According to the French writer and philosopher Michel Leiris, music, of all the arts, is the one which touches the senses most directly, permitting one to move into a state of rapture, of ecstasy, or to be seized with that state of transportation which the Greek philosophers called "enthusiasm". What gives music its power is the fact that it develops in the dimension of time. It expresses an experience of time, as if each of its instants gained meaning only in the light of the following instant, in a succession of moments linked together in a predetermined order. Al-Kindi, who died in 873 and was the first Arab philosopher to write about music, said that it "expands, contracts and calms the movements of the soul." On the other hand, the celebrated Arab musicologist, al-Farabi, born in 872, put forward a purely physio-psychological theory of music: "Men and animals," he said, guided by their instincts, utter sounds which vary with the emotions... Conversely, these sounds, these notes, will arouse the same passions, the same states of mind in the listener..."
Arab-Andalusian music, a unique art form, the love and knowledge of which are transmitted entirely by oral tradition, is not played in Morocco in concert halls, but is performed at festivities, often at family gatherings, where the traditional songs are sung. In this living creation, moving like the sands of the desert, the musician is guided by a master or by the musical community which each year is present at Fez or at Oudja.
The texts, set to music, were written between the eighth and 15th centuries in classical Arabic form. This classical Arabic, hardly understood by the population at large, is still highly appreciated in Moroccan cultural circles. As for mystical poetry, often connected with Sufism, this is sung outside the mosques, inside which is no singing, unlike the case in the synagogues, where piyyutim (liturgical songs or poems) are part of the ritual. Various themes courtly love, devotional celebrations of the Prophet or of Islam, descriptions of the gardens of Andalusia, of Seville, Granada and the River Guadalquevir, or the nostalgia of the expelled Arabs for Andalusia, which parallels the poignant aspirations of Sephardi Jews were treated by the great Andalusian poets, either in classical Arabic (muwasha, a poetic form originating in Andalusia but formulated in classical Arabic), or in the Andalusian dialect of the period, zajal. The Moroccan Ministry of Culture has recorded the whole of the 14 musical modes (originally 24, each corresponding to an hour of the day), interpreted by great masters.
At the Alhambra, Granada, one sees carved on the walls these poems written by the poets as a result of their experience in Spain, whose words, transmitted by the Arab-Andalusian music, are still familiar to the Moroccans of today. The whole Arab-Andalusian musical and modal system, like the Jewish music of the Golden Age, bears the marks of cross-fertilization. The first Arab dynasties in Spain arrived there with their own specific cultural baggage: a great composer expelled by Harun el-Rashid found refuge in the court at Cordoba. The Iraqi school of lute-playing was so much influenced by Persian music that certain modes had Persian names. In addition, one can find Byzantine, Persian, Spanish and even Latin musical influences.
The Jewish poets wrote in Arabic and Hebrew, using the same poetic structures. Rabbi David Buzaglo, an Israeli cantor, wrote piyyutim in Hebrew and Arabic, and sometimes with alternate Hebrew and Arabic versions (known as matruz, "embroidery"), mystical religious texts of his own composition sung in the modes of the Spanish Golden Age. In the Israeli Sephardi community, only those who came into contact with the great poets (paytanim) have preserved a Hebrew tradition. As in Moroccan Arab-Andalusian music, the instruction is essentally oral and is passed on by ear from generation to generation. The paytan Emile Zrihen, for instance, uses all the Arab-Andalusian modes and melodies. In Algeria in 1927, a Jewish musicologist, Yafil Edmonde Natan, made a compilation of Andalusian sung poetry in all the surviving modes, with a phonetic transcription in Hebrew. Rabbi Attia compiled an Andalusian Sephardi musical anthology in which Arabic poetry in Hebrew letters was complemented by original Hebrew poetry adapted to the modal system. When there was a difference of opinion concerning a note or a musical nuance, the Arab musicians would ask Rabbi Buzaglo, who lived in Morocco until 1962, to decide. Local recordings by Professor Haim Zafrani have preserved the melodies of Buzaglo.
In Israel today, there are two main categories of "ethnic music": the first, represented by Amzalag Avi, for instance, who like a number of Moroccan leaders of ensembles has increased the instrumental element more than is customary in Arab-Andalusian music, and that represented by groups like "Bustan" or "Sfataim", which aim at an Israeli musical synthesis.
Amzalag Avi, born in Casablanca, where his father was a paytan, had a classical training as a flautist at the local academy of music. A passionate enthusiast for "authentic music," he started by forming a group of five musicians, including an oud and a dabouka player, and has recorded hundreds of tapes. A few years ago, he was asked to form an Arab-Andalusian orchestra in Israel. He increased the number of instrumentalists to 35 musicians in which the "ethnic" instrumentalists, who could not sight-read, gave the lead to the "westerners" who could follow the scores. Far from imitating western polyphony, this ensemble aims at a heterophonic form of execution in which different variants of the score are played simultaneously.
Like the noted musical group "Habrera Hativit"* led by Shlomo Bar, the "Bustan" ensemble, which specializes in ethnic music and sets an admirable example of Jewish-Arab coexistence, has produced some unusual musical relationships. Unlike "Habrera Hativit," "Bustan" includes Arab musicians. Their music is an original synthesis, a fusion of cultures and styles which differs from its original components. Almost all of its repertoire is composed by the members of the ensemble, and there is usually a slow maturation in the course of repetition, sometimes starting from the basis of a simple musical idea. The solos are especially important, as, in all oriental music, improvisation lies at its very heart.
A recently-formed group, "Sfataim," from the southern development-town of Sderot, is more at home playing Moroccan popular music, with ethnic motifs adapted to modern rhythms and texts full of nostalgia.
There exists a musical project in which Jewish and Arabic poetry in the same Arab-Andalusian mode and with the same melodies is developed and played. This is a fine way of recalling a golden age in which the two peoples worked and created artistically side by side, with respect for their mutual cultural differences, striving for perfection and displaying a spiritual openness which made possible a dialogue between the two cultures, sisters in yearning and close to each other in the supreme importance given to the texts and in the emphasis on oral instruction.
* Pierrette Missika, a pseudonym for a French-born writer who has lived in Israel since 1966. She is a reviewer, critic, poet and translator of poetry from English and Hebrew to French, and has worked for many years on the French-language edition of The Jerusalem Post.