Sephardic music, from the ancient domain of al-Andalus (Andalusia), lies at the heart of this selection of songs in remembrance of a lost homeland.
The word endechar comes from a time before the expulsion of the Jews and their culture from Spain in 1492; within the Jewish community it meant to sing funeral dirges or to lament.
After leaving Spain, the Sephardim kept alive the tradition of singing endechas (laments), romances (narrative ballads), and other songs in their traditional language, ladino, or Judaeo-Spanish, which was based on ancient Castilian.
This was enriched by the addition of words from Hebrew and then from the languages, music and instruments of the places to which they travelled, such as Greece, the Balkans, Turkey and Morocco.
Arvolicos dalmendra
Hija ma mi querida
Esta montaa denfrente
Una matica de ruda
Muerte que a todos convidas
Por qu llorax blanca nia?
Ven querida
Cuatro aos damor
Ya crecen las hierbas
Paxaro de hermosura
Nani, nani
En la mar hay una torre
Calvi arabi Kol libi Rey don Alfonso
Durme, durme hermozo hijico
Avrix mi galanica
El rey Nimrod