Originally posted by ALAMI
Edward, I have to disagree with you on the form development issue,
The impact of Oum Kalsoum (and Abdel Wahab) great carreers has probably led to some regression in musical Forms.
The second part of the 19th and first half of the 20th century witnessed a renaissance in music known under the name of "Al Nahda", the fathers of
this renaissance were Abdo Al Hamouli and Mohamad Osman both composers of great Adwar, Mouwashahat and Mawals.
The leading form was Al wasla, it is a long form where the ensemble (Takht) and the singer would immerse the public in one single main maqam (with a
lot of modulations) for 45 minutes or an hour with alternated musical pieces and songs, the musical pieces were: Tahmila, samai, doulab, bashraf and
the songs were Dawr, Mawal, Mouashah, Qasida and sometimes it ended with a rhytmic Taktouka.
Al wasla was the ultimate immersive tarab form mixing all forms with an emphasis on improvisation, this form sticks with the true ethymoligycal
meaning of Maqam: "A place to stay", they used to stay 30 minutes to one hour in 1 maqam.
The controversial 1932 convention is only a theoretical breaking point, the convention labeled the living Hamouli and Osman school under the
"traditional" etiquette (what Masel refers to as Qadim), but the change didn't deeply occured until the fifties and it was more for political
reasons:
The new republic wanted to break with what was called "the Khedieval music" (the khediv being the King of Egypt ), Oum Koulsoum and Abdel wahab
supported Nasserism and the "modern progressive future" that Nasser was promising. The regime was controlling the ultimate "musical weapon": the
radio.
The "old school" was doomed.
I will try to put on ftp some surviving records of full waslas.
Hamouli and Osman used to compose with Improvisation in mind, what the great Abdel Wahab, Kasabji and Sunbati didn't. For me this is where things
really changed and where Form started regressing.
One final note, referring to Turkish/Arabic schools a century and so ago can be misleading in the way that it didn't meant then what it means now,
they were both still under the Ottoman empire and nationalisms where just starting to take form, Abdo Al Hamouli was sent to Istanbul by the Khediv
and he went back with the Hijaz Kar that was unknown in Egypt, back then it was just a maqam "from another region" not "a Turkish" Maqam.
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