: 3:15

Tempo: moderately slow

First Line: Al naharot bavel sham yashavnu

description: Salamone Rossi, a Jewish composer working in the Gonzaga court in Mantua at the beginning of the seventeenth century, composed the only substantial collection of polyphonic music for the synagogue to appear before the nineteenth century. “Al Naharot Bavel” is a very expressive lamentation, composed for low voices.