It is odd that the title given to this album ("La musica de al-Andalus") has little relationship to the origin of the music on it. The music is
actually Syrian, typical of the tradition of Aleppo. The recording includes five muwashshah songs, a poetic genre that did originate in Islamic Spain,
although the poets who wrote the verses of these particular songs are not known and cannot be placed definitely in Islamic Spain. The melodies of most
of the traditional muwashshahat we have today were composed after the fall of Islamic Spain, primarily in Aleppo, which was a leading center for
composition in this genre into the twentieth century. The recording also includes five Aleppo folk songs of the qadd halabi genre, which has no
claimed connection to the music of al-Andalus; a 20th-century sama'i (the sama'i developed in the Ottoman Empire well after the fall of al-Andalus);
and examples of mawwal, qasida, and layali that are typical of the Syrian tradition of improvisational singing. And the medley of vocal and
instrumental pieces in the recording is organized as a wasla, a Syrian musical suite that emerged sometime around the 17th century as a local
counterpart to the contemporary Ottoman suite (fasil).
This Syrian repertoire is part of a local tradition whose historical connection to Islamic Spain is at best tenuous if not non-existent. Representing
it as "the music of al-Andalus" is more than a stretch. |
