7. Kālǝ’ ṣǝllāt

A piece for many occasions: the morning service for Ma’arir Seni, and also for the ordination of a Qes. It is heard on many other liturgical occasions when the Orit is taken out of the Sacred Ark. It can also function as a table song at a festive meal on a regular Sabbath, on a holiday, and on the Seventh Sabbath. The text treats the Tables of the Law and the two Orit that God etched on stone and gave to Moses on Mount Sinai.

Although this piece is very short, it consists of two different melodies sung one after the other without a pause. Both melodies follow the hemiola pattern. They are measured and both total twenty-eight beats in each hemiola, although those beats are not distributed in the same way: 3-4-7/3-4-7 in the first melody, then 4-3-7/4-3-7 in the second one. At times, the soloist slightly overlaps with the choir’s part. We can hear the Qessoch stamping their feet and the sporadic sounds of panting.