Tunisian Malouf

The Tunisian malouf is principal the traditional Musique Tunisia. Particular type of the arabo-Andalusian Music, one can regard it as the fruit of a synthesis between the funds cultural clean with this area - formerly called Ifriqiya - and the contributions Andalusian and Eastern.

History

Kairouan, capital of the Aghlabides and first religious city of the country, cultivates towards the end of the 8th century a musical art comparable with that which flowers with Baghdad and its influence extends until Fès (Morocco). This is why musician Ziriab illustrates it, coldly expatriate of Baghdad, in fact a long stage of his voyage towards the Occident (around 830) before being established with Cordoue where it will found the first Andalusian music school. With Ziriab, a specific style will be born in Andalusia, even if because of its origins it remains very marked by the East.

At the 13th century, under the Hafsides, one sees arriving at Tunis some: 8000 Andalusian refugees driven out by the Christians who started the reconquest Spain. They bring with them a musical repertory drawn to the sources of the funds Maghrebian and which grew rich during the centuries spent to Andalusia. The styles and the repertories brought by the Andalusian immigrants are not long being subject to in their turn the local influence and in changing in contact with the autochtones. In this context, the Turkish culture in Tunisia, become province of the Ottoman Empire in 1574, exerts a certain influence. The malouf thus integrates musical forms specific to the Eastern schools then in full rise (Istanbul, Alep, Damas and Cairo) whereas the Tunisian musicians adopt the Oud and the qanûn.

The malouf occupies in the Tunisian musical tradition a privileged place because it includes/understands the whole of the traditional musical inheritance and includes as well the repertory Profane ( hazl ) that the religious repertories ( jadd ) attached to the Liturgie S of different the Confrérie S. It recovers all the forms of traditional traditional song: the Muwashshah, post-traditional kind whose form is detached from the rigid framework of the traditional Qasideh, the Zajal which is connected with the muwashshah but especially made use of the dialectal language, and the shghul , traditional song “elaborate”. But the principal form of the malouf is the spree, term indicating in the beginning the meeting of music and which one can today translate by “musical continuation”.

Spree

According to Al-Tifashi Al-Gafsi (13th century), the spree is composed of the following parts: the nashîd (récitatif), the istihlâl (opening), the `amal (song on a heavy rate/rhythm), the muharrak (song on a light rate/rhythm), the muwashshah and the zajal. If one refers to sheik Muhammad Al-Dharif (14th century), the sprees connected formerly thirteen musical modes different: sikah , dhîl , rmal , asbahân , Maya raml Al , mazmûm , `irâq , hsîn , nawâ , rasd Al-dhîl , mâya , rasd and asba `ayn . It is with Rachid Bey, music lover, oudist and Violon ist, which one must have altered and have fixed the repertory of the Tunisian sprees: it arranges the various parts of them and adds instrumental parts of Turkish inspiration to it. One also allots to him the composition of the major part of the instrumental parts of the sprees, namely the openings ( istiftâh and msaddar ) and the interludes ( tûshiya and fârigha ).

Nowadays, the spree arises as a musical composition built on a mode principal of which it takes the name and formed of a succession of vocal and instrumental parts carried out according to an agreed order. The structure of the Tunisian spree thus highlights various contrasting effects and of symmetry which appear between its parts or within each one of them. Thus, the first part privileges the rate/rhythm binary and the second the ternary rates/rhythms. Each part starts on slow rates/rhythms to finish on sharp rates/rhythms. In the same way, this alternation of slow and lively rates/rhythms can reproduce within the parts themselves.

The sprees draw from the poetic forms of the traditional kind (qasideh) or post-traditional (muwashshah and zajal). The abyat with which the spree starts, generally two, are in Written Arabic. The other sung parts are in Tunisian dialect. The topics of predilection of these poems are the Amour, the Nature, the Vin as well as other topics having milked with the fashionable life. Some khatm tackle religious subjects however, preaching the Piété and beseeching divine leniency. The texts of the sprees are anonymous for the majority.

The sprees are usually carried out by musical small formations including/understanding of the string instruments whose principal ones are the Tunisian oud which differs from the Eastern lute by its more lengthened form and its number of cords, the Rebec with two cords in bowel assembled on a case monoxyle, the Violon introduces as of the 18th century and finally the qanûn. The orchestras also include/understand a Instrument wind, the nay, and percussion instruments: tar, Darbouka and Naghara S. the small formations tend to disappear, yielding the place to more massive orchestras including/understanding about fifteen instrumentalists and ten chorus-singers. The use of the string instruments of European origin beside the traditional instruments and the notation of the music, necessary to the great formations, conferred on interpretation malouf a heart and a dimension news. The sprees, showpieces of the traditional inheritance, are always carried out in the public concerts and at the time of the family festivals, more particularly in urban environment. Cities having known a concentration of Andalusian refugees (like Testour or Soliman) perpetuate this tradition.

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