We
met this magnificient oudist while searching for classical
oud players for a film which we are making about traditional
and new methods of playing this instrument. He is
an oud master living in
a village in mount Lebanon and is known only at the
community level. To those who appreciate oud, he is
a treasure.
Adib
plays oud and makes ouds in his own workshop. His ouds are
a unique work of art (we shall soon display them for sale
on Oriental Tunes). According to al-Farabi, "Only the
maker of a musical instrument is greater than music itself
because his work is an art of a higher level".
Adib plays classical oud and is master of maqams (Arabic musical
modes). In our opinion, he is probably the best maqam player
around. His style is pure and authentic, yet vivid and alive,
and he has a great technique. He grasps your attention from
the moment he starts playing and takes you with his moods
as he moves brilliantly between various maqams. In this 10-minute
improvisation he uses nine maqams: Rast, Sikah, Huzam, Nawa
Athar, Hijaz, Nahawand, Bayati, Ajam and Saba.
We took this video of him in Beirut in November 2002.
We
sing many of his songs thinking that they were composed
recently, not at the beginning of the last century.
Songs like Zurouni, Salma Ya Salama, El Helwa Di,
Ahu Da Elli Sar, Til'et Ya Mahla Nourhe, El Bahr Byedhak
Leh, are just a few of his songs which we sing in
our parties and hear frequently on the radio, performed
by famous contemporary artists.
He
also composed several Muwashahat which are popular until today,
such as Ya Shadi-L-Alhan and Ya Bahjat al-Rouh (altogether
he composed 17 Muwashahat),in
addition to 10 Adwar (pl. of Dor) and a number of national
chants, such as Biladi Biladi,and
over 230 songs which he composed for 30 theatre plays and
comical operettas, and two theatre plays which he composed
all by himself.
Sayid Darwish (1892-1923) was
to die at the dawn of a striking career, at the age of 31,
but he had a tremendous influence on Arabic music. He was
both an original and experimental artist. His originality
is well observed particularly in his Muwashaht and Adwar,
in which he abided by the traditional forms, although he revolutionized
the content and the musical expression. On the other hand,
his stage production was westernised and the traditional instruments
were replaced by an European ensemble. His greatest contribution
was the fact that he revolutionized the music of his time
without abandoning its roots and identity.
Here we selected two of his well known works, a classical
Dor which he composed in 1923, and a popular song which he
composed in 1919 (In this song, which has also been performed
in Greek and French, you can hear the piano with the orchestra,
while in the Dor the traditional "takht" instruments
are used, as was the case with all his compositins of this
genre). Along with the original songs, we presented re-arranged
versions by So'ad Muhammad and Firqat al-Musiqa al-Arabiyah,
which reproduced many works of great Egyptian artists of that
period.
A
great Syrian
singer who is widely heard and remembered by Tarab
lovers in the Eastern Mediterranean and other parts
of the Middle East. She became particulary famous
in Syria and Lebanon during the second quarter of
the last century and was among the top performers
of Muwashahat and Adwar, two major forms of the Arabic
classical song of the time, which is still viewd as
the golden age of Arabic music.
However,
she rarely sang in public and was known to musical circles
only. She had a unique voice which was probably matched only
by the voice of Oum Kulthoum.
These two songs belong to the Egyptian 19th century repertoire
and they were recorded in her voice around the 1940's.
Dor Kadni al Hawa and Dor Yama Anta Wahishni were composed
by Muhammad Uthman (1855-1900), who was the greatest Egyptian
musician in the nineteenth century. It was he who developed
the Dor form of singing, which was later taken on by Sayyid
Darwish, Mohammad Abdel Wahab and others.
View
a magnificient performance of Dor Yama Anta Wahishni in video
clip by The Oum Kulthoum Ensemble
Saliba
al- Qatrib (1904-1994) was one of the greatest Arab
oud players, composers and singers. He was born in
Tripoli, north Lebanon, and became particularly famous
around the middle of the last century. He belonged
to Zakaria Ahmad's school of music, and although
he was not a professional singer and composer in the
common sense of the word, he represented a unique
and original phenomenon in Lebanese music.
He
gained wide fame in Egypt, the Arab countries and Europe,
and worked with the pioneers of that period such as Mohammad
Abdel Wahab and Farid al-Atrash. He was an excellent singer
of Muwashahat, Adwar and Qasa`id,
and a foremost oud player.
Here we have selected two rare recordings of him, one improvising
on the oud and playing Sama'i Bayati at a private party in
Beirut, accompanied by his son Fuad on the violin.
This beautiful
classical tune was written by the Egyptian composer Ibrahim
al-Aryan (1898-1953) and is often referred to as Sama'i al-Aryan.
