Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Qanun by Adeeb and Sireen, vocals & video by Farya Faraji. A reupload of the original video from 2023. This is a folk song from the traditional repertoire of the Sephardic Jewish community; the diaspora that was expelled from the Iberian Peninsula following the completion of the Reconquista; at least those who did not convert or were executed. The Sephardic community would go on to live across the Mediterranean basin, especially North Africa and the Ottoman Empire, where they would form important Jewish centres in Greek areas such as Thessaloniki and Rhodes, the latter being where this clip was filmed. The Rhodian Jewish community was effectively wiped out during the Holocaust, and nowadays the buildings they used to inhabit are mostly museums and memorials. The instrumentation consists of a Greek lavta, a violin, a qanun, and a darbuka drum, and the tuning uses the traditional microtones of the region, to contrast with most Sephardi music being nowadays tuned to modern 12TET.
Hence, Sephardic music would always be reflective of whatever territory they occupied, and for the most part, the canonical instrumental arsenal of the tradition is comprised of ouds, kanuns, lyres and other instruments widely played across these areas of the Mediterranean. The everyday language of the Sephardis is Ladino; a Romance-language of the Iberian peninsula like Castillian, Catalan, Aragonese, Galician and others, and there is some amount of Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary in the language too.
Lyrics in Ladino:
El rey de Francia
tres hijas tenía.
La una labraba
la otra cosia
la más chica de ellas
bastidor hacía.
Labrando labrando
sueño le caía.
Su madre que la veía
Aharvar la quería.
No me aharves, mi madre
ni me aharvarías.
Un sueño me soñaba,
bien y alegría.
Sueño vos soñabas
yo vo lo soltaría
Me aparí a la puerta,
vide la luna entera.
Me aparí a la ventana,
vide la estrella Diana.
Me aparí al pozo,
vide un pilar de oro
con tres pajaricos
picando el oro.
La luna entera
es la tu suegra.
La estrella Diana
es la tu cuñada.
Los tres pajaricos
son tus tres cuñadicos.
Y el pilar de oro,
el hijo del rey, tu novio
English translation:
The King of France had three daughters
One of them embroidered and the other sewed
The youngest one was making a tapestry
While working she soon fell asleep
Her mother, seeing this, wanted to speak to her
Do not speak to me mother, don’t interrupt me
I was in the middle of a very happy dream
You were having a dream, I will explain it for you
At the door I saw the full moon appear before me
At the window I saw the star Diana appear before me
At the well I saw a golden bowl appear before me
With three little birds pecking at the gold
The full moon is your mother-in-law
The star Diana is your sister-in-law
The three little birds are your brothers-in-law
And the golden bowl is the king’s son, your husband
Qanun by Adeeb and Sireen, vocals & video by Farya Faraji. A reupload of the original video from 2023. This is a folk song from the traditional repertoire of the Sephardic Jewish community; the diaspora that was expelled from the Iberian Peninsula following the completion of the Reconquista; at least those who did not convert or were executed. The Sephardic community would go on to live across the Mediterranean basin, especially North Africa and the Ottoman Empire, where they would form important Jewish centres in Greek areas such as Thessaloniki and Rhodes, the latter being where this clip was filmed. The Rhodian Jewish community was effectively wiped out during the Holocaust, and nowadays the buildings they used to inhabit are mostly museums and memorials. The instrumentation consists of a Greek lavta, a violin, a qanun, and a darbuka drum, and the tuning uses the traditional microtones of the region, to contrast with most Sephardi music being nowadays tuned to modern 12TET.
Hence, Sephardic music would always be reflective of whatever territory they occupied, and for the most part, the canonical instrumental arsenal of the tradition is comprised of ouds, kanuns, lyres and other instruments widely played across these areas of the Mediterranean. The everyday language of the Sephardis is Ladino; a Romance-language of the Iberian peninsula like Castillian, Catalan, Aragonese, Galician and others, and there is some amount of Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary in the language too.
Lyrics in Ladino:
El rey de Francia
tres hijas tenía.
La una labraba
la otra cosia
la más chica de ellas
bastidor hacía.
Labrando labrando
sueño le caía.
Su madre que la veía
Aharvar la quería.
No me aharves, mi madre
ni me aharvarías.
Un sueño me soñaba,
bien y alegría.
Sueño vos soñabas
yo vo lo soltaría
Me aparí a la puerta,
vide la luna entera.
Me aparí a la ventana,
vide la estrella Diana.
Me aparí al pozo,
vide un pilar de oro
con tres pajaricos
picando el oro.
La luna entera
es la tu suegra.
La estrella Diana
es la tu cuñada.
Los tres pajaricos
son tus tres cuñadicos.
Y el pilar de oro,
el hijo del rey, tu novio
English translation:
The King of France had three daughters
One of them embroidered and the other sewed
The youngest one was making a tapestry
While working she soon fell asleep
Her mother, seeing this, wanted to speak to her
Do not speak to me mother, don’t interrupt me
I was in the middle of a very happy dream
You were having a dream, I will explain it for you
At the door I saw the full moon appear before me
At the window I saw the star Diana appear before me
At the well I saw a golden bowl appear before me
With three little birds pecking at the gold
The full moon is your mother-in-law
The star Diana is your sister-in-law
The three little birds are your brothers-in-law
And the golden bowl is the king’s son, your husband
