La muwaššaḥa / Al-Turath Ensemble
La música de al-Andalus

medieval.org
Almaviva 0123
abril de 1996
Alepo




موسيقى أندلسية • La música de al-Andalus
موشـّحات • La muwaššaḥa
التراث • al-turāth


waṣlah de maqām ḥijāz

01 - samāºi    [7:07]

02 - muwashshaḥa. yā ghuṣayna-l-bāni    [3:18]

03 - muwashshaḥa. mā-htiyālī'    [5:38]

04 - muwashshaḥa. hajarnī ḥabībī    [1:40]

05 - muwashshaḥa. yā fātina-l-ghuzlān    [4:33]

06 - muwashshaḥa. ºunqu-l-malīḥ    [3:45]

07 - dūlāb    [2:50]

08 - taqsīm    [1:49]

09 - layālī. yā laylī yā ºaynī    [5:25]

10 - qaṣīdah    [8:26]

11 - qad. yā māyilah ºalā-l-ghuṣūn ºaynī    [6:09]

12 - mawwāl    [4:40]

13 - qad. fūq an-nakhil    [4:49]

14 - qad. al-bulbul nāghā ºaghuṣni-l-fill    [4:50]

15 - qad. qadduka-l-mayyās yā ºumrī    [6:58]

16 - qad. bīnī w-bīnak ḥārū-l-ºawāzil    [2:55]



AL-TURATH ENSEMBLE
dirección: Muhammad Hamadiyih / Muḥammad Ḥamādiyih

solistas y coristas: Mahmūd Fāris, Rabīº ash-Shahir, Ahmad Kabbari, ºAli Muhsin
coristas: Mahmud Hamadiyih, Muhammad Hamadiyih
kamān (violín): ºAbd al-Basit Bakkar, Rafwan ºAbd al-Qadir, Khalid Budaqah
ºūd (laúd): ºAbd ar-Rahim ºAjin
qānūn: Yusif Salim
riqq (tambor): Jamal Shamiyih
darabukkah (tambor): ºAbd al-Qadir Shamiyih

THE ANDALUSI WAṢLAH OF ALEPPO, SYRIA

waṣlah

A waṣlah is the performance of up to eight muwashshaḥāt (plural of muwashshaḥa) in succession together with an instrumental introduction. Common to all sections of such a waṣlah cycle is the principle maqām row, whereby the combination of pieces can comprise the works of several poets and composers. The muwashshaḥ composition played at the beginning of a cycle may have a longer wazn than the muwashshaḥāt that follow. A total of 22 waṣlāt (plural of waṣlah) are known in Aleppo, each of them named according to the maqām row to which it belongs (for exmple, waṣlah of maqām rāst, waṣlah of maqām ḥijāz, waṣlah of maqām sīkāh).


maqām

The term maqām designates a modal framework in the music of the Arabs. It denotes not just the intervallic distances between tones of specifics order, but rather the mood created throught realization and presentation of the modal framework based on such on order of intervallic distances, which themselves make up what is called the maqām row or the maqām mode. From a historical point of view, the term maqām became a common property of Arabic-Islamic musical scholars in the fourtenth century.

The maqām represents a unique improvisatory process in the art music of the Arabs and in the art music of a large part of the world encompassing the cultures of North Africa, West and Central Asia. The structure of a maqām depends upon the extent upon to which the tonal and temporal factors exhibit a fixed or free organization. The tonal-spatial component is organized, molded and emphasized to such a degree that it represents the essential and decisive factor in the maqām, whereas the temporal-rhythmic aspect in this music is not subject to a definite form of organization. In this very circumtance lies the most essential feature of the maqām phenomenon, that is, a free organization of the rhythmic-temporal and an obligatory and fixed organization of the tonal spatial aspect. The maqām is thus not subject to rules of organization where the temporal parameter is concerned, that is, it has neither a regularly recurring and stablished bar scheme nor an unchanging tactus. The rhythm characterizes the performer's style and is dependent on his manner and technique of playing or singing but is never characteristic of the maqām as such. The singular feature of this form is one which is not built upon motifs, their elaboration, variation and development, but throught a number of melodic passages of different lengths that realize one or more tone-levels in space and thus establish the various phases in the development of the maqām. The maqām is based upon a systematic realization of tone-levels which gradually move upwards from the lower to the higher registers until the climax is reached, at which point the form is completed. The realization of a truly convincing and original maqām requires a creative faculty like that of a composer of genius. Nevertheless, this phenomenon can only in part be considered as a composed form because no maqām can be identical with any other: each time it is recreated as a new composition. The compositional factor shows itself on the predetermined tonal-spatial organization of the fixed number of tone-levels without repetitions, while the improvisational aspects freely unfolds in the rhythmic-temporal layout. The interplay of composition and improvisation is one of the most distinctive features of the maqām-phenomenon.


wazn

Genres with a fixed rhythmic-temporal organization have clear, compact, regularly recurring measures which cause an organized, easily recognizable segmentation of time. The muwashshaḥ belongs to this genre. On the other hand, genres with a free rhythmic-temporal organization have a rhythmic-temporal structure without regularly recurring measures and motives and without displaying a fixed meter (pulse). The taqsīm belongs to this genre. Nevertheless, the rhythmic pattern in Arabian music is called wazn, literally "measure". Such patterns are also known by the names uṣūl, mizān y ḍarb. The Arabian wazn repertoire is comprised of approximately 100 cycles.

