278 r Amnon Shiloah
player, the specialist contended, the pieces he performed belonged to a
popular musical genre, but he was not proficient in the art of the classical
multisectional form of the nūba.^20
In the neighboring country of Tunisia, one finds a similar interpreta-
tion in the book on Tunisian music of Sādeq al-Rizqī.^21 This author pre-
tends that although most of the local Jewish musicians excelled as players
on a variety of musical instruments, they were deficient as performers of
classical Tunisian vocal pieces. The reason for this deficiency came from
their incapacity to produce the specific vocal intonations required in the
performance of this type of vocal pieces whose role was to underline the
correct meaning of the sung text. Besides, al-Rizqī argues, their Arabic
pronunciation was defective. They confused words and swallowed letters
to the extent that the text became incomprehensible; they simply did not
catch the secrets of classical Arabic and its expression.^22
In The Artistic Emergence in Algeria,^23 musicologist Nadya Bouzar-
Kasbadji devoted her first chapter to the Jewish composer and violinist
Edmond Nathan Yafil (1872–1928). She exalted the peculiar contribution
of this great master to the renaissance of Algerian music and the process
of innovating traditional music that increased its appeal among common
people.
Yafil published a selection of Jewish songs and the transcription in
European notation of numerous Algerian pieces. In 1909 he founded
a school of Arab music that became an essential factor in the process
of modernization of musical education. Two years later, he founded al-
Mutribiyya, an organization that was essentially Jewish at its beginnings
and involved many active Jewish musicians, and in 1922 he was endowed
the chair of Arab music at the conservatory of music.
A remarkable representative of female artists was the Jewish sultana
Dāhud, alias Reinette l’Oranaise. This great blind artist excelled as a singer
and ̔ūd player, and after a notable career in Algeria, her celebrity con-
tinued in Paris, where she appeared in public concerts and made many
recordings.
In Paris, another Algerian who is still dominating the scene is Enrico
Massias. Enrico and his father were members of a famous ensemble in
Constantine founded and directed by his stepfather, Raymond Leiris, who
was assassinated in 1961.