Historical Perspectives on Andalusian Music

There is a popular version on the CD Jalilah's Raks Sharki 3: Journey of the Gipsy Dancer and a Spanish language rendition on Radio Tarifa's Rumba Argelina. Flamenco guitarist Juan Martin also does a version on Musica Alhambra as does the popular singer from Athens, Greece, Savina Yannatou. Yannatou writes in the liner notes to her CD Mediterranea that "Lama Bada: is "a fragment of an Arab-Andalusian naoubah [nouba], a musical form introduced to Cordoba and Grenada from Baghdad in the 9th century, and later, when the Moors left Spain, carried to North Africa. This particular song is a mouachchah, a type of song whose favorite themes are love and drinking." I have seen this song vaguely referred to as "pre-fourteenth century," so it is interesting that Yannatou attaches a more specific date to it. Perhaps this song is connected to the musician Ziryah, ("the blackbird") who was born in Iraq in 789 and arrived in Cordoba in 822 and who "is traditionally credited with the written rules governing the interpretations of the Noubas and the manner in which concerts should be performed" (Paniagua 7). A member of ethnomusicologists who study this period see Ziryab as having had a singular, profound and lasting influence on Andalusian culture and musical theory, and consequently, on music around the Mediterranean basin.

I would like to qualify that previous statement by saying a few brief words about the cultural climate of medieval Spain and the eventual Catholic reconquista at the end of the fifteenth century. The history of Arab presence in Spain is well known. During the Middle Ages the majority of Spain was referred to as Al Andalus, after the arrival of the Arabs in 711, who went on to establish a centralized bureaucratic government in the South (Hourani 41-2). Arabs and Berbers migrated to Spain in large numbers during this time, living alongside Sephardic Jews and Christians. The Sephardim are said to have been in the Iberian Peninsula since Roman times (Ivanoff 5).
Vladimir Ivanoff writes that:
"In 589 Christianity was declared the official state religion by the ruling western Goths. Exercising repression in the form of forced baptism and death threats, these new Christians forced thousands of Jews to leave the Iberian peninsula. As a result, those Jews who remained behind viewed the Islamic conquest of Spain in the year 711 more as a liberation than a threat. In the Muslim state order Jews had the opportunity of rising to high positions in the government and administration." (5)

The unique culture of Al Andalus endured for almost 800 years, ending with the Catholic reconquista (re-conquest) of Spain which began to take hold in the 13th century and was completed on the 2nd of January, 1492 with the defeat of Grenada, the last Arab stronghold. When Arabs and Jews were expelled from Al Andalus en masse during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, many of them relocated to North Africa and elsewhere in the Mediterranean basin, taking their musical traditions with them. It is no surprise then that living musical history from this time period can be found in such diverse places as Algeria, Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon, in the form of classical Arab-Andalusian music and poetry and Sephardic songs and liturgical chants, many of them very close to their original forms. Fragments of the once flourishing Arab civilization, left a lasting mark in Spain as well, especially in the more visible forms of ornate mosques and palaces but also very importantly, in the musical forms and structures, and the instruments themselves. For example, the "Oriental" oud is said to be the ancestor of the European guitar. Because of this rich cultural heritage, it is also no surprise that today, artists ;from within Spain are exploring the roots of their country's civilization and artists outside of Spain are looking back to a country their ancestors once called home.

La rosa enflorese
(15th c. Sephardic love song)

La rosa enflorese
        The rose blooms
En el mez de mayo
        In the month of May
Y mi alma se oscurese
        And my soul grows dark
D'estar en este mal
        To be in such pain

Los bibilicos cantan
        The nightingales sing
Sospiran del amor
        They whisper of love
Y la passion me mata
        And passion is killing me
Muchigua mi dolor
        Multiplying my pain

La rosa enflorese
        The rose blooms
En el mez de mayo
        In the month of May
Y mi alma se oscurese
        And my soul grows dark
Sufriendo delamo
        Suffering from love

Los bibilicos cantan
The nightingales sing
En el arbol de la flor
On the flowering tree
Debajo se asentan
Beneath it sit
Los que sufren del amor
Those who suffer from love

References and Works Cited

Atrium Musicae de Madrid. Dir. Gregorio Paniagua, Musique Arabo-Andalouse,
Harmonia Mundi, France, 1976
Ensemble Sarband, Dr. Vladimir Ivanoff, Sephardic Songs of the Spanish Jews
in the Mediterranean and the Ottoman Empire. Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, 1996
Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. New York: Warner Books, 1991
Martin, Juan. Musica Alhambra. Flamencovision, 1996.
La Nef. Music for Joan the Mad: Spain 1479-1555. Dorian Discovery, 1995.
Yannatou, Savina. Mediterranea: Songs of the Mediterranean. Sounds True. 1998

Elena M. Villa is a doctoral candidate at the University of Oregon, where she teaches courses in Comparative Literature. She has studied Flamenco and Middle Eastern Dance since childhood, and teaches classes in both dance forms. She often performs with Americanistan, the Middle Eastern Dance Guild of Eugene, and elsewhere.