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No serious musicologist has accepted these fantasies as a real decipherment. Her methodology is flawed: arbitrary tweaking to obtain melodies that sounded good to her without any objective criterion. Then she uses repeatedly the argument that her decipherment can't fail to be right because of the quality of the melodies it produces. But who's to say someone else couldn't by tweaking the value of the signs in some other way also produce melodies that sounded good, at least to them? And who says those melodies are so good and according to what criteria? Her basic assumption is unlikely in the extreme: the notion that the whole of the Bible was given a musical setting that was through-composed. Serious historical problems not even mentioned let alone seriously addressed: the Massoretes did not copy a pre--existing system of signs. They designed a system to record their own cantilation. How much sense does it make to then interpret those signs in a way that has nothing to do with their original function. And if her argument was that the Masoretes actually copied a pre-existing system she never explained how a system of scale degree symbols turned into the present system as we know it. And how was this supposed system of scale degree symbols transmitted from a period as remote as the 10th to 5th c. BC to post-Talmudic times when no manuscript was ever found, before post-Talmudic times, that carried those signs?
That she was awarded the Prix Bernier and that Olivier Messiaen prefaced her book beggars belief. Her fantastical alleged decirpherment is given legitimacy in some French sources. The online version of the French encyclopedia Encyclopaedia Universalis talks of her decipherment as an established scholarly result "Elle se tourne ensuite vers l'étude des te'amim, les signes qui figurent au-dessous ou au-dessus des textes bibliques en hébreu, dont elle va découvrir le sens musical, perdu depuis deux millénaires": here (I haven't checked the print version). The French record label Harmonia Mundi not only has released records of performances based on her so-called decipherment but has even included such material in at least one "History of Music" which puports to offer, one would hope, an image of the history of music in line with scholarly consensus not one based on fringe theories. Well, the 10 CD set "A History of Music" includes Haik-Vantoura based material in vol. 1 "Music from the earliest time - Music of the Ancient World", HMX 290 8163. But as far as I know France is the only country where her theories are taken seriously.
For some reviews by serious musicologists rather than followers her theories see: Dalia Cohen and Daniel Weill. "Progress in Deductive Research on the Original Performance of Tiberian Accents (Teamim)." Proceedings of the Ninth World Conference of Jewish Studies, Division D, Vol. II (Jerusalem, 1986): 265-80; review by P.T. Daniels, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 112, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1992), p. 499. I've heard also of a review or an article by Michel Huglo in the "Journal de musicologie" from back in the 80s but I haven't tried to trace it yet.
I concur... "However author David C. Mitchell has defended it, noting that it agrees closely with the best remaining fragments of ancient psalmody."... many of the labels she uses? or found? for the tonal intervals are similar to the neighboring cultures (time/place) of the Babylonians, Akkadian, etc.. Do your research, pick up a copy or e-copy? and read, compare it yourself... before 'they, etc' write her off. See also your very own.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrian_songs2602:304:CDAF:A3D0:A479:275E:BC4A:572D (talk) 17:32, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The article on her is materially wrong - she decoded both the prose and poetic books. Her work has a far better use of the data from the accents than any other suggestion. I have worked with her deciphering key for 12 years now and its ability to help in understanding the text is immense. See my recent article here on the inference to the best explanation for the te'amim https://meafar.blogspot.com/2022/04/data-points-and-application-of-bayes.htmlBob906 (talk) 02:58, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know where these replies go: Yes she is right. See e.g. Mitchell . You will find a lot of comment and the entire Bible as a musical score on my blog. https://meafar.blogspot.com. See the introduction for examples: https://meafar.blogspot.com/2022/03/an-introduction-to-music-of-hebrew-bible.html I have worked with her deciphering key for the last 13 years. It explains much more than anyone else in the last 1000 years about the music of the te'amim. See for instance my criticism of Wickes (19th century - still taught today). https://meafar.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-inter-verse-and-inter-chapter.html It is inconceivable that a set of arbitrary signs could be mapped to nice music without a harmonic rationale. She has found it. It is the only one that is likely. I have tried to illustrate this subjectively using Bayes theorem. You can find that on the blog too. There are statements in the article on her that are unsubstantiated. I think they should just be removed until someone can do them right. Bob906 (talk) 20:16, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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