Shir ha Shirim • Song of Songs

by Moshe Shulman

Text: Anonymous female voice
excerpted from ‘The Song of Songs’ in the Bible/Tannakh;

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Recorded for Volume 1, Voices of the Pearl

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Performed in Biblical Hebrew

Perhaps no other biblical text has inspired so widely diverging commentaries and interpretations as the Shir Ha Shirim, or ‘Song of Songs’, found in the Ketuvim  in the Tanakh (Jewish tradition) also known as the Psalms of the Old Testament (Christian tradition).  Although commonly attributed to King Solomon, it is more properly recognized as the work of an anonymous author, whose skillful erotic verses are unusually lyrical and alliterative. The Shir Ha Shirim has been interpreted as, variously, the courtship and consummation between God and the people of Israel, or the soul and God, or the Church and Christ. In Zoharic Kabbalah it is often interpreted as the mystical unification of female and male sephirot emanations. Contemporary Russian-Israeli composer Moshe Shulman selected verses and composed these new settings for premiere, including musical settings of the Hebrew numbering system.