Arabic-Andalusian music

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Egyptian lute . The European lute is also an instrument from the Arab culture

Arabic-Andalusian music ( Arabic الموسيقى الاندلسية, DMG al-mūsīqā al-andalusiyya , especially in Morocco also in Arabic موسيقى الآلة, DMG mūsīqā al-āla or Arabic النوبة, Called DMG an-nūba ) is a style of Arabic music that is widespread throughout North Africa. It developed from the musical style that was predominant in Andalusia between the 9th and 15th centuries.

Today it is associated with Algeria ( Gharnati , San'a and al-Maalûf ) as well as with Morocco ( al-Ala and Gharnati ), Tunisia and even Libya ( al-Maalûf ).

Al-Maalûf is based on a mixture of Arabic and Andalusian elements. Unlike Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and most of the other Arab states, Morocco was not part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries and was therefore not exposed to the cultural influences associated with it.

In parallel with the classical style, popular music known as chaabi ( Arabic شعبى, DMG ša'bī  'belonging to the people').

The origins

It is said that classical Arab-Andalusian music originated in the 9th century in the emirate of Cordoba . Its creation is attributed to the Persian musician Ziryab (died 857), who initially lived in Iraq and later worked at the court of Abd ar-Rahman II in Córdoba. Later, the poet, composer and philosopher Ibn Baddscha (d. 1139) , who worked in Saragossa, is said to have combined the style of Ziryâb with Western elements and thus created a completely new style of music, which then spread over the entire Iberian Peninsula and North Africa.

In the 11th century, the areas of the Iberian peninsula under Moorish rule developed into centers for the construction of musical instruments, which gradually found their way into the musical culture of Provence. From there they spread, mediated by the Trouveres and Troubadours in the rest of Europe. The German names of musical instruments such as lute , rebek and guitar are derived from the Arabic names Oud , Rabāb , quithara , some of the Arabic names coming from Greek and other cultures.

Al-ala, the classical Arab-Andalusian music, spread through a centuries-old process of cultural exchange in North Africa, which was facilitated by the fact that the Almohad , Merinid and Abdalwadid dynasties both Al-Andalus and the western Ruled part of North Africa (the Maghreb ). The flight and expulsion of Muslims and Jews from Córdoba, Seville, Valencia and Granada in the course of the Reconquista , the reconquest and re-Christianization of the Iberian Peninsula, led to the fact that Arab-Andalusian music spread even further.

While the term Gharnati in today's Algeria refers to the entire repertoire, in Morocco it designates a special style of Andalusian music that emerges as such from the overall repertoire of the "Tab Al Ala" style, cf. Rachid Aous and Mohammed Habib Samrakandi, Music of Algeria , pp. 15 and 24. North African cities in which this particular style of Arab-Andalusian music originating from Granada has been preserved are described in the book "The Literature of Al-Andalus" mentioned on pages 72-73.

Arab-Andalusian music today

The repertoire of Andalusian music consists of a number of nūba (Pl. Nuwab, also nūbāt ), which is a large musical form consisting of five movements in Morocco, nine in Algeria and ten in Tunisia. A suite form called Andalusi nubah is the basis of al-Ala music. Although the roots are to be found in Andalusia, the nûba in its current form is probably the result of an independent North African development.

Each nûba is a musical mode ( Arabic طبع, DMG ṭab ' , "essence, nature", corresponds to the maqām ) assigned. It is said that originally there were twenty-four nûba corresponding to the hours of a day. Of these, however, only sixteen survived in Algeria, eleven in Morocco, for a total of twenty-five “Andalusian” modes.

The five parts of the Moroccan nûba , called mîzân , each have their own rhythm. In a complete nûba , these rhythms have the following order:

  1. basît (6/4)
  2. qâ'im wa nusf (8/4)
  3. btâyhî (8/4)
  4. darj (4/4)
  5. quddâm (3/4 or 6/8).

The performance of a nuba can take six or seven hours, which is rarely done these days. In Morocco it is more common to only play one mîzân and one nuba . Every mîzân begins with an instrumental prelude, if necessary several preludes, which can be pieces called tûshiya , m'shaliya or bughya . This is followed by up to twenty songs.

Orchestras playing classical Arabic-Andalusian music can be found throughout the Maghreb, e.g. B. in the following cities:

These orchestras use the following instruments, among others: Oud ( lute ), Rabāb ( Rebec ), Darbuka , Taarija , Kanun ( psaltery ) and Kamāndscha (knee violin). More recently, other instruments have been added, e.g. B. piano , double bass , cello , even banjos , saxophones and clarinets , but these are exceptions.

