Classical Music Of Iraq

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In the Arab world the word maqam (meaning situation or place) refers to a musical mode suffused with a particular mood or feeling. In the classical tradition of Iraq it is the word used to define a certain type of singing that expresses a wide range of emotions to perfection through its fifty-three modes. The present-day Iraqi maqam only achieved its true form towards the end of the 18th century, but when you hear it you can't help thinking of the Golden Age of the Abbasid dynasty that lasted from the 8th to the 13 th century. For several centuries, ancient Iraq, formerly the land of Mesopotamia, "the land between two rivers" (the Tigris and the Euphrates), was acquainted with a sort of all-embracing Islam touching on the Turkish, Arab and Persian worlds and crystallised in the city of Baghdad. Thus the local aristocracy as well as the various communities that went to make up the society of the time were nourished on both classical and popular poetry of a very refined and sophisticated nature. Iraqi maqamat were also performed in a more religious context during the mawlid celebrations (the mawlid is the anniversary of the Prophet's birth), mourning ceremonies, or Sufi rites of the Qaderiya order.The tchalghi baghdadiGenerally speaking, Iraqi maqamat from Baghdad are grouped together under the name of the tchalghi baghdadi. They are always performed on the santur an instrument of the dulcimer family played with little mallets, similar to the Persian santur, and the djozo (derived from the name of its sound-box made out of a coconut, or djoz al-hind, an Indian nut), this is a four-stringed fiddle, replaced rather awkwardly nowadays by a Western violin.These two instruments of great acoustic delicacy and finesse give Iraqi music its special oriental savour, that indefinable "something" that speaks of far-off Asian landsThe singer (either male or female) weaves vocal arabesques around the text, old or new, classical or popular. After a short instrumental prelude (the muqadimma), the singer or reciter must deploy his art (qari) by declaiming a few dense lines from the great qasida tradition, the basis of all Arabic poetry, which still provides a rich fount of inspiration for certain contemporary poets. The singer will distil his skill and knowledge to express a few more popular poetic maxims, mawwal baghdadi (or zheiri), before reaching a vehement conclusion in the form of the peste, whose rhythms and contents are inspired by a more regional traditional repertoire. This "finale" marks the transition from inspired festive music in the Iraqi maqam. The mawwal is the poetic introduction in every classical Arabic song, where a poetic text can take on its true dimension. It consists of a single, seven-line verse, whose age-old roots contain elements from the Iraqi tradition. In The Arabian Nights, the term mawwal refers to the departure of the Persian Barmecides, banished by Harun AI-Rashid, who had also forbidden people to mourn them. But a slave of Ja'far the Barmecid shirked his duty, disobeyed this rule and composed a funeral elegy in honour of his master who'd been condemned to death. Each verse was punctuated with the cry of "Ya mawaliya" (0 my masters).Nowadays it's hard to keep this musical genre alive, as Scheherazade Qassim Hassan has so rightly pointed out:" During the sixties and seventies, the art of the Iraqi maqam was still very much alive and part of the culture of the vast majority of city dwellers. Now that a whole generation of marvellous artists has disappeared, in the recent period of political, economic and social upheavals, the tendency is for a simplified "revised and corrected" version to be presented by officially recognised artistic ensembles. And generally speaking, musicians are undergoing the overall influence of Westernization, with the resulting hybrids it produces and the sort of local music that's taking over the medias and the urban social structure",'1 Scheherazade Qassim Hassan - Les instruments de musique en Irak et leur role duns In société traditionnelle - Cahiers de l'homme (EHESS), Mouton éditeurFarida Mohammad AliAlthough the singer of tchaIghi baghdadi is generally male, Farida Mohammad Ali has been able to make herself a place in this great tradition thanks to her origins, amongst other reasons. She was born in Karbala, an Islamic Shiite town in southern Iraq, where a tradition of female singers and singing has been allowed to flourish. Farida explains, "Everyone knows that Arab society has not given women the chance to appear on stage,to be free and emancipated and thus take part in transmitting this musical heritage. But in this male-dominated society 1 was lucky enough to have tolerant, open-minded parents who created an environment for me that was favourable to my emancipation. Some of the major masters such as Munir Bashir, Hussein El Hazami and my husband Mohammed Gomar have also given me a lot of encouragement. I've been living in Holland for four years now and that's where 1 created the Iraqi maqam Foundation, its main aim being to preserve the spirit of maqam in its traditional form. My foundation also wants to help consolidate and further the cause of Iraqi music and culture. Music is my whole life - it's just as important to me as food or drink. Don't forget that the maqam is also linked to Sufism because it touches on a host of religious subjects. And what's more, we don't usually talk about a singer in the context of maqam, he's called a narrator or reciter. To recite maqamat gives a true feeling of being in harmony with the spirit".Interview with Francis Bensigor for MondomixFarida's generous and essentially uncomplicated personality has brought new warmth and ardour to the genre. The efforts to save this tradition from oblivion made by artists such as Farida Mohammad All and Mohammad Gomar AI-Bawi, who plays the djoz al-hind and lives in Holland too, deserve proper recognition. In spite of constant requests for their new repertoire more adapted to a certain type of clientele from the Middle East, these artists still keep the specific structures of the tchaIghi baghdadi alive, often performing them before rapt European audiences avid for authentic traditional musicalforms.