{"id":517,"date":"2010-01-18T00:23:15","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T04:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/?p=517"},"modified":"2010-01-18T11:46:34","modified_gmt":"2010-01-18T15:46:34","slug":"syrian-classical-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/syrian-classical-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Syrian Classical Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many years ago there was a store in Harvard Square that specialized in Middle-Eastern music. I went in there pretty frequently; the music is close enough to Hindustani tradition that I felt a great aesthetic consanguinity, but different enough that I never knew what was going to happen. I got to know the proprietors casually, and they began recommending items to me when I dropped in.<\/p>\n

One day the primary storekeeper pulled out a CD and said, “You must hear this!” It was “Sacred and Profane Songs of Syria,” <\/a>a recording of Sabri Moudallal, the principal muezzin<\/em> of the Great Mosque at Aleppo, Syria. I was riveted. Amazing breath control, vocal projection that suggested a lifetime of sending sound over long distances…and a level of passion that I’d rarely heard anywhere. So I bought the record, and I bought a subsequent recording, “The Aleppian Music Room”<\/a> a couple of years later.<\/p>\n

Here’s a page with a bio and a photograph<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Moudallal was very old at the time of the recordings. I can only imagine what he sounded like as a young man. Every so often over the years I’ve checked YouTube for some of his music… And today? <\/p>\n

Enjoy. Although the sound on these uploads is pretty crappy, the music is exquisite. The second piece is especially beautiful. Moudallal has some solo interludes about five minutes in; they tear me to shreds every time. Check out the long embellished phrases that begin at 5:47.<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many years ago there was a store in Harvard Square that specialized in Middle-Eastern music. I went in there pretty frequently; the music is close enough to Hindustani tradition that I felt a great aesthetic consanguinity, but different enough that I never knew what was going to happen. I got to know the proprietors casually, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[55,141,140,137],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-middle-eastern-music","tag-muezzin","tag-sabri-moudallal","tag-syrian-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":526,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions\/526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}