Jewish Liturgical Music

Jewish liturgical music is the sung repertory of synagogue worship, built from biblical cantillation, modal prayer chant (nusach) and composed settings for cantor, choir and congregation. Its sound ranges from unaccompanied solo recitative with florid melisma to harmonised choral writing for Sabbath and festival services, sung in Hebrew and Aramaic. Regional rites, Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrahi, preserve distinct melodic systems, while the nineteenth-century choral reforms of *Salomon Sulzer* and *Louis Lewandowski* and the virtuoso cantorial art of the early recording era together define its modern canon.