2 Sephardic Songs

“Yo m'enamori d’un aire” (I fell in love with her charms) and “Morenica” (roughly—Black Beauty) are two of the most well known Sephardic romanzas. They are taken from the tradition of the Sephardic Jews from Turkey, Greece and the Balkan. These arrangements try to capture their fresh modal features: one, Oriental rooted with an augmented second, the other, a fluent, diatonically ornamented melismatic melody. The first is treated mainly in a two part imitative polyphony, the second- in a more homophonic texture, but stemming mainly from a parallel organum of fifths. Towards its end (coda), an attempt is made to emulate an Oriental ensemble heterophony.