This work attempts to elevate Arabic music to a level that allows it to express profound human emotions, not by mere performance, but by empowering the music to mature and develop into a universal language of expression.

In this work I have attempted to instill a new spirit in Arabic music to permit it to rise to the level of notable world music that has been inspired by local popular music. The motivation behind this work is not purely aesthetic, nor is it only an urge for the music to express itself, but rather it is a desire to observe and depict the everyday life around me.

I tried to express the Arab milieu through a new musical harmony, and through rhythms and maqams (complex musical scales) that would draw near or far to be in unison with the soul and spirit of Arabic music. I did not try to accomplish that by imitating the popular musical heritage, but by carefully studying the structure and performance of Arabic music with all its elements such as tarab, mawwal, etc.

It was important to me to express through this work the tunes of life, the tunes I remember from my early childhood when I used to listen to various forms of music and song.

Also, I realize that all those musical forms had been fully developed before they arrived in Europe.  Ziryab had laid the foundations and established the first music school and a school to train music teachers so that they would spread his methods in al-Andalus. This had then inspired the kings of Europe to write to the Caliphs requesting that their children be in the Arabic music schools because “the darkness we live is in need of light from you.”

Those musical forms arrived in Europe from Spain through the troubadours.  Subsequently, the muwashah was transformed into Lied.  The structure of the Arabic dowr resembles that of the sonata, and the Andalusian nouba became an instrumental suite, and later a ballet suite.

Let the voices and instruments sway and dance, and with the language of music, let them paint the deserts of the East with the brilliance of al-Andalus until eventually they would form a musical work full of images, people and life that would take its deserved place in international human culture.

-- Marcel Khalife

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