Among the Jasmine Trees: Music and Modernity in Contemporary Syria
288
Among the Jasmine Trees: Music and Modernity in Contemporary Syria
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780819569851 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Wesleyan University Press |
| Publication date: | 01/01/2012 |
| Series: | Music / Culture |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Among the Jasmine Trees
'Matla': Among the Jasmine Trees
Soon after arriving in Damascus, I met Fateh Moudarres (1924–1999), one of modern Syria's — indeed, the Arab world's — greatest artists. "Ustaz Fateh," as he was known to his students and friends, was famous for his powerful paintings that evoke the Syrian countryside with their rich colors and characters drawn from rural life.
A native of Aleppo and graduate of academies in Rome and Paris in the 1950s and 1960s, Moudarres advocated both modernism and authenticity in his art, arguing that authentic Syrian art in any medium should evoke a strong sense of place, of local geography, the smells and sounds of the countryside, the animals and plants, the very soil. His works convey geographical specificity through the use of strong colors, natural pigments, abstractions of simple themes from folk life and mythology, and an acute awareness of temporality — that is, of timelessness. His paintings, which have hung beside the works of Miro and Picasso, won several international prizes. Yet, he claimed that Syrian artists had not yet managed to achieve an authentic modern vision despite a few individual efforts, his own included.
In addition to his painting, Moudarres also published several collections of stories and poetry and recorded some of his own compositions on the piano. Indeed, he claimed to me to be a musician at heart but to prefer painting because, as he put it, music is "too noisy" for his tastes. Yet, he playfully suggested that one could experience what he called "silent music" in his canvases. Some of his works include portraits of peasants playing on simple reed instruments or carry titles that suggest a relationship to music.
Entering his studio for the first time, I find it dark, almost cave-like, its rooms cluttered with canvases, paint supplies, and shelf after shelf of books in several languages. Ustaz Fateh is seated in the main room at a table cluttered with small tea glasses, ashtrays, books, pens, and various papers. He is conversing with a young artist, who gives up the seat of honor across from Moudarres when I arrive so that I can sit and speak with him. Small of stature and frail with illness, Moudarres nonetheless is a powerfully charming and charismatic man — his bushy eyebrows arch as his eyes gleam with brilliance and mischief. His voice, soft and grave, commands attention, like that of an ancient sage: No matter what he says, you simply must listen.
He has just finished another of his aphorisms, written on a blank sheet of paper and signed, "Fateh." I look around me and find them hanging here and there around the main room of the studio like so many manifestos or Confucian analects. Some are obscure — "That brigand paints the mountains with his voice" — others profound — "with one painting a man is able to found an entire nation."
After I introduce myself, we begin to speak about my research on Arab music and I ask him his opinion of the music today. Leaning back in his chair, he replies, "The music today is mostly rubbish ... there's a lot of rubbish out there. It is the music of the 'mob,' not serious. Oriental music (musiqa sharqiyya) is serious, thoughtful, meditative. But today it is mostly lost. If you want to study it you must go and search for it. You must go to Aleppo, to the old buildings and neighborhoods, to the orange and lemon trees. You must hear the birds. ... Go to the old quarters of Damascus, listen in the courtyards of the old Arab homes. There, among the jasmine trees, you may find it...." Then, sounding like an old Sufi master — his bushy brows raised and a wry smile traced on his mouth — he proclaims: "You must choose between them." Pausing to roll a cigarette, he turns to another artist friend who has just joined us and asks him, "How was your exhibition?" leaving me to ponder his remarks.
* * *
What choice must I make?
