Hommage à la Syrie
/ Hespèrion XXI · Jordi Savall
ORIENT-OCCIDENT II •
Raíces & Memoria, vol. XIX
arkivmusic.com |
amazon.com
Alia Vox AVSA 9900
2013
[79:28]
1. أحلى زهرة
ahla zahra [2:38]
la plus belle rose | the most beautiful rose
paroles et musique: Zaqui Naseef |
words and music: Zaki Naseef
Oumeima Khalil – chant
Moslem Rahal (ney), Dimitri Psonis, Waed Bouhassoun (oud), Hakan Güngör (qanun)
Pedro Estevan & Hamam Khairy – percussion
2. سماعي في مقام بياتي
samai maqam bayati [4:21]
Moslem Rahal – ney | Jordi Savall – vielle |Waed Bouhassoun – oud,
Dimitri Psonis | Pedro Estevan (percussion) | Driss El Maloumi (oud) | Wahab Badarne (qanun)
3. Creire m’en fach [2:09]
Pierre Hamon – frestel (flûte de pan médievale)
4. يا فجر لما تطل
ya fajr lamma titull [4:11]
ô aube, lorsque to apparais | o dawn, when you rise
poème traditionnel ·
mélodie de Mustapha Kreideh |
traditional poem, music of Mustapha Kreideh
Waed Bouhassoun – chant
Moslem Rahal (ney) | Dimitri Psonis |
Driss El Maloumi (oud) | Wahab Badarne (qanun) | Pedro Estevan (percussion)
****
5. شوية
shaouia [3:28]
Moslem Rahal (ney) | Pedro Estevan (percussion)
6. Improvisation Oud [3:30]
Driss El Maloumi
7. [7:52]
موال سبعاوي
mawal sab’awi
على العقيقة
‘ala al-‘aqiqa
بيني و بينك
beini wa beinak
Hamam Khairy, Oumeima Khalil & Waed Bouhassoun – chant
Waed Bouhassoun – oud | Dimitri Psonis | Moslem Rahal ( ney) | Pedro Estevan (percussion) | Hakan Güngör (qanun)
8. Isabella [4:16]
Istampitta · Italie mss. Trecento - anonyme
Pierre Hamon – flûte, Michaël Grébil – ceterina, Pedro Estevan – percussion
9. هالأسمر
hal asmar [4:10]
ce brun | oh, you of dark completion
chant traditionell de Damas |
traditional from Damascus
Waed Bouhassoun – chant
Dimitri Psonis | Moslem Rahal ( ney) | Pedro Estevan (percussion) | Driss El Maloumi (oud) | Wahab Badarne (qanun)
****
10. Trotto [3:35]
Jordi Savall | Dimitri Psonis | Hakan Güngör (qanun) | Michaël Grébil (cistre) | Pedro Estevan (percussion) | Pierre Hamon
11. يا مريم البكر
ya mariam al-bikr [3:49]
Ô Vierge Marie | O Virgin Mary
Oumeima Khalil – chant
Waed Bouhassoun (oud) | Dimitri Psonis | Moslem Rahal ( ney) | Hakan Güngör (qanun)
12. غزال
gazal [3:57]
Moslem Rahal (ney) | Hakan Güngör (qanun) | Pedro Estevan & Hamam Khairy – percussion
13. قلق
qalaq [4:38]
في الحجر
التائه لون القلق
La couleur de l'angoisse | The colour of anxiety
Adonis
Waed Bouhassoun – chant
Hakan Güngör (qanun) | Moslem Rahal (ney)
****
14. Cantiga 41: Virgen, madre de nostro Sennor [3:44]
CSM 41
Jordi Savall – rebec, Pedro Estevan – percussion
15. [9:00]
ija mia mi kerida
עת דודים כלה
et dodim kala
lamentation hebraïque d'amour | Hebrew love lament
le temps de la noce est venu, ô ma fiancée | the time for love has come, my bride
Rabino Haim Ben Sahal, Jérusalem, s. X | Rabbi Haim Ben Sahal, Jerusalem, 10th centrury
Lior Elmaleh – chant
Moslem Rahal, Yair Dalal, Dimitri Psonis – santur, Jordi Savall – vielle
Erez Shmuel Mounk & Pedro Estevan – percussions
16. Una pastora [4:34]
Espagne, Mélodie Séfarade. I. Levy, vol. I n. 28
Hakan Güngör (qanun) | Michaël Grébil (cistre) | Dimitri Psonis | Jordi Savall | Pierre Hamon
17. قولوا لها
qulu laha [5:08]
À Damas ("dites-lui") | To Damascus ("tell her")
text / lyrics: Qays ibn al-Moullawwah, surnommé Majnoun Layla (ère pré-islamique)
musique / lyrics: Waed Bohassoun
Waed Bouhassoun | Dimitri Psonis | Moslem Rahal (ney) | Driss El Maloumi (oud) | Wahab Badarne (qanun)
18. Improvisation Ney • Départ [3:23]
Moslem Rahal
Waed Bouhassoun — oud, chant
Lior Elmaleh — chant
Hamam Khairy — chant, riq & sonaja
Oumeima Khalil — chant
Moslem Rahal — ney
Pierre Hamon — flûtes, ney & flûte de pan
