Wandering through Cairo Opera House last year, I came upon an intriguing piano with twice the normal number of keys: each octave was divided into quarter-tones. It had been made in Paris for a rich Egyptian client in the Twenties, and neatly embodied the educated classes’ aspirations at the time: they wanted the developed world to acknowledge the excellence of their music, and this technological wheeze would allow the dominant Western instrument to accommodate the subtleties of their Oriental scales.
It didn’t really work, of course, which is why this prototype was not put into production: the beauty of Arab music lies in its infinite tonal gradations, traditionally best rendered through the fiddle or the voice. Egypt’s indigenous musical tradition has survived into the 21st century unscathed, which should be a matter for rejoicing, since it binds all classes of Arab society - and many Arab nations - together.
In the beginning was the voice. Slaves - initially female, later male transvestite - were employed to entertain travellers and urge warriors into battle; but when Islam arrived in the seventh century, singing was banned as immoral. The solution was an art form which you can still hear today in every Egyptian town - the muezzin call to prayer. This was not officially classed as “music”, but a very refined music was what it indubitably was. The voice still reigned supreme.
Back in the Twenties, Egyptian radio was born to broadcast the fruits of an already thriving record industry; the film industry which grew up in the Thirties further enriched musical life. It threw up stars and stimulated composers to write for them; this was “popular” music, but its roots were still firmly in the classical tradition.
Listen to Cairo Road (NSCD 080), and you’ll sense the sophistication of this culture, and its influence across the whole Arab world. The selection ranges from the sulphurous tones of the great Oum Kalthoum, whose voice has been broadcast across Arab-Israeli battle-lines, to Farid Elatrache, Egypt’s first singer-film star, and the Syrian Sabah Fakhri, who still holds the Guinness record for the longest non-stop singing performance - 10 hours.
Michael Church