* * *
Fateh Moudarres was challenging me to make a choice, I believe, between two worlds, the first the world of the older music — in his view associated with authenticity and deeply seated geographical and cultural truths and memories — the second the world of the contemporary Arabic pop song — in his view one of inauthenticity, vulgarity, and superficiality. While music is by no means the only domain in which the tensions of modern life are expressed in the Arab world, and Fateh Moudarres had similar observations concerning contemporary literature and painting, it has become one of the most important in recent debates over the trajectory of contemporary culture in Syria, as throughout the Arab world. Partly in response to the rise of new, so-called "inauthentic" forms of culture, many Syrians, like their counterparts elsewhere in the Arab world, call for the preservation of the old, "authentic" culture. The dialectic of the old and new, authentic and inauthentic, manifests deeper contradictions of modernization and cultural modernity that I explore in chapter 3. In this chapter, I explore why someone like Fateh Moudarres would advise me to seek authenticity "among the jasmine trees" in the old cities of Damascus and Aleppo. Why Aleppo in particular has come to serve as the premier metonymic site of musical authenticity in modern Syria requires an outline of the city's political and economic history, an exploration of the principle musical genres that are performed there, and an analysis of the practices through which Syrians cultivate habits of listening to and evaluating music as "authentic."
Walking the streets of Damascus soon after my arrival, I came across a most curious advertisement for a computer company. Computers are readily available in Syria, hardware and software surprisingly inexpensive (much of it bootleg), and computer advertisements widespread in the major cities. However, this particular ad stood out because of its direct appeal to tradition. It depicted a computer tower case, keyboard, and monitor sitting on a glossy table top, but reflected in the table top were images of two large cuneiform tablets mirroring the computer and monitor. Above the image read the words, "Building on the achievements of our forefathers ..." and the name of the company. The advertisement implied that the computer — icon of technological development — is an extension of early (very early) developments in Levantine civilization. In fact, some Syrian scholars claim that the earliest "computer" was developed in Mesopotamia, meaning a variety of the abacus and the concept of the zero, allowing for the eventual development of binary numbers and, five thousand years later, the electronic computer.
Notwithstanding these fantasies, the cuneiform computer advertisement illustrates some of the ways in which Syrians assert claims to cultural authenticity and legitimacy through an appeal to particular conceptions of heritage and the past — often the distant past (pre-Islamic, even prehistoric). Other examples include the use of the names of famous Muslim scholars and luminaries in the names of contemporary businesses. One finds an "Ibn Haytham Pharmacy" in every city, named after the great Muslim pharmacist. Likewise, "al-Razi," graces many a Syrian hospital, referring to the great Muslim doctor, while "al-Kindi" movie theaters are found in Damascus and Aleppo, though what the relationship between the philosopher and the cinema might be is unclear. In earlier decades, many theaters and establishments in Damascus and Aleppo carried European names, such as the "Luna Park," the "Dolce Vita," and "Versailles." The heritage names reflect both a modern nationalist sentiment as well as adherence to a law that requires all Syrian businesses to have an "Arabic" name, though what qualifies as "Arabic" is flexible. For example, the proprietor of the "Sham Dan" music shop in Damascus asserted that the words of his shop's name could mean something in Arabic, Persian, or Turkish, the three sources of the Arab-Ottoman musical tradition that the store features. In Aleppo, musical ensembles carry such names as "The Heritage Ensemble," "Ensemble al-Kindi," and "Ensemble Urnina," referring to the famous singer and dancer at the Assyrian temple of Bal. One shop in Aleppo combines two well-known Aleppine tastes: "Heritage Sweets."
These few examples illustrate some of the diverse domains in which Syrians assert claims to authenticity and cultural legitimacy through an appeal to particular conceptions of heritage. In addition to public culture such as advertisements, political discourse is full of references to the past as part of official practices of legitimization and authentication of state power (see Wedeen 1999). In the realm of the arts, concern with heritage, however it may be conceived, presented, and understood by artists and their audiences, reveals the contradictions of the aesthetics of authenticity in contemporary Syrian culture. In conjunction with systems of patronage and Syria's major cultural institutions, this aesthetic sensibility constitutes a Syrian "art world" (Becker 1982; Danto 1964) in which artists and intellectuals debate and construct the meanings of authentic culture, the past, and heritage. Of course, different artists and audiences have different notions of authentic culture, the past, and heritage; indeed some reject the conceptions of others as "inauthentic." Still others reject the discourse of authenticity as false and misleading, arguing for cultural and political forms distinct from — indeed, liberated from — heritage.
