Iacobus Leodiensis [Iacobus de Montibus, Iacobus de Oudenaerde]

IV. Modern developments

During the second half of the 20th century, traditional music was affected by fundamental changes within Iraqi society. These include significant migration from rural areas to cities, the growth of urbanization and literacy, and a general redistribution of wealth. In the 1970s, traditional music faced difficult changes and challenges.

In 1969 the Ministry of Information and Culture created a new children’s school of music and ballet to exist alongside the old Institute of Fine Arts, which had been established in the 1930s. The aim of the new school was to form a generation of young educated musicians, learning essentially Western music from elementary to secondary levels. In 1971 the Ministry opened the Institute of Iraqi Melodic Studies to provide a six-year training in Iraqi and Arab music.

An attempt to preserve and encourage traditional music led to the creation of the first Centre for Traditional Music in 1971, on individual initiative and hosted by the radio station. It undertook the first-ever documentation and classification of Iraqi music through the systematic collection of field recordings. In 1977 it was annexed by the Ministry of Culture (within the Department of Music, which had been established in 1973). At that time, the Centre for Traditional Music had already recorded, documented and catalogued 4000 audiotapes and assembled a collection of musical instruments and 78 r.p.m. records.

The Department of Music's principal aim was to centralize government policy and gradually regroup existing musical institutions and activities. Cultural policy tended to encourage the establishment of national dance and music troupes. The older Al-Rashid dance group, created with the advent of cinema and theatre, was renamed the National Troupe of Folk Dance. It presented stylized stage performances of Iraq's local folkdances. Similar troupes were established in Basra and Erbil. In 1975 a state traditional music ensemble was founded to represent Iraq's urban rural and Bedouin musics. These various national troupes presented regular concerts at home and in capital cities abroad. One of the most important official achievements of the Department of Music was the establishment in 1977 of a workshop for making lutes (‘ūd).

Besides traditional music, European-style symphonic music was being taught at the Institute of Fine Arts. The National Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1959, began to provide regular concerts of European Classical and Romantic music, and occasional performances of local compositions arranged for orchestra. A few Iraqi composers have been trained in the Western idiom, the most important being Farīd Allahwerdī (b 1924). Pianists Beatrice Ohanissian and Agnes Bashīr have composed some symphonic poems. In 1969 the Ministry of Culture and Information created a children's school of music and ballet to reach Western music from elementary to secondary levels.

Around the 1970s, with the advent of mass media, musicians from remote regions came into contact with many styles of arranged music: Western, popular, Arabic and foreign variety music. Professional musicians and decision-makers saw the acculturation of regional styles as a sign of progress and encouraged it. Songs were less vulnerable to change, but Western instruments or traditional Arab instruments from other regions often replaced local instruments, and the size of small traditional ensembles grew considerably. Harmonization and orchestration were encouraged, although outside media and official circles genuinely original styles prevail.

The musical policy of the 1970s did not foster the traditional transmission of the urban Iraqi maqām music through its great masters. Today patronage of the Iraqi maqām through private concerts has been seriously affected as a consequence of widespread financial impoverishment following the 1991 Gulf War and subsequent economic sanctions. Most of the great masters have died without comparable successors taking their place. In the aftermath of the war, Iraqi maqām specialists withdrew and announced the end of the traditional music. Yet, after its seeming disappearance, it recovered and once again regained its place as an emblem of Iraqi cultural identity.

Since the 1991 Gulf War, an important local popular song movement has emerged. It combines traditional vocal aesthetics with contemporary instrumentarium, including use of electronic instruments. New Iraqi singing stars are considered among the most popular stars in the entire Arab world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

and other resources

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recordings

Musique populaire traditionelle d’Iraq, coll. Vaclav Kubica, OCR 55 RTF (1971)

Iraq: Luth traditionnel – Jamil Bashir, Arabesque 4, EMI Pathe 2C 066 95 160 (1974)

Iraq: Luth classique ‘ud Munir Bashir, Arabesque, Pathe 2C 066 95 &157 (1974)

Irak: Musical Atlas, coll. Habib Hassan Touma, UNESCO, EMI Odeon 3C 064-18370 (1976)

Salman Shukur – Oud, Decca HEAD 16 (1977)

Iraqi Music/Ud, Taqsim and Pasta, King Record Co. KICC – 5103 (1981)

Iraq: ‘Ud classsique arabe par Munir Bashir, OCR 63 (1983)

Irak: Makamat par l’ensemble al tchalghi al baghdadi et Yusuf Omar (chant), coll. S.Q. Hassan, OCR 79 (1985)

Musique savante de Bagdad/Irak, Congrès du Caire, Vol.1, Edition Bibliothèque Nationale-France and the Institut du monde arabe-Paris APN 88–9 (1988)

Le maqam irakien: tradition de Baghdad: hommage à Yusuf Omar, coll. S.Q Hassan, Inedit W 260063 AD 182 (1995)

Irak: les maqams de Baghdad, coll. S.Q. Hassan, Ocora Radio-France C580066 (1996)

Chant de Baghdad al Tchalghi al Baghdad ensemble, sung by Hussein al A’adhami, text by S.Q. Hassan, Musicales, IMA (1996)