Composed by: traditional

arranged by: Matthew (Mati) Lazar

Purchase sheet music at Transcontinental

sample page one, page two, page three

Voicing: SATB

Language: Ladino

Difficulty: moderately easy

Country: America, Spain

Solos: tenor (or soprano)

Instruments: piano (optional hand-drum)

Lyrics: trad

Year arrangement published: 1990

recording: https://zamir.org/recordings/audio-cassettes/sepharad-92-903/

Timing: 2:45

Tempo: moderate, lively

First Line: cuando el rey nimrod al campo saliya, . . . Avraham avinu

description: “Cuando el Rey Nimrod” belongs to the wonderful musical repertoire of the Sephardim, the Jews who lived in Spain more than five hundred years ago. Both music and lyrics reflect a mingling of Jewish and Christian Spanish elements. The legend surrounding the birth of the father of Judaism is sharply colored by that surrounding the birth of the father of Christianity.  The charming melody shifts back and forth from 4/4 to 3/4 time and from the “freygish” mode (a Middle Eastern variant of the Phrygian mode in which the second degree of the scale is lowered and the third degree is raised) to the major mode.