Among the Jasmine Trees. Jonathan Holt Shannon
homes of the bourgeoisie, which epitomized early twentieth-century urban musical aesthetics in the Levant (see Racy 1998, 2003).
Aleppine Courtyard: Bayt Wakīl, 1982.
Katrina Thomas/Saudi Aramco World/PADIA.
The city’s economic fate was sealed with the rise of President Ḥāfiẓ al-Asad in 1970 and the centralization of political and commercial power in Damascus, especially after the “events” of 1982 (spoken of, if at all, simply as “al-aḥdāth”), when Islamist insurrections in Aleppo and Hama were violently repressed (Van Dam 1996: 89–94, 111–17). Compared to Damascus, Aleppo has nearly as large a population as the capital but has not received as much investment in infrastructure or its fair share of development programs, according to many Aleppine intellectual figures. They claim that this is a form of punishment for the earlier “events.” Where the city has received attention, it has not always been benign: the destruction of an entire neighborhood for the purpose of building an ugly park featuring a statue of the president; the routing of major thoroughfares through older parts of the city, often bisecting entire neighborhoods and even individual buildings. Today, as Syria struggles to steer an economic course of development in the twenty-first century, increasing divisions between rich and poor, the evaporation of the middle class, and the increasingly Western cultural orientation of the elite means that the chances for the revival of the culture of music making characteristic of the era of the sammī
Music in Aleppo Today
Although its star has faded with the rise of Damascus as the political and economic center of Syria, Aleppo is still considered Syria’s musical capital and retains an active group of musicians and numerous ensembles that perform the urban art music traditions that many refer to as “classical” (klāsīkī) Arab music.20 Each of these groups is based on the so-called takht ensemble or some variation of it, consisting of the qānūn, oud, nāy, riqq, violin, and vocalist. Some add other instruments such as the frame drum (daff), and less often the synthesizer. So-called classical music today tends to be performed in restaurants and night clubs, venues considered less reputable—from the standpoint of the cultural elite and many musicians as well—than the private gatherings, which are fondly remembered by older musicians and even memorialized in television serials today.21
The “classical” tradition of urban art music in Aleppo consists of the genres of the musical suite (waṣla). More than any other city in the contemporary Arab world, Aleppo has made the waṣla the staple of the evening musical gathering (sahra). Aside from the muwashshaḥ, the waṣla includes instrumental pieces (samā
The periodization of Arab-Ottoman music is not precise and it would be misleading to apply the categories of European music to Arab music (Danielson 1997: 14). In some ways, the use of the term klāsīkī reflects modernist concerns for classifying the music and culture and differentiating various genres: popular (sha
The “classical” repertoire derives most of its authority and authenticity from its opposition to the contemporary pop song, which is considered by defenders of tradition to symbolize inauthenticity. These songs, which borrow extensively from the instrumentation and style of Western music, commonly are heard on radios and in taxis and buses around Syria. As the new songs overwhelm the airwaves and cassette shops, they provoke strong emotional responses among critics (see also Danielson 1996). Antagonists refer to the contemporary songs variously as vulgar (hābiṭa), banal (mubtadhala), cheap (rakhīṣa), or—less judgmentally—youthful (shabābiyya). One publisher asserted that they are not only bad, they are dangerous to one’s health (qātila, lit. killer); “they might cause you to have a heart attack due to their quick, repetitive tempos,” he claimed. In many regards, the contemporary pop song has become the foremost symbol of cultural decline and decay for Syrian and other Arab intellectuals; it also has come to serve rhetorically as a negative pole in their aesthetic evaluations of authenticity as the prime exemplar of inauthentic culture—although in practice many intellectuals do in fact listen to and enjoy this music.
Closely related to the “classical” repertoire is that of sacred music. Aleppo has served as an important religious center for Sunni Islam as well as for a variety of Sufi brotherhoods (ṭuruq, sing. ṭarīqa), and it is home to number of Syria’s leading religious singers (munshid-s), who perform varieties of religious song (inshād) at weddings and other celebrations in Aleppo. They also perform at weekly dhikr rituals at Aleppo’s numerous Sufi lodges (zāwiya-s) and in private homes throughout the city.23 The repertoire of the waṣla and dhikr overlap to an extent, and indeed many munshid-s perform “sacred” music in the dhikr as well as “secular” music in concerts of the waṣla. The close relationship between the two musical domains suggests that the distinction between “sacred” and “secular” is not clear-cut in Aleppo (see Shannon 2003b). Moreover, the majority of Aleppo’s major vocalists and musicians have had strong training in religious song; it is commonly argued that training in the dhikr and other varieties of inshād is the best preparation for singing the “secular” repertoire (Danielson 1997: 21–27; Frishkopf 1999). This observation holds true for Aleppo’s large Christian population as well, which has produced a number of fine vocalists and musicians who are skilled in the “classical” repertoire as well as the liturgies of their various congregations. Some Christian artists also have studied Islamic inshād to further their musical training (though I have found little evidence of Muslims attending Christian liturgies to learn their modal practices).
Aleppine musicians claim that the contemporary musical scene is far less active than it was even fifteen or twenty years ago. Yet, many are proud that at least some groups still preserve the tradition through performances and teaching of the older repertoires. Damascus has a far richer cultural scene in terms of overall numbers of concerts, shows, recitals, and exhibitions. Most of the major recording studios are located in Damascus, as well as numerous night clubs and performance venues. However, most musical activity in the capital tends not to be associated with the Arab tradition, as in Aleppo. Many of the concerts and recitals are of European music, for example the annual concerts of the Syrian National Symphony and the numerous recitals at foreign cultural centers, which draw large audiences. Much of the music produced, performed, and recorded in Damascus follows the modern pop styles. One is far more likely to hear a concert in Damascus by the pop icon George Wasoof than by Ṣabāḥ Fakhrī.24
However, Aleppo hosts far more concerts and recitals of the “classical” Arab repertoire. The city has its fair share of