Chalil (instrument)

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Die oder der Chalil or Ḥālīl ( Hebrew , from the root ll , "hollow out, pierce"), also written Halil , is a wind instrument whose name is mentioned in the Bible . Martin Luther translated it as a flute and also a pipe . In his translation, however, Luther referred to the ancient Greek Septuagint and therefore translated from the ancient Greek word aulos into German. The chalil was presumably a single or double reed instrument , whereby Curt Sachs (1940) considers two playing tubes as in the aulos to be likely.

According to the Talmud , the khalil was made of reed, wood, bone, bronze or copper. It may have been similar to the Greek aulos and the Arabic mizmar . At the time of the Old Testament, the khalil was a very popular instrument in Israel that was played with pleasure on various occasions. The instrument was also played, for example, on the Feast of Tabernacles at the Jewish worship service . The chant Hallel was also blown on the Chalil.

The sound of a chalil was more piercing and pointed than that of an oboe , sometimes quite penetrating. In ancient Israel it was said that whenever the khalil was played in the Jerusalem temple , the sound could be heard as far as Jericho .

In 1981 Leonard Bernstein wrote a nocturne for flute, string orchestra and percussion entitled Ḥalil , which is dedicated to the flautist Yadin Tanenbaum, who died at the age of 19 in the Yom Kippur War .

literature

  • Joachim Braun: The music culture of old Israel / Palestine. Studies of archaeological, written and comparative sources. 1999 (= Orbis biblicus et orientalis. Volume 164), pp. 36-37.
  • Joachim Braun: Biblical musical instruments. IV. Instruments. 3. ālîl. In: MGG Online, November 2016 ( Music in the past and present , 1994)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Curt Sachs : The History of Musical Instruments. WW Norton, New York 1940, p. 119, ISBN 0-486-45265-4
  2. Michael Markovits: The organ in antiquity. Berlin 2003, p. 327.