Composers
Included in most baqashot collections is a poem by Elazar Azikri (1533–1600), a kabbalist who lived in Safed. The poem “Yedid Nefesh”, or "faithful friend", was one of several which were published in 1601 in Venice in his “Sefer Haredim”. The collection also includes other famous poems of similar date, such as "Yom Zeh Leyisrael" by Isaac Luria and "Yah Ribbon Alam" by Israel Najara. Other composers, from the twelfth to the nineteenth century, include Hakhamim: Abraham Maimon (student of the kabbalist Moses Cordovero), Yosef Sutton, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Yaacob Abadi, Mordechai Labaton, Eliyahu Hamaoui, Ezra Attiah, Abraham Ibn Ezra (who wrote "Agadelcha"), David Pardo, David Dayan, Shelomo Laniado (who wrote "Shalom vatzedek"), Yitzhak Benatar, Eliyahu Sasson, David Kassin, Shimeon Labi, Mordekhai Abadi and Shelomo Menaged.
More recent composers of baqashot from the Aleppo community are Refael Antebi Tabbush (1830-1919), the leading pizmonim composer, his pupil and foster son Moshe Ashear (Ashqar) and Ashear's pupil Haim Shaul Aboud.
Song 46, "Yah Melech Ram", alludes to the names of the Baqashot composers.
Living classical composer Yitzhak Yedid is known for his combining of baqashot with contemporary classical writing.
According to Sephardic tradition, the Baqashot are unique in that the melodies were composed for pre-existing texts, unlike many more recent pizmonim where the words were composed to fit an existing, often non-Jewish, melody. It is also believed that the melodies of the Baqashot, unlike those of many pizmonim, are not borrowed from foreign sources.
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“More significant than the fact that poets write abstrusely, painters paint abstractly, and composers compose unintelligible music is that people should admire what they cannot understand; indeed, admire that which has no meaning or principle.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)