Driss El Maloumi — oud
Yair Dalal — oud
Jordi Savall — vielle & rebab
Wahab Badarne — qanun
Hakan Güngör — qanun
Dimitri Psonis — oud, santur & saz
Michaël Grébil — cistre
Pedro Estevan, Erez Shmuel Mounk — def darbukas & riq
Idée et conception du programme : Jordi Savall
Versions musicales des pièces 10, 14 et 16: Jordi Savall
Sélection des musiques syriennes : W. Bouhassoun, H. Khairy, O. Khalil, M. Rahal
Enregistrements réalisés à la Collégiale de
Cardona (Catalogne) le 18 février et les 6, 8 et 9 mai 2013 par
Manuel Mohino
Montage et Masterisation SACD : Manuel Mohino
Organisation et suivi des contacts avec les participants aux enregistrements: Toni Figueras
La Fundació Centre Internacional de Música Antiga
reçoit le soutien du Departement de la Culture de la Generalitat
de Catalunya,
de l'Institut Ramon Llull et du programme « Culture » de l'Union européenne.
Réalisation Éditoriale : Agnès Prunés
Design : Eduardo Néstor Gómez-Scarantino
Au recto : Maqamat 43: Abû zayd et al-hârith arrivant dans
un village. Miniature Arabe du 13e siècle, Bibliothèque
National de France, Paris.
© Album / Dea Picture Library
℗ © 2013 Alia Vox
ORIENT-OCCIDENT II
Homage to the Syrian people
Music of solidarity and texts against oblivion
One of the most tragic flaws of human beings is their great capacity for amnesia,
as Milan Kundera reminds us in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting:
"The assassination of Allende rapidly eclipsed the memory of the
Russian invasion of Bohemia, the bloody massacre in Bangladesh made
people forget Allende, the war in the Sinai Desert drowned the cries of
Bangladesh, the slaughter in Cambodia made people forget Sinai, and so
on and so forth until ultimately everyone completely forgets
everything."
The first collection of music devoted to the dialogue between East and
West began to take shape at the end of 2001 as a search for a spiritual
antidote to amnesia and the dramatic and growing clash of civilizations
of which so much was made at that point in the War in Afghanistan,
which began on 7th October, 2001. It was then that we conceived and
carried out our first Music for Peace project, based on "a possible
dialogue" between EAST and WEST, in which we invited musicians from
Afghanistan and Ken Zuckerman from the United States to take part in a
concert on 10th January, 2002, at the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar
in Barcelona. A New Year's concert dedicated to the memory of all the
victims of conflicts around the world, it was entitled
Músiques per la Pau • Músiques Antigues & Músiques del Món
(Music for Peace, Early Music and Music from around the World) and was
performed by musicians of the Ensemble Kaboul from Afghanistan, Driss
el Maloumi from Morocco and Yair Dalal from Israel, together with the
vocal and instrumental soloists of La Capella Reial de Catalunya and
Hespérion XXI.
We should also remember that just 22 years ago another terrible war
began close to our own part of the world with the cruel siege of the
city of Sarajevo, in which more than 12,000 people were killed and over
50,000 were severely wounded by Serbian troops. At that time, Europe in
particular and the world in general responded with absolute silence and
the more than questionable decision not to intervene in the conflict.
The result was that the fierce siege of the Bosnian capital continued
for another four years (1992-1996). International intervention did not
finally come about until 1995, by which time more than 20 thousand tons
of missiles and shrapnel had permanently scarred the physical and human
geography of the city.
