Mike's Oud Forums
Not logged in [Login - Register]
Go To Bottom

Printable Version  
Author: Subject: Restored old oud by Hiskel Ibrahim
Alfaraby
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 796
Registered: 9-18-2009
Location: Holy Land
Member Is Offline

Mood: Cool

[*] posted on 12-17-2013 at 03:06 PM
Restored old oud by Hiskel Ibrahim


Neat, tidy plain looking and nice, warm sounding "beast". Thanks Doc.

The label says: "Made by Hiskel Ibrahim, Baghdad".
Very interesting what was there under the scrawling. Might be a date or Other info like for whom was it made or a name of a quarter in Baghdad or some Hebrew letters !!

The name Hiskel stands for Yehizkel, while Ibrahim for Abraham, both Jewish names ! This might be the first antique oud made by a Jewish maker, I've seen. My hunch is that it was made before 1950. The Jewish Iraqis were great musician, who migrated from Iraq mostly to Israel in 1950, after the Jewish state was founded, and established one of the best Arabic orchestras in the second half of the past century, famous as "Firqat Aldar" (The Orchestra of the Israeli Broadcasting House). They were great educated musicians, but none of those new comers were known as oud makers ! The Iraqi Jewish oud players brought with them their Fadel's, Nahat's and Usta Ali's ouds to Israel. Had they had a good maker among them, he'd probably have continued making ouds in his new home.

In general, proffessional oud makers used to have their labels printed since the early 20th century, as we have all seen tens of Nahats, Fadels, Bedrossians, Khawwam and many others, while occasional makers used handwriting. It's not a rule though, since we've seen some handwritten labels in very famous makers' ouds, like George Hayek (Aleppo), Hamawy (Damascus), Usta Ali (Baghdad) and even Kamil Mowais (Nazareth) in his very early ouds. What I'm trying to say (with not much success I guess) is that this maker could be an occasional oud maker, who might have built his own oud or maybe some couple more, but was not a full-time devoted oud maker.

Well, those were only some thoughts that crossed my mind as I looked at the photos and thought I'd share with you.
What do you think ?

Yours indeed,
Alfaraby





alfarabymusic@gmail.com
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Dr. Oud
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 1370
Registered: 12-18-2002
Location: Sacramento, CA, USA
Member Is Offline

Mood: better than before

[*] posted on 1-9-2014 at 09:54 PM


sold



View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
hussamd
Oud Junkie
*****




Posts: 117
Registered: 12-18-2013
Location: Bartlett, IL
Member Is Offline


[*] posted on 1-10-2014 at 05:04 AM


The pictures are no longer available but I did not see how you came up with Hiskel. The first letter looked like 'HA or "SAD" but the last three would have sounded like "Fyl". The vague letter could be a "S" but either way I have never heard of any names that come close.
View user's profile View All Posts By User

  Go To Top

Powered by XMB
XMB Forum Software © 2001-2011 The XMB Group