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Munir Bashir, ( ar, منير بشير, syr, ܡܘܢܝܪ ܒܫܝܪ) (1930 – September 28, 1997) was an Iraqi Assyrian musician and one of the most famous musicians in the Middle East during the 20th century and was considered to be the supreme master of the Arab
maqamat scale system.
He created different styles of the Arabian
Oud
, image=File:oud2.jpg
, image_capt=Syrian oud made by Abdo Nahat in 1921
, background=
, classification=
* String instruments
*Necked bowl lutes
, hornbostel_sachs=321.321-6
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded with a plectrum
, ...
. He was one of the first middle eastern instrumentalists known to Europe and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Bashir's music is distinguished by a novel style of
improvisation
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
that reflects his study of Indian and European tonal art in addition to oriental forms.
[Colors of Enchantment: Theater, Music and the Visual Arts of the Middle East, By Sherifa Zuhur, 2001] Born in Iraq, he had to deal with numerous disruptions of violent coup attempts and multiple wars that the country went through. He would eventually exile to Europe and first became notable in
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
.
Life
Early life
Munir Bashir was born in
Mosul
Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second large ...
, situated in northern
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
to an Assyrian Christian family. According to different references he was born in a period of time from 1928 to 1930. His father Abd al-Aziz and his brother
Jamil Jamil ( ar, جميل) is an Arabic given name. It means "handsome" in Arabic as well as "beautiful". The Latin spelling variants include Gamil (used mainly in Egypt), Cemil (in Turkish), Djemil or Djamel (mainly in North African countries influence ...
had good reputations as oud-soloists and vocalists; Jamil wrote an important textbook for the oud. The family started musically educating young Bashir at his age of five, Bashir's father began to instruct him and his older brother Jamil in the basics of oud. His father, who was also a poet believed that a pure tradition of Arab music had devolved in
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
.
He first learned to play the
violoncello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D ...
, a European instrument that had become a popular bass-instrument in
Arabian music during the end of the 19th century. He simultaneously was taught playing the oud. The lute plays a similar role in Arabian music as the piano does in European music: it is the instrument used to impart the most important theoretical aspects in music.
Due to a blend of many different styles and traditions there is a rich musical history in northern Iraq. In this milieu Bashir came in contact with
Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
,
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
,
Assyrian
Assyrian may refer to:
* Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia.
* Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire.
** Early Assyrian Period
** Old Assyrian Period
** Middle Assyrian Empire
** Neo-Assyrian Empire
* Assyrian ...
,
Turkish,
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, and traditional
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
ian music.
Moving to Baghdad
At the age of six talented Bashir was sent to the
Baghdad Conservatory The Baghdad Conservatory is a music conservatory in Baghdad, Iraq . Hanna Petros founded the institution in 1936.
The conservatory has produced such famous oud players as Munir Bashir and Jamil Bashir, Salman Shukur and Ghanim Haddad. The maqam ...
, founded 1934 by the distinguished Turkish musicologist
Scharif Muhyi ad-Din Haydar Targan (1892–1967). Already during his studies, but especially after his degree, Bashir paid his attention to documenting and preserving the traditional musical styles of his country. Due to the turbulent Iraqi history and other reasons these styles were overridden by "Western" ones, especially commercial ones.
In 1951, Bashir took a teaching assignment at the new founded
Académie des Beaux-Arts
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
in Baghdad, besides his editorial work for the Iraqi broadcasting.
[The Musical Legacies of Sayyid Makkawi, Munir Bashir and Walid Akel, by Sami Asma]
/ref>
Exploring outside of Iraq
Bashir always had an ambivalent relationship to his country: On the one side he felt deeply rooted in the rich cultural heritage of Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
, on the other side the Iraq had no phases of inner stability during the musicians lifetime. Especially the 1950s and 1960s – the last years of the Hashemite
The Hashemites ( ar, الهاشميون, al-Hāshimīyūn), also House of Hashim, are the royal family of Jordan, which they have ruled since 1921, and were the royal family of the kingdoms of Hejaz (1916–1925), Syria (1920), and Iraq (1921 ...
monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic (constitutional monarchy) ...
and a time of military coups following the fall of Faisal II. in 1958 – forced Bashir to work abroad.
