The Asil Ensemble has finally made it to Cairo with its first concert in Egypt after the release of their album Roubaiyat Al-Khayyam in Lebanon this summer – an album touted as a landmark in the development of Arabic music.
In Azhar Park’s Geneina theater last week, the ensemble gathered the oud (lute), the nay (reed flute), the rik (percussion), alongside an inshad (recitation) group, and played selections from Persian poet Omar Al-Khayyam’s quatrains, around which the album was conceptualized.
The general philosophy on which the ensemble based itself was a simple one: the region’s musical tradition is so rich that it can be capitalized on and developed from within. This founding philosophy runs in the name of the ensemble itself. Asil is Arabic for genuine or authentic. Founded in 2003, Asil started off exploring the music traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean region marked with two golden eras of music: the Abbassid era and the second half of the 19th century.
Renowned oud player Mustafa Said, the artist behind the concept of the new album, said he had two objectives: “An attempt to remind [the public] this region’s [history] of freedom of thought, open-mindedness and cultural diversity which were the main reason behind the flourishing of this civilization.
He explained that this can be represented through the quatrains of Al-Khayyam. The second objective is to complete “what our predecessors have started, namely reopening the doors of ijtihad [interpretation] and developing music from inside, a thrust which the region possesses in terms of an honorable music tradition that allows for interpretation and self-development.
This realization of potential of Eastern music and the infinite sources of inspiration it provides, especially since it is rooted in improvisation-based traditions, does not necessarily refute other traditions. All group members are in fact knowledgeable of the Western experience and appreciate its development. However, the moment it is identified with the colonial power that has to prevail over indigenous traditions, a step back had to be taken.
The album followed Said’s thorough readings of Al-Khayyam’s translated quatrains by Ahmad Al-Safi Al-Najafi, a modern Iraqi poet who has produced one of the most accurate Arabic translations of the quatrains amongst the 15 available ones.
For Said, delving into the world of Al-Khayyam was an empowering motivation for developing his music from inside. “It was not difficult to understand the depth of the intellect of this character, his culture, his civil thought, his profound and audacious vision, his asceticism and his attempts to find answers for many questions encountered by the human soul, despite what it cost him in terms of clashes, says Said.
The Nishapur-born and widely celebrated scientist and traveler, was called “the symbol of time. Although the quatrains did not gain fame until 200 years after Al-Khayyam’s death and although he was recognized as a poet only amongst his circles of friends and acquaintances, his work is now regarded as a landmark of world literature from the region.
In the concert, the ensemble played a wasla (musical piece) around one of the quatrains where the poet reminds us how love is everyone’s aspiration.
In another wasla, a quatrain brings out the poet’s wonders about how time and destiny run against each other, leaving humankind to face a rather slow life and quick death. In the same wasla, another composition was played around a quatrain where the poet encourages people to live life without worrying because time and age are lost quickly.
The wealth of meanings embedded in the words and language of Al-Khayyam elevated listeners beyond a world of earthly trivialities. And nothing could convey those words better than the vocal performance of Ihab Younis, whose recitation fell in the same spirit of the concert. Seated on cushion on the floor, perhaps to reproduce the simplicity of the era from which the music originated, all musicians spoke well to each other and around Younis’ blissful recitation: Said on the oud, Mohamed Antar on the nay and Khalid Abu Hijazy on the rik.
Behind this performance stands an innovative music initiative, manifested in two forms: improvisations on composed pieces and instant improvisation of other works through vocal recitation and instrumental taqsim.
The concept of the concert and the album represents an interesting utilization of different components of eastern Mediterranean heritage, from poetry that spoke to the world about love, to music that celebrated the power of improvisation. However, it is not a concept merely nostalgic of past legacies and not a heritization process that simply commemorates the artistic values of another era. It is a rather a much-needed effort to bring this heritage to today’s world by today’s youth, to form a dialogue with it, perhaps contest it and most importantly, to move it forward.