A few examples of Arabian awzān (plural of wazn) rhythmic patterns:

The andalusi muwashshaḥ

The term muwashshaḥ is applied to an autonomous vocal art music genre of the Arabs that is textually based on the poetic form of the same name. In his book dār aṭ-ṭirāz, the autor Ibn Sanāº al Mulk (1155-1211) defines the muwashshaḥ as a poetry of a special meter (syllabic groups) kalām manẓūm ºala wazn makhṣūṣ. The word muwashshaḥ means precisely adorned with and is derived from the expression wishāḥ, which denotes a woman's decorated scarf with pearls and jewels. The poetic form of a muwashshaḥ incorporates a certain number of verse lines grouped into two categories: maṭlaº or madhhab and bayt.

maṭlaº, or madhhab, comprises at least two verse lines, whose end rhymes may be similar (aa) or dissimilar (ab). A muwashshaḥ is called kāmil or ṭām, that is, perfect or complete, when it comprises a maṭlaº; otherwise it is labelled aqraº, that is, bald. However, the first muwashshaḥ in a cycle is always complete, while next muwashshaḥ can be bald. A ideal cycle comprises five muwashshaḥāt, though it should be noted that the last muwashshaḥ is identified as kharjah. The text of a kharjah, a muwashshaḥ kāmil or ṭām, can be colloquial Arabic, bilingual Romance dialect or Mozarabic.

bayt comprises the verse lines that follow the maṭlaº of a perfect muwashshaḥ (kāmil or ṭām), or the first verse lines of a bald muwashshaḥ (aqraº). The bayt section comprises at least three verse lines whose rhymes differ from those in the maṭlaº or kharjah. The number of abyāt (plural of bayt) corresponds to the number of muwashshaḥāt in the cycle.

This poetic form is also known by the name zajal. Zajal poems, though, may be composed in colloquial Arabic. Muwashshaḥ poets avail themselves of classical Arabic.

A specific muwashshaḥ can be more precisely identified by naming the first line of the poem, the principle maqām row, the accompanying rhythmic pattern as well as the names of the poet and composer. For most of the well known traditional muwashshaḥāt, however, data pertaining to the person of the poet and composer is lacking. In place of this information, one ususlly encounters the reference qadīm ("old").

Regarded as the most productive and original of the muwashshaḥ composers were ºUmar al-Batsh (1885-1950) of Aleppo and Sheik Sayyid Darwish (1892-1923) of Alejandría. Great muwashshaḥ masters also lived during the 19th century to whom we are indebted today for setting countless older muwashshaḥāt to music and passing them on to following generations. Sheik Ahmad Qabbāni (1841-1902) of Damascus, for example, a student of Sheik Aḥmad ºAqil of Aleppo, composed dozen of muwashshaḥāt and handed down a large muwashshaḥ repertoire. Muḥammad Kāmil al-Khulaci (1879-1938) of Cairo, a student of Qabbāni, set several hundred muwashshaḥāt to music. Muḥammad ºUtmān (1855-1900) of Cairo, student of the great qanun master Qustāndi Mansi, created more than 150 muwashshaḥāt. Among-the important muwashshaḥ researchers and collectors to be mentioned are in particular the Lebanese Salim Hīlu, the late Sheikh ºAli Darwīsh and his son Nadīm of Aleppo, as well as Ibraḥīm Shafiq of Cairo.

In the 9th century, Ziryāb, the great singer at the court of Harūn ar-Rashīd, left Bagdad after a quarrel with his teacher, Isḥāq al-Mawṣilī and emigrated to Islamic Spain, i.e., Al-Andalus. He founded a music school in Cordoba where he carried on the musical tradition of the early Arabian Classical School of Baghdad - not, however, without liberating it from its classicism. Ziryab's school in Cordoba quickly attained far-reaching influence. In Seville, Toledo, Valencia and Granada also, his teachings were a guiding light and newly stablished music schools everywhere turned Ziryab's innovations to practice. However, the muwashshaḥ was invented in the 9th Century by Muqaddam al-Qabrí in Islamic Spain, i.e., Al-Andalus, and further developed there as a poetic musical form before it also came appreciated in the esastem regions of the Arabian world, the Mashriq states of Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Characteristic of the muwashshaḥ poem is that althought it is composed in classical Arabic, it is not based on any of the 16 classical meters of Arabian poetry. Otherwise also, the muwashshaḥ poem does not exhibit any fixed sequence of stress and arsis, but rather groups these to conform to a specific musical rhythmic pattern (wazn). Thus, linguistic and musical rhythm in the muwashshaḥ are inseparably linked to one another. The musical form ABA is analogous to the poetic form AAbbbAA or ABABcccABAB. The term muwashshaḥ, however, not only designates the poem, but also the musical section in which the poem is sung. In each muwashshaḥ the tones and tonal areas characteristic of the maqām are developed musically. Here, the singer assumes the leading role. Whereas the instrumentalists indeed also sing, the part of the soloist often appears an octave higher than the choir part.

The muwashshaḥ tradition of the Arabian East - from Aleppo of the 18th and 19th centuries to the Egyptian muwashshaḥ of the present - is, however, to be distinguished from the muwashshaḥ poetic form of Al-Andalus inasmuch as the muwashshaḥ poets of the East feel bound to the strict rules of Arabian meter, while in Islamic Spain, these rules are ignored. Nevertheless, the muwashshaḥ is still regarded today, in Mashriq also, as andalusí, something that in fact also holds completely true for the musical performance form.

In a muwashshaḥ ensemble, the instrumentalists often also make up the choir. The part of the solo singer consists usually of only a few of the lines presented. The instruments performing are the plucked short necked lute (ºūd), the violin (kamanjah), the plucked box zither (qanūn), the goblet drum (darabukkah) and the tambourine (daff). In Aleppo, muwashshaḥāt were composed on several maqām rows and presenting up to three awzān. Moreover, in the bayt section of a muwashshaḥ, it was also possible to modulate to neighboring maqāmāt.