It has been played by almost every Arab musician and is taught
to students of music at the conservatories all around the
Arab world. The second piece is from another private session
which was recorded in Tripoli in 1955.
These two pieces give
us an insight into the music of this artist and the fine music
of that time.
Wasif
was born in Jerusalem in 1887 and his music tells
us many things about an unknown aspect of Palestinian
life
prior
to the loss of Palestine in 1948. Although Palestine
had its great artists and was part of the rich Arab
cultural environment of that time, there is very little
record of what used to be a vivid and
thriving
Palestinian art. Palestinian
art disintegrated with the disintegration of Palestine.
The recordings which we present here in Wasif's voice
are not merely rare tunes; they are history.
Wasif
grew up in a household whose members were either amateur musicians,
oud players or sophisticated listeners. As he grew up he was
able to forge for himself a local reputation as a foremost
oud player and composer. He received his musical education
in the company of Jerusalem's top oudists and composers, and
in 1915, he had the oppurtunity to learn at the hands of the
Syrian master oud player Omar al-Batsh, who was then member
of the Turkish army military band stationed in Jerusalem,
and who taught him how to perform the classical Muwashahat.
He was also influenced by such great Egyptian innovators as
Yusif al-Minyalawi, Dawood Husni and Sayyid Darwish. In 1918,
Cafe Jawhariyyeh was opened near the Russian Compound along
the Jaffa Road in what is now West Jerusalem, and the cafe
became renowned for bringing the best singers in the country,
such as Sheikh Ahmad Tarifi and Zaki Afandi Murad, as well
as famous Arab artists such as the Syrian cabaret dancer Badi'a
Masabni and her husband Najib al-Rihani.
The three pieces we present here are representative of the
music which was commom in Palestine during the first quarter
of the last century. El Badr Lamma Zar
is a popular Palestinian song, and is followed by a short
Palestinian dance played by Wasif on the oud. Ya
Maimati is a ditty which according to the singer was
" a well known song here", but is most likely an
Egyptian taqtuqa. Dor Ashki Limeen is
a composition of Dawood Husni (1871-1937).
Wasif's Diaries have just been published and the book comes
with an audio CD - 60 minutes of music and songs performed
by Wasif on the oud. For details click
here.
The
Maqam is the most perfect and noblest form the learned
music of Iraq can offer. Its tradition has been transmitted
orally by the Iraqi masters since about four centuries.
The Maqam is performed by one singer and three musicians
who play the santur, the joza and the tabla or tombak.
In more recent variations the nay and oud are also
used. The principal part of the Maqam is a poem written
either in literary Arabic or in spoken language.
Mohammad
al-Qubbanchi (1901-1988) is considered Iraq's best singer
in the 20th century. He was born in Souq el Ghazil
neighborhood of Baghdad and studied the Maqam under the supervision
of several singers, such as Qaddouri al-Eyshah, Sayyid Weli
Ben Hussein and Mahmoud al-Khayyat. He is valued as the greatest
of his time for the register of his voice as well as for the
precision of his interpretation of the traditional Maqam.
Yet he did not limit his singing to the strict Maqam rules
as he creatively enriched the Maqam with novel musical varieties
and improvisations. His creations are countless as well, although
the most notable is his creation of Maqam al-Lami. Many songs
were written using this Maqam in Iraq and the Arab world,
such as Nazem al-Ghazali's Goulli Ya Hilou and Mohammed Abdul
Wahab's Yalli Zira'tou Al Burtuqal. Al-Qoubbanchi recorded
many songs since 1925, all are now considered important and
essential resources on Iraqi and Arabic music. He headed Iraq's
delegation to the first Arabic Music conference in Cairo in
1932 where he won the Best Arab Singer award that year.
Several books have been dedicated to his huge musical contribution
and his outstanding talent.
Saleh
Abd al-Hayy
(1896-1962) was nephew of the great singer Abd al-Hayy
Hilmi and he became a renowned singer in the early
twenties of the last century. As a great master of
the learned tradition, he recorded a large number
of light ditties which became very popular. He was
the last crusader of the aesthetics of the traditional
takht music and performed a weekly concert on the
radio until the early fifties.
Saleh
was one of the top singers of his era and was the best performer
of an Arab form of singing called "Mawal". He worked
with the ensemble of Munira al-Mahdiyah for a certain period
in the late twenties before he set up his own ensemble. Saleh
performed many songs composed by Egypt's
music
masters of the nineteenth century , such as Abdo al-Hamouli,
Muhammad Uthman, Ibrahim al-Qabbani and Dawood Husni. He was
also a key figure in the Oriental Music Institute in Cairo.