The contradictions of these views and discourses reverberate through the art worlds of contemporary Syria. Around the Arab world and Middle East region in general, the arts play an important role in discussions about the direction of contemporary society and culture. Conferences from Cairo to Casablanca draw intellectuals to debate poetry, painting, architecture, and music, and how they either reflect an ongoing sense of crisis or provide a means of articulating alternative courses for the future. The concept of authenticity and discourses of a return to the Arab heritage often are deployed by Arab intellectuals as foils to promote or critique modernist projects and identity politics (see Jabri 1999, 1991; Tarabishi 1991, among others). Debates surrounding Syrian arts participate in these regional intellectual and critical currents.
Concern with authenticity might be understood as simply a clinging to tradition if not a rejection of modernity. Yet, the turn to heritage in Arab arts participates in a broader concern among intellectuals, artists, and politicians with articulating the contours of a society and culture at once authentically Arab and modern — and neither "Arab" nor "modern" constitutes an exclusive or welldefined essence. Rather, these terms are cultural and political constructions that serve different interests. In the Syrian case, the construction and evaluation of authenticity articulate with conceptions of culture, ethnicity, and the nation that inform debates over postcolonial subjectivities in a variety of contexts.
By investigating how Syrian musicians conceptualize and articulate their music, my aim is not only to provide ethnomusicological detail, but also to offer an interpretation of Syrian culture through its music, using the music as a window or rather as an "ear" into contemporary Syrian society and culture, and by extension onto debates that echo around the Arab world today. In turn, the Syrian case provides comparative material for an understanding of the aesthetics and politics of musical performance in diverse postcolonial contexts and contributes to a growing awareness of the sonic dimensions of cultural modernity.
Aleppo and Its Musical Legacies
What would account for Aleppo's importance both in discourses of authenticity and in the history of Arab music, past and present? Although some Syrians questioned my interest in Arab music and even the existence of "Arab" music altogether, almost no one questioned my desire to study that music — of whatever origin it might be — in Aleppo. Many people I encountered in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria mentioned Aleppo's status as an important musical capital and the great preserver of Arab musical traditions (Saadé 1993). For many residents of the city, Aleppo's strong and venerable musical traditions are a source of pride along with the city's fabled architectural, literary, and culinary legacies. Although Damascus, as a result of the traditional rivalry between the two ancient cities, might challenge Aleppo's claims to fame in architecture, literature, and cuisine — to name just a few domains — few would challenge Aleppo's role as a great center for music. Indeed, Damascenes and others from elsewhere in Syria commonly assert their musical identity by praising Aleppo's achievements, especially in contrast to the more often recognized achievements of Egyptian musicians. Aside from recognizing the "Big Three" of famous modern Arab musicians — the Egyptian artists Umm Kulthum, Muhammad 'Abd al-Wahhab, and 'Abd al-Halim Hafiz — many Syrians argue that "true" Arab music is found in Syria, not Egypt. Some even claim that Egyptian music is at best overrated, at worst the root of contemporary depravity and vulgarity in Arab culture.
Historically, the musicians of Syria have contributed significantly to the development of Arab music in terms of both theory and practice, with Aleppo enjoying a particularly prominent place (Shiloah 1995: 72; Touma 1996: xix). Known in local discourse as "The Cradle of Arab Music" and "The Mother of Tarab," Aleppo has been home and host to many of the Arab world's greatest musicians, composers, and theorists. The great tenth-century philosopher and music theorist al-Farabi wrote much of his Kitab al-musiqa alkabir (The Great Treatise on Music) while resident in Aleppo at the court of Sayf al-Dawla al-Hamdani. While resident in Aleppo in the same period, al-Isfahani wrote sections of the monumental Kitab al-aghani (Book of Songs), the first great encyclopedic reference on Arab music and poetry (Shiloah 1995: 72). During my first residence in Aleppo (1997–1998), an enlarged copy of the index to this work could be found on the wall above the card catalogue in Aleppo's National Library, indexing not just the great work but also its importance in Aleppo's musical-cultural consciousness and memory. Aleppine artists also played a significant role in reviving and preserving the Andalusian muwashshah genre in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Touma 1996: 83); the muwashshah remains the staple of the Aleppine musical suite (wasla), the premier "authentic" performance genre.
