The Jewish calendar reaches its saddest moment every year on Tisha B’av, which falls on Tuesday, August 5 this year. The book of Lamentations is read, often chanted in a beautiful and haunting trope.
I decided to write a little melody to Lamentations 1:2, which reads as follows:
She cries bitterly in the night, and her tears are upon her cheeks;
she has no one to comfort her among all those who loved her.
All her friends betrayed her and have become her enemies.
Surely there is enough pain in the world. Would that for every beautiful melody, the tears of loss, of loneliness, and of lament might lead to healing and to renewal, like those of the mythical phoenix.
The music is mine, but the opening and closing mandolin melodies are phrases from the traditional Lamentations trope.