Influence of Arabic-Andalusian music on other musical cultures

Musical instruments used in Western classical music and originating from the Orient, as well as their names, may have found their way through Arabic Andalusia: the rebec (the forerunner of the violin) comes from the rabāb , the guitar from the qīṯāra and the Psalterium , the original form of the zither and dulcimer , is related to the santur and the qānūn . Other names are now out of use in Europe. Thus, the name comes Adufe of ad-duff , Alboka of al-buq , Anafil (sp.) Of Nafir to- , Exabeba (Ajabeba) of ash-schabbāba (flute), Atabal (sp., Cf. T'bol , drum ) from at-tabl , atambal from at-tinbal , the tuna music (sonajas de azòfar) from sunuj al-sufr, the wind instruments with conical bore, the xelami from the sulami or fistula (flute or organ pipe), the shawm and dulzaina from reed instrument ZAMR and zurna , the Galician gaita (bagpipe) from the Rhaita, rankett even Rackett from iraqya or irayiyya , the German word violin of ghaychak and the theorbo from the tarab .

The troubadours who wrote and composed courtly love songs in the Middle Ages may have been influenced by the Arabs. Ezra Pound tells in Canto VIII , Wilhelm IX. from Aquitaine , I brought the song from Spain along with the singers and the veils.

According to historical sources, William VIII of Aquitaine brought hundreds of Muslim prisoners of war to Poitiers. JB Trend recognizes that the troubadours had adopted the sense of form and fabrics from Andalusia. Already in the 16th century, u. a. in Giammaria Barbieri (d. 1575), later in Juan Andrés (d. 1822), there is the thesis that the tradition more or less emerged in the wake of Wilhelm's experience with the Moorish culture. Ramón Menéndez Pidal was also a supporter of this view . Meg Bogin, who has translated songs by female troubadours into English, also shares this view. It is certain that there have been songs in Arabic of "comparable intensity, worldliness and eroticism" since the second half of the 9th century.

literature

Recordings on sound carriers (selection)

  • Andalusian Music from Morocco - Andalusian Music from Morocco , Moroccan Ensemble Fez, Direction: Ḥāǧǧ Abdelkarim Rais, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / BMG Ariola 1984/1991, GD77241
  • La Nouba - Musique classique arabo-andalouse - Mohamed Khaznadji , vol. II, AAA 074, CDA 401 (Club du disque arabe)
  • La Nouba - Musique classique arabo-andalouse - Dahmane ben Achour , vol. III, AAA 084, CDA 401 (Club du disque arabe)

Remarks

  1. ↑ See supplement of the double CD Andalusian Music from Morocco - Andalusian Music from Morocco , Moroccan Ensemble Fez, Direction: Ḥāǧǧ Abdelkarim Rais, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / BMG Ariola 1984/1991, GD77241, in collaboration with the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis .
  2. ↑ literal translation: "music of the instrument" ("instrumental music")
  3. ↑ literal translation: "Suite", sequence (of individual pieces of music)
  4. ^ Habib Hassan Touma: The Music of the Arabs , Wilhelmshaven 1975, ISBN 3-7959-0182-0
  5. ↑ Arabic غرناطي, DMG ġarnāṭī : style of Granada ( Arabic غرناطة, DMG Ġarnāṭa ), the last Islamic kingdom on Iberian soil.
  6. ↑ Arabic المألوف, DMG al-ma'lūf , literal translation: "the usual (style)"
  7. ↑ Rachid Aous, Mohammed Habib Samrakandi: Musiques d'Algérie  (= Horizons maghrébins: le droit à la mémoire), Volume 47. Presses Univ. du Mirail, 2002, ISBN 978-2-85816-657-2 .
  8. ↑ María Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, Michael Anthony Sells: The literature of Al-Andalus  (= title = Cambridge history of Arabic literature), illustrated. Edition, Volume 4: Arabic literature to the end of the Umayyad period, Cambridge University Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-521-47159-6 , pp. 72-73.
  9. ↑ Arab-Andalusian Music of Morocco during the Centuries / scientific publication of D. Eisenberg (Hispanic Journal of Philosophy 1988) ( Memento of the original dated November 23, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / users.ipfw.edu
  10. ↑ Arabic آلة الطرب, DMG āla aṭ-ṭarab , literally "instrument of music", musical instrument
  11. ^ Evidence from Farmer 1978
  12. ↑ Farmer 1978, p. 144
  13. ↑ JB Trend (1965), Music of Spanish History to 1600 (New York: Krause Reprint)
  14. ↑ Bogin, Meg. The Women Troubadours . Scarborough: Paddington, 1976. ISBN 0-8467-0113-8 .
  15. ^ Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , edited by Stanley Sadie, London: Macmillan Press