In the modern period, Aleppo has been home to a large percentage of the Arab world's leading vocalists, performers, and theorists. Perhaps Aleppo's most famous musical son in the modern era is 'Ali al-Darwish (1872–1952), who is remembered today as a skilled composer, performer of the nay flute, and an important musical theorist and teacher. 'Ali al-Darwish taught such Egyptian masters as the great Umm Kulthum, 'Abd al-Wahhab, and Riyad al-Sunbati while an instructor at the King Fu ad Conservatory of Music in Cairo (Mahanna 1998: 124–28; Ibrahim al-Darwish, personal communication, 1997). In addition, al-Darwish worked with the French Orientalist and music scholar Baron Rodolfe d'Érlanger while resident in Tunis from 1931 to 1939, helping him compose his important treatise La musique arabe (d'Érlanger 1930–1959; Mahanna 1998: 128–29; al-Sharif 1991: 105). 'Ali al-Darwish was likewise an important presence at the first Congress of Arab Music (Mu'tamar al-musiqa al-'arabiyya), held in Cairo at the behest of King Fu ad in 1932. His sons Ibrahim (1924–2003), Nadim (1926–1987), and Mustafa (1928–2003) were trained by their father and made important contributions to Arab music theory, composition, and pedagogy. For example, Nadim al-Darwish compiled and notated Min kunuzina (From our treasures), a standard source book containing twenty-three suites performed in Aleppo (Raja'i and al-Darwish 1956). It is also important to note that, like so many prominent artists of his era, 'Ali al-Darwish was an active member of Aleppo's Sufi orders, including the mawlawiyya or "Whirling Dervish" order (Mahanna 1998: 124–25; al-Sharif 1991: 105; Ibrahim al-Darwish, personal communication, 1997).
The Aleppine composer and musician Kamil Shambir (1892–1934) worked along side Sayyid Darwish (1892–1923), the great Egyptian composer and popularizer of the musical theater and Arabic operetta in the early twentieth century (Mahanna 1998: 150). Shambir is thought to have notated some of Darwish's works and himself wrote some twenty-seven musicals while working for the theatrical troupes of Najib al-Rihani and Amin 'Ata' Allah in Cairo. Shambir also composed a number of light tunes and instrumental dances that are still performed today, such as "Dance of the Coquettes" (Raqs al-hawanim).
(Continues…)
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Table of Contents
<P>List of Figures<BR>A Note on Transliteration<BR>Preface<BR>Introduction: The Aesthetics of Authenticity in Contemporary Syria<BR>Among the Jasmine Trees<BR>Sentiment and Authentic Spirit: Composing Syrian Modernity<BR>Constructing Musical Authenticity: History, Cultural Memory, Emotion<BR>Body Memory, Temporality, and Transformation in the Dhikr<BR>Authentic Performance and the Performance of Authenticity<BR>Tarab, Sentiment, and Authenticity<BR>Notes Toward Closure<BR>Epilogue: 2000<BR>Notes<BR>Glossary of Selected Arabic Terms<BR>Selected Bibliography and Discography<BR>Index</P>What People are Saying About This
"Both intellectually stimulating and delightfully engaging, the book stands out for its scholarly rigor and rich documentation. Shannon approaches his subject matter with keen musical sensibility and remarkable affinity for the community that he has studied."
— A.J. Racy, author of Making Music in the Arab World
“Throughout the 20th century, societies in the Middle East have labored to produce their own modernities which are often manifest in expressive culture. Shannon's nuanced and expert text should motivate thought about Middle Eastern societies for years to come.”
"Both intellectually stimulating and delightfully engaging, the book stands out for its scholarly rigor and rich documentation. Shannon approaches his subject matter with keen musical sensibility and remarkable affinity for the community that he has studied."—A.J. Racy, author of Making Music in the Arab World
"Throughout the 20th century, societies in the Middle East have labored to produce their own modernities which are often manifest in expressive culture. Shannon's nuanced and expert text should motivate thought about Middle Eastern societies for years to come.""—Virginia Danielson, Loeb Music Library, Harvard University
"Both intellectually stimulating and delightfully engaging, the book stands out for its scholarly rigor and rich documentation. Shannon approaches his subject matter with keen musical sensibility and remarkable affinity for the community that he has studied."—A.J. Racy, author of Making Music in the Arab World