His reputation had already arrived in Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
, therefore he was contracted as an accompanyist and also as a "star-soloist" by the legendary Lebanese chanteuse Fairuz
Nouhad Wadie' Haddad ( ar, نهاد وديع حداد, ; born November 21, 1934), known as Fairuz ( ar, فيروز, ; also spelled Fairouz, Feyrouz or Fayrouz), is a Lebanese singer. She is considered by many as one of the leading vocalists a ...
immediately when he arrived at the Lebanese capital in 1953. He got to know US and Latino American popular music but intensified his attempts of investigating Middle Eastern musical traditions. Due to his profound musicological knowledge he gained teaching assignments at the musical colleges of Baghdad and Beirut.
The years 1953 and 1954 marked the beginning of Bashir's career as an instrument virtuoso. His first concert as a soloist took place 1953 in Istanbul
Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...
, in the next year the 24-year-old was featured in Iraqi television. 1957 he started several tours leading him to most of the European countries. The difficult political status of his country and the resulting problematic working parameters for musicians forced him to leave the country permanently.
Budapest
After a sojourn in Beirut, Bashir settled down in Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
in the beginning 1960s, where he established a place of residence until his death. He married a Hungarian, his son Omar
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ( ar, عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, ) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate o ...
was born 1970 in the Hungarian capital. His son went on to be a musician as well. This city was attractive for the Iraqi not only because of its status as European music metropolis, but for giving him the opportunity to study at the '' Franz Liszt Conservatory'' under supervision of Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music ed ...
, where he did his doctorate in musicology in 1965. Kodály had rendered outstanding services to the preservation of traditional Hungarian songs in collaboration with Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...
. This well corresponded to Bashir's aims and methods concerning his engagement for traditional folk music of his home country.
After Kodály's death in 1967 Bashir spent some time in Beirut again. But he was repelled by the development of the Arabian music, which was marked by progressive degeneration and commercialisation, due to the incompetent and uncritical dealing with western influences. Considering, that the popular chanters were responsible for these trends, he refused to take engagements from them.
Messenger of Iraqi music
In 1973, the Iraqi ministry of information appointed Bashir to its culture committee; the regime of the Baath party was not well established at that time and made Bashir to a cultural figure of integration of the Christian minority. Also because of his international popularity, Bashir, who rather presented himself apolitical, seemed to be a suited personality for representing the different ethnic, religious, and political groups of his home country. In 1981 – Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
was already in power and the actual forces passing over to the Sunnites – the regime also supports the formation of Bashir's '' Iraqi Traditional Music Group'' that dedicates itself to the diversity of the Iraqi culture.
In 1987 – during the Iran–Iraq War
The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council ...
– Bashir succeeded in realising a long-cherished project: For the first time the '' Babylon International Festival of dance, music, and theatre'', which Bashir was leading for several years, took place.
But Bashir himself rarely spent his time in Baghdad and finally left the country after the First Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
in 1991. Guest performances mainly in Europe offered him a big open-minded audience, and therefore an excellent platform for the presentation of his meanwhile very original and mature style of improvisation and composition. Most of his records were also recorded in Europe. In his last years he aimed at making his son Omar his musical successor. A duo-recording of Bashir and Omar made in February 1994 is considered to be a classic of Bashir's Œuvre, because of its exemplary combination of traditional – mainly folk – material mixed with improvisation.
Munir Bashir died of heart failure in 1997 in Budapest at the age of 68, a short time before his planned departure to his Mexican tour.
Instrumental style
General characteristics
In the long history of the oud, Munir Bashir is one of the most important players. His style noticeably differs from other oud-players, for example from the urban “showmanship” in the “typical Egyptian” style of Farid Al Attrach
Farid al-Atrash ( ar, فريد الأطرش; October 19, 1916 – December 26, 1974), also written Farid El-Atrache, was a Syrian-Egyptian composer, singer, virtuoso oud player, and actor. Having immigrated to Egypt at the age of only nine ...
