14 - 20 March 2002
Issue No.577
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 14 - 20 March 2002 Issue No.577 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Notes from a musical life
La Musique arabe (Arab Music), six volumes, 1930 -- 1959, Rodolphe d'Erlanger, Paris: reprinted by La Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner and L'Institut du Monde arabe, 2001.
The six volumes of Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger's Arab Music, recently reprinted with new material by their original publisher, Paul Geuthner, in co- operation with the Arab World Institute in Paris, are a monument to an unorthodox life spent, in the words of French musicologist Christian Poché, researching the history of Arab music and using that research to revivify contemporary Arab musical composition and performance.
Born near Paris in 1872 to a rich banking family, and from 1910 to his death in 1932 a resident of Sidi Bou Said to the north of Tunis, Baron Rodolphe d'Erlanger set himself the task of editing and translating Arab writings on music from the 9th Century onwards in order to arrive at a general account of Arab musical traditions, theory and contemporary practice. The Baron himself only lived to see the publication in 1930 of the first volume of his projected multi-volume, and ever-growing, work. The remaining five, published at intervals over the next 30 years, are the work of the Baron's assistant, Manoubi Snoussi (d 1966), and it is unclear how much of the work included in the latter volumes is the work of the Baron and how much is the work of Snossi.
As Poché notes, the fact that only the first volume of d'Erlanger's work had appeared at his death in 1932, together with the difficulty of knowing who, among the Baron's team of collaborators, was responsible for what in the volumes that followed, makes it difficult to know what d'Erlanger's intentions for the work were.
Yet, from the first, d'Erlanger's work on music had a twin direction: firstly to research, and later to record, specimens of contemporary Arab musical practice, and secondly to reconstruct the Arab musical tradition contained in the works of the various Arab commentators through establishing authoritative texts of their works and making these available in French-language editions. According to Poché, the early Arab works on music that d'Erlanger edited and translated were intended to demonstrate that "music was part of a coherent representational system of thought." For this reason, major thinkers such as Al-Farabi and his pupil Avicenna devoted theoretical works to music, designed to explain the different notes and intervals, how these are organised in scales, and the different musical genres.
"You expressed the desire to know about the art of Music, such as the Ancients conceived it," Al-Farabi writes, addressing the Abbasid Caliph, at the beginning of the 9th Century General Treatise on Music (Kitab Al-Musiqi Al-Kabir). "However, in the works on music that I have read, I've found certain parts of this art left undiscussed and the words of the authors lacking in clarity and cohesion, especially on matters of theory. One cannot impute these faults to the incapacity of the ancient authors....one can only say that their writings on music must have either been lost or have been imperfectly translated into Arabic. This is why I believe myself able to respond to your request and to write this book."
D'Erlanger's first articles on Arab music appeared in the Tunisian press in 1917, and work on the first translations started in 1922, following work carried out on contemporary Tunisian music in the ethnomusicological manner of Al-Sadiq Al-Rizqi's 1917 study Al-Aghani Al-Tunisiyah (Tunisian Song). However, it was only in 1923, in a letter addressed to the French orientalist Carra de Vaux, that the Baron announced that his projected series of volumes on Arab Music would contain translations of work from the early Arab theoretical discourse on music, notably of the treatises by Al-Farabi, Al-Ladhiqi, Safiyueddin and others that make up the first four volumes of the finished series. Baron d'Erlanger's involvement in preparations for the 1932 Cairo Arab Music Conference, Poché suggests, then caused him to draw up plans for a further two volumes on contemporary Arab music.
According to Poché's account of the 1932 conference, King Fouad, who lent his patronage to the event, was an early and enthusiastic supporter. Poché notes that music, as much as literature and the visual arts, was caught up in the nationalist discourse of the period following the 1923 Revolution in Egypt, giving powerful impetus to movements for renaissance and creative exchange. The Oriental Music Institute had opened in Cairo in 1929, and the Egyptian musicologist Mahmoud Ahmed El-Hefni had submitted, in 1930, his PhD thesis, directed by the eminent German comparative musicologist Curt Sachs, on the musical theory of the Arab philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna). The same El-Hefni, later secretary-general of the 1932 Conference, then invited Sachs to Egypt to make recommendations on the revivification and future direction of musical study in the country.
Umm Kulthoum rehearsing with El-Qasabgui to her left
According to a note preserved in the Italian writer F T Marinetti's memoirs recording a conversation that he had with King Fouad in 1929, the king announced that he would be "organising and presiding over in person, the first ever Arab music conference. All the composers, street musicians and musical improvisers of Islam will be invited, together with their instruments. We will debate the best ways to develop the musical genius of our races, keeping up old artistic traditions while introducing new forms of creative originality."
In these circumstances it seemed natural that d'Erlanger, increasingly widely known for his work on the music of the Arab Maghreb, should be invited to advise the conference organising committee. On a visit to Egypt he met the Turkish-Egyptian composer Ali Darwish, inviting him to Sidi Bou Said to collaborate on the concluding volumes of his Arab Music, which would contain a general account of contemporary Arab musical practice. Darwish had worked extensively on a problem increasingly preoccupying the Baron: how to adapt Western musical notation to Arab musical forms.
Unfortunately, in the event d'Erlanger was unable to attend the conference itself, due to ill health. But musicians from Syria, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia did attend, as did the Europeans Paul Hindemith and Bela Bartok, ever in search of new musical ideas. Poché refers to the comment the conference excited in the specialised Egyptian music press, notably in the periodicals Al-Radiu and Rawdat Al-Balabil. He also says that the Proceedings of the conference were published in 1933 in Arabic and French editions. One wonders whether this material should not also be re-published.
The six volumes of d'Erlanger's finished work contain much material that is unavailable in translation elsewhere, and for this reason his publishers have decided to put them back into circulation. The contents of the volumes is: Volume 1: Al-Farabi, Kitab Al- Musiqi Al-Kabir; Volume 2: Avicenna, Kitab Al-Sifa (Mathematics; sections on music); Volume 3: Safiyueddin, Al-Aarafiyyah, Kitab Al-Adwar; Volume 4: An anonymous 15th Century treatise on music dedicated to Sultan Mohamed II, Al-Ladhiqi, Kitab Al- Fathiyah. Volumes 5 & 6: analysis of contemporary Arab music. Poché notes that in 1938, when the fourth volume of the series appeared, none of the works contained in it were available in Arabic and that the treatise contained in Volume IV has still not been published in any other form than in d'Erlanger's French translation.
Finally, Poché writes that the re-publication of Baron d'Erlanger's monumental life's work will provide French-speaking students of Arab music with a reference work that has long been all but unavailable. It may also promote reflection on the Proustian charm of this unlikely, apparently rather otherworldly figure who used his considerable wealth to advance the study of Arab music. It seems apt that the Baron's former palace at Sidi Bou Said, acquired by the Tunisian government in 1991, is now home to the Centre for Arab and Mediterranean Music, and that it is here that the Baron's large collection of historical Arab musical instruments is preserved.
Reviewed by David Tresilian
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page