Andalusian classical music


Andalusian classical music is a genre of Arabic music found in different styles across the Maghreb. It originated in the music of Al-Andalus between the 9th and 15th centuries. Some of its poems derive from famous authors such as Al-Shushtari, Ibn al-Khatib and Al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad.

Origins

Andalusian classical music was allegedly born in the Emirate of Cordoba in the 9th century. The Black or Perso-African musician, residing in Iraq, Ziryâb, who later became court musician of Abd al-Rahman II in Cordoba, is sometimes credited with its invention. Later, the poet, composer, and philosopher Ibn Bajjah of Saragossa is said to have combined the style of Ziryâb with Western approaches to produce a wholly new style that spread across Iberia and North Africa.
By the 10th century, Muslim Iberia had become a center for the manufacture of instruments. These goods spread gradually to Provence, influencing French troubadours and trouvères and eventually reaching the rest of Europe. The English words lute, rebec, guitar, and naker derive from the Arabic oud, rabab, qithara and naqareh, although some Arabic terms had been derived in their turn from Vulgar Latin, Greek and other languages like Persian.
Mass resettlements of Muslims and Sephardi Jews from Cordoba, Sevilla, Valencia, and Granada, fleeing the Reconquista, further expanded the reach of Andalusian music, though not without changes. In North Africa, the Andalusian music traditions all feature a suite known as a nūba, an idea which may have originated in Islamic Iberia, but took on many different forms in the new environments. Moreover, these migrants from the 13th century on encountered ethnic Andalusian communities that had migrated earlier to North Africa, which helped this elite music to take root and spread among wider audiences.
In his book Jews of Andalusia and the Maghreb on the musical traditions in Jewish societies of North Africa, Haïm Zafrani writes: "In the Maghreb, the Muslims and Jews have piously preserved the Spanish-Arabic music.... In Spain and Maghreb, Jews were ardent maintainers of Andalusian music and the zealous guardians of its old traditions...." Indeed, as in so many other areas of Andalusian culture and society, Jews have played an important role in the evolution and preservation of the musical heritage of al-Andalus throughout its history. From the very beginning, one of Ziryāb's colleagues at the court of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II was a fine musician Manṣūr al-Yahūdī. The scholars Avraham Elam-Amzallag and Edwin Seroussi further highlight the important role played by Jews in the history of Andalusian music, pointing out that not only have many important North African Andalusian musicians been Jews, but also Moroccan Jewish communities today in Israel preserve Andalusian melodies and even song texts in their religious music.
A number of old manuscripts preserve song texts and elements of Andalusian musical philosophy. The oldest surviving collection of these texts is found in two chapters from Aḥmad al-Tīfāshī's al-Mutʿat al-asmāʿ fī ʿilm al-mūsīqā wa-l-samāʿ. More recent is a document entitled, al-ʿAdharā al-māʾisāt fī-l-azjāl wa-l-muwashshaḥāt, which probably dates to the middle of the 15th century and seems to be linked to the Andalusian music of Tlemcen in Algeria. By far the best-documented Andalusian tradition is that of Morocco, with the first surviving anthology having been produced by Muḥammad al-Būʿiṣāmī. But the most important collection was Kunnāsh al-Ḥāʾik, which was revised by the wazīr al-Jāmiʿī in 1886.
Each of the modern nations of North Africa has at least one style of Andalusian music. In Morocco the secular instrumental version is called al-āla, while the religious a cappella style is called al-madīḥ wa-l-samāʿ. In Algeria there are three styles: al-Gharnāṭī in the west, al-ṣanʿa in the region around Algiers, and al-mālūf in the east. The Tunisian and Libyan traditions are also called al-mālūf, as well.

The music today

A suite form called the Andalusi nubah forms the basis of al-āla. Though it has roots in al-Andalus, the modern nūba is probably a North African creation. Each nūba is dominated by one musical mode. It is said that there used to be twenty-four nūbāt linked to each hour of the day, but in Algeria there are only sixteen, and in Morocco eleven have survived. Nūba structures vary considerably among the various national traditions. In Morocco, each nūba is divided into five parts called mîzân, each with a corresponding rhythm. The rhythms occur in the following order in a complete nuba :
  1. basît
  2. qâ'im wa niṣf
  3. btâyhî
  4. darj
  5. quddâm
Andalusian classical music orchestras are spread across the Maghreb, including the cities of:
They use instruments including oud, rabab, darbouka, taarija, qanún, and kamanja. More recently, other instruments have been added to the ensemble, including piano, contrabass, cello, and even banjos, saxophones, and clarinets, though these are rare.

Influence of Andalusian music

Andalusia was probably the main route of transmission of a number of Near-Eastern musical instruments used in European music: the lute from the oud, rebec from the rebab, the guitar from qitara and Greek kithara, and the naker from the naqareh. Further terms fell into disuse in Europe: adufe from al-duff, alboka from al-buq, anafil from al-nafir, exabeba from al-shabbaba, atabal from al-tabl, atambal from al-tinbal,
the balaban, sonajas de azófar from sunuj al-sufr, the conical bore wind instruments, and the xelami from the sulami or fistula.
Most scholars believe that Guido of Arezzo's Solfège musical notation system had its origins in a Latin hymn, but others suggest that it may have had Arabic origins instead. According to Meninski in his Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalum, Solfège syllables may have been derived from the syllables of an Arabic solmization system Durar Mufaṣṣalāt. However, there is no documentary evidence for this theory, and no Arabian musical manuscripts utilizing sequences from the Arabic alphabet are known to exist. Henry George Farmer believes that there is no firm evidence on the origins of the notation, and therefore the Arabian origin theory and the hymnal origin theories are equally credible. Although the philosopher al-Kindī and the author Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī both mention music writing systems, they were descriptive and based on lute fingerings, and thus complicated to use. No practical, indigenous system of music writing existed in the Arab world before the colonial era.
Some scholars have speculated that the troubadour tradition was brought to France from al-Andalus by the first recorded troubadour, William IX of Aquitaine, whose father had fought in the siege and sack of Barbastro in 1064 and brought back at least one female slave singer. It is likely that young William's taste in music and poetry was thus influenced by al-Andalus. George T. Beech observes that while the sources of William’s inspirations are uncertain, he did have Spanish individuals within his extended family, and he may have been friendly with some Europeans who could speak Arabic. Regardless of William's involvement in the tradition's creation, Magda Bogin states that Andalusian poetry was likely one of several influences on European “courtly love poetry”. J.B. Trend has also asserted that the poetry of troubadours was connected to Andalusian poetry.