, or from the heavily jazz-oriented music of Lebanese Rabih Abou-Khalil, who is very popular in Europe.
Especially in the field of soloistic improvisation ( taqsīm) over the common scales
Scale or scales may refer to:
Mathematics
* Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points
* Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original
* Scale factor, a number w ...
( maqām) in Arabian music, his colleagues considered him to be an unsurpassed master. It surely attributes to Bashir's pioneering work, that nowadays oud-players are able to give solo-concerts all over the world.
But during his musical development he fought against the cliché, that the oud is the oriental equivalent to the condescendingly smiled at western "campfire guitar".
Tunings
In many musical idioms it belongs to the tradition of stringed instruments
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the st ...
to work with different tunings, adapted to the demands of the piece of music. Therefore, it is not surprising, that Bashir experimented with a lot of tunings. A common tuning of the Arabian oud – "Arabian" in contrast to the almost identical Turkish instrument, that has a slightly different history – is:
audio sample
In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion (or sample) of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sounds or entire bars of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up or ...
Based on older traditions of the Iraqi oudist-school (for example the one of his older brother) Munir Bashir developed a typical tuning, that is named after him:
Noticeable is the doubling of the actual "highest"
course in F by another one, that is higher, but is tuned one octave lower. This trick enables a special full sound of the high melody course and complies with Bashir's interest in melodic forms.
Another tuning of this kind was developed by members of the Bashir family: The player uses an F-course on the bass strings, tuned another octave lower as in the above-mentioned example; optional two F-strings can be put on, tuned in an octave-interval. Using this special tuning the melody course in the center of the fingerboard is framed by the bass courses. Tuned this way the oud has a really full sound and enables unusual melodies, but such a complex tuning system makes high demands on the picking and stopping techniques of the musician.
Picking technique
As with other instruments of the lute-family (among such different instruments like the
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
and the
sitar
The sitar ( or ; ) is a plucked stringed instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent, used in Hindustani classical music. The instrument was invented in medieval India, flourished in the 18th century, and arrived at its present form in ...
) the player makes the sound by picking the strings with a
plectrum
A plectrum is a small flat tool used for plucking or strumming of a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick and is held as a separate tool in the player's hand. In harpsic ...
(pick). The Arabian term for the pick is ''reesha'', which originally was made of a pinfeather of an
eagle
Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...
. One impressive aspect of Bashir was the precision of his risha. His style emphasized a clean risha, while most other oud players have a heavy risha. The ''reesha'' is held in the palm of one's hand, resulting in a difficultly learnable picking technique; furthermore the doubled strings have a less controllable attack than single strings.
Therefore, the inevitable rhythmic reliability in fastest, asymmetric accented, melodies is a special trademark of virtuosos. Generalizing: Arabian music is much more interested in rhythmical patterns that are more complex than European ones. Bashir's virtuosity of picking can easily be understood, when he shows his ability to apply the abovementioned scordatura, with its string pairs tuned in octaves, in an improvisation in the fast 10/8
metre
The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...
, without the immense stopping problems of this method becoming hearable.
Bashir's dealing with foreign musical forms appears also in his experiments with alternative picking techniques. He made the
fingerpicking
Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of guitar picking, playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with ...
, cultivated on the guitar – especially in
flamenco
Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and ...
– to an essential attribute of his mature style. But after a few experiments, he gave up using a thumb-plectrum (''
mezrab'') that he got to know during his studies of the Indian sitar.
Ornamentation
Bashir's preferred improvisational type, the ''taqsim'' improvisation pulls its attractiveness out of the intelligent and strictly regulated ornamentation of melodies or familiar melodic fragments. Therefore, a ''taqsim'' evolves out of different, but no less artful criteria, than in modern
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
, where an improvisation takes place inside of a relatively strict metric, harmonic, and formal raster. But similar to jazz-improvisation, some distinct patterns can be assigned to their originator. On this note, a connoisseur of Arabian music is able to recognize a lot of "bashirisms", analogue to a jazz-fan, who undoubtedly identifies the influence of
Louis Armstrong
Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...
or
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...
in special melodic phrases.