With the present dramatic conflict in Syria, the world once again looks
on paralyzed and totally impotent as an increasingly sectarian and
uncontrolled war reaches ever more unbearable proportions, in which the
massacre of innocent bystanders is constantly escalating. Only a few
days ago, on 21st August, thousands of women and children (more than
1,300 according to sources representing the opposition to Bashar
al-Assad's regime) died of exposure to poison gas. According to the
Secretary General of the United Nations, so far 100,000 people have
died in the conflict, more than six million children have been caused
extreme suffering, 3.1 million young people have been affected by the
conflict, another four million people have been displaced within Syria
and there are two million refugees in neighbouring countries. Today,
everybody is outraged, but words of indignation are no longer enough.
Those responsible must be held accountable and the civilized world must
demand an immediate cessation of all violent action against the
civilian population.
Nelson Mandela reminds us that "to be free is not merely to cast off
one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the
freedom of others." Basically, this second EAST-WEST project was
conceived as an act of solidarity to help raise awareness of the
dramatic conflict and the terrible war of repression suffered by the
Syrian people, sharing musical experience with musicians from Syria and
learning about the history of one of the world's most ancient
civilizations. The idea became a reality on the occasion of the
Christmas Concert Judicii Signum
at the end of 2012 in Barcelona, when we were joined by two
extraordinary guest musicians from that country: the singer and
lutenist Waed Bouhassoun and the flautist (ney) Moslem Rahal. Following
on from that remarkable experience, we decided to invite them to take
part in a number of projects relating to intercultural dialogue, in
particular our Pro Pacem concert in Barcelona on 20th April, 2013,
at which we presented the programme from our
CD book Pro Pacem: Texts, Art & Music for Peace,
in conjunction with Antoni Tàpies, Fatema Mernissi, Edgar Morin,
Raimon Panikkar and musicians from all round the Mediterranean.
Finally, after months of preparation and working together on various
concerts with musicians from Syria, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, Greece,
Morocco and those of the ensemble Hespérion XXI, we have decided
to record and release this stimulating new dialogue between musicians
from East and West with instruments and music from the old Christian
and Jewish Hesperia, the istampitte of medieval Italy, and the songs, improvisations and dances of Syria:
ORIENT-OCCIDENT II is a fervent Homage to the Syrian people and,
once more, aims to provide a meaningful antidote to the amnesia that diminishes our humanity.
The protagonists of this album are musical expressions apparently
distant in time and space, music often forgotten beneath successive
layers of modernism or undervalued because of its uncertain origins:
dances, prayers, songs and laments of rare beauty and intense emotion
which, thanks to their buoyancy, also free us from what can be the
millstone of our roots and our avoidable isolation. These melodies and
rhythms spring from the improvisations on the Oriental ney
and our medieval flutes, from the fascinating chants of a mysterious
and evocative Islam, from the gentle bowstrokes on the rebab and the
steady sound of the Italian lira, from the beats and rhythms of the ouds from
Morocco, Istanbul and Israel, from the sparkling notes picked out the Iranian santur and the Turkish kanun...
all carried along and encompassed by the ever-present, vibrant, magical
pulse of our indispensable ancestral percussions. Thus we have
established a genuine intercultural and spiritual dialogue as a vehicle
of peace and hope, respecting the musical identity and distinctive
culture of "the other": a free dialogue far removed from all
fanaticism, all forms of which are always the product of ignorance and
absolute conviction. The strength of an idea is not built on
convictions alone, but above all thanks to doubt. Graham Greene reminds
us that "doubt is essential to faith" and, in the words of Lesley
Hazleton "Abolish all doubt and what's left is not faith, but absolute
heartless conviction... In short, the arrogance of fundamentalism."
As Amin Maalouf says, "If we are to restore some hope to our
disoriented humanity, we must go beyond a mere dialogue of cultures and
beliefs towards a dialogue of souls. As we stand at the beginning of
the 21st century, that is the irreplaceable mission of art." The
language of music shows us that this dialogue of souls between musical
traditions and musicians of widely differing origins and cultures is
possible, because in spite of our religious and cultural differences,
we can, through the power of music, rebuild the mental and spiritual
bridges destroyed by so many centuries of tragedy, injustice and
fanaticism.
JORDI SAVALL Dublin, 25th August 2013
Translated by Jacqueline Minett