Expansion of the ambitus
As mentioned above, the oud belongs to the family of short scale
lute
A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted.
More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...
s. The widest
interval that can be stopped between the open string and the end of the fingerboard is a
fifth (quint); though it is possible to play wider intervals on the same string by stopping tones on the top of the corpus. Although Bashir has not invented this slightly unorthodox technique, he has integrated it into his style in an exemplary manner.
Also, before Bashir, the usage of
flageolets did not belong to the traditional playing techniques of the oud, even though this technique actually is characteristic for stringed instruments.
Foreign influences
Bashir's occasionally polemic engagement for the authentic means of expression of Arabian music not only resulted from a rigorous inner view. He was a comprehensive educated and interested musician, who showed a notedly open-mindedness for non-Arabian styles in his lifetime; whereas he paid special attention to European and northern Indian (
Hindu music
Hindu music is music created for or influenced by Hinduism. It includes Indian classical music, Kirtan, Bhajan and other musical genres. Raagas are a common form of Hindu music in classical India.
The most common Hindu bhajan in North India is " ...
.)
This profound knowledge enabled him to incorporate foreign influences into his music not as incoherent quotations, but to include them in a convincing way.
Bashir's working mode is pointed out with an extra spectacular example: His composition ''Al-Amira al-Andaluciyya'' (“The Princess of Andalusia”), that can be heard on the duo-recording of Bashir and his son Omar, has an opening motif that is very unusual for its Arabian context.
audio sample
In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion (or sample) of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sounds or entire bars of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up or ...
The C-major arpeggio (motif a) that opens the piece would be an extra banal phrase in European music, but played on the oud it represents a totally unusual musical gesture, because there are no such major triads of that form used in Arabian music. Then the playing around the note C (motif b) points to the musical connotation (
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...
, for centuries a province of the
caliphate
A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
, and homeland of the
flamenco
Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and ...
), that was intended by the composer. With the help of only two notes (D and B) the major triad changes into the
Phrygian mode
The Phrygian mode (pronounced ) can refer to three different musical modes: the ancient Greek ''tonos'' or ''harmonia,'' sometimes called Phrygian, formed on a particular set of octave species or scales; the Medieval Phrygian mode, and the modern ...
that is very typical for the flamenco, whereas the tremolo-like ornamentation of the leading D supports this effect. Then the line descending to G (motif c) establishes the key for the further improvisations. This key is called ''maqam Hijaz Kar Kurd'' and has the following (simplified) structure:
audio sample
In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion (or sample) of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sounds or entire bars of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up or ...
The asymmetric setup of this scale requires a different leading of the ascending and descending melody lines, and is well suited for flamenco-like improvisations, because the flamenco style is characterized by a typical ambivalent and unstable reference to the major/minor-tonality. The last one naturally is unknown to Arabian music that has no harmony.
During the progressing improvisations Bashir uses another virtuosity effect by playing many
chords. These so-called
rasgueado
Rasgueado (also called Rageo (spelled so or Rajeo), Rasgueo or Rasgeo in Andalusian dialect and flamenco jargon, or even occasionally Rasqueado) is a guitar finger strumming technique commonly associated with flamenco guitar music. It is also use ...
s are an indispensable element of style of the flamenco guitar. But on the
fretless
A fretless guitar is a guitar with a fingerboard without frets, typically a standard instrument that has had the frets removed, though some custom-built and commercial fretless guitars are occasionally made.
The classic fretless guitar was fir ...
oud it is very difficult to
intonate them correctly.
Influences and reception
Relevance for Arabian music
Munir Bashir emerged into the scene at a time that was anything but fortunate for Arabian music. Because of his professional experiences he was more conscious of these difficulties than many of his colleagues, who often tended towards retreating into niches or more or less resignedly accepting these conditions.
Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis, (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near E ...
, the British historian, refers to the musician as an example of a Middle Eastern, who has understood to meet the influence of the Western culture on the basis of equal collaboration. Bashir sought and found new possibilities of musical expression by standing up for the traditions of "his" music and by dealing with older forms.
On a more technical level, Bashir put his improvisations in the context of ''maqamat'', which were never used outside of Iraq, or which fell into obscurity during the 20th century.
Criticism
Bashir's integration of foreign elements of style led to a lack of understanding and criticism of the traditionalists. As reported by the music journalist Sami Asmar, Bashir was accused of chumming up to his western audience by preferentially making music in extra simple ''maqamat''. It was explicitly stated that Bashir abuses the ''maqamat Rast'' and ''Shadd Araban'' that way.
Indeed, it is right, that ''maqam Rast'' is a very basic scale in Arabian music, comparable to C-Major in western music. For western listeners this tonality – approximately the
Dorian scale with quartertone intervals – is anything else but catchy. In ''Shadd Araban'' it is the use of two 1½ intervals, that makes the scale abstractly sounding for western ears.
Apart from the sparsely convincing assumptions on which these criticisms are based, those are not supported by Bashir's recordings. In these recordings there are no signs of a preference for the aforementioned scales, and there is no evidence for other behaviour at Bashir's live performances. In contrast it is more easily verifiable that Bashir preferred even such scales, which enabled huge melodic freedom, and which implicate a strong tonal ambivalence for the European ear that is used to harmony – as shown above for the ''Hijaz Kar Kurd''.
Honours
Bashir, especially in his latter years, received international honors for his musical opus and his engagement for the dialog of cultures. Amongst others he was vice president of the
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
International Music Council
The International Music Council (IMC) was created in 1949 as UNESCO's advisory body on matters of music. It is based at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris, France, where it functions as an independent international non-governmental organization. Its p ...
,
knight of the French
Legion of Honour
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...
, and secretary general of the Arabian music academy in Baghdad.
Discography
* Récital a Genève – Solo de Luth "Oud"
* Munir Bashir & the Iraqi Traditional Music Group
* Maqamat
* En Concert a Paris (Live in Paris)
* Meditations
* Flamenco Roots
* Concert in Budapest
* Raga Roots
* Oud Around the Arab World
* The Stockholm Recordings
* Duo de 'Ud (with Omar Bashir)
* L'Art du 'Ud (The Art of the Ud)
Literature
* Sami Asmar: ''The Musical Legacies Of Sayyid Makkawi, Munir Bashir and Walid Akel.'' in: ''Al-Jadid. A Review and Record of Arab culture and arts.'' Los Angeles 4.1998, H 23.
*
Habib Hassan Touma Habib Hassan Touma ( ar, حبيب حسن توما) (12 December 1934 – 10 August 1998) was a Palestinian composer and ethnomusicologist, born in Nazareth, who lived and worked for many years in Berlin, Germany. Touma authored a number of book ...
(1996). ''The Music of the Arabs'', trans. Laurie Schwartz. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. .
See also
*
Omar Bashir
*
Jamil Bachir
Jamil Bachir or Bashir ( ar, جميل بشير; b. Mosul, Iraq, 1920; d. London, September 24, 1977) was an Iraqi musician and expert oud player. The Iraqi Music Institute was opened in 1936, under administration of Hanna Petros (1896–1958), the ...
References
External links
Music theory, biography
Munir Bashir International FoundationWebsite of the oud-expert Dr. David Parfitt
Comprehensive website about the oudExcellent, easy to understand introduction of Arabian music theoryEncyclopedia of the OrientSaramusik
Audio samples
Excerpt of the duo-improvisation with Omar over the folk-song''Fog en-Nakhel''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bashir, Munir
1930 births
1997 deaths
Iraqi oud players
People from Mosul
Hungarian people of Iraqi descent
Iraqi Christians
Iraqi Assyrian people