Zayin

Arditti String Quartet

ZAYIN BY FRANCISCO GUERRERO   Born in Jaén on the 7th of July 1951, Francisco Guerrero began his musical studies self-taught at the age of six, with the help and advice of his father, who was an excellent teacher. He became a pupil of Juan Alfonso García in Granada and soon showed a precocious talent which led to his receiving the Manuel de Falla Prize in 1970 for his composition Facturas. From his earliest works he shows a particular inclination to investigate the nature of sound to its farthest limits (his interest in electroacoustic technology had begun in the early ...+ info

La Música de Al-Andalus

Ensemble Awtar-Tilimsem

There is a very significant fragment of the poem written by Ismá'il b. Bard when he asked 'Abd al-Hamid b. Basil for a lute, and was given an old instrument:   You were very generous to send me a lute that belonged to the family of al-Waid. Generation after generation mended it with their hands. It is Co me like a lute of mosaic. The spiders wove over it for they thought it a vestige of a building in ruins. This lute is like effaced lines, like the remains of the ink of beautiful calligraphy.   (AI-Kattáni (1029): Kitab al-tasbihiát mi...+ info

La Música de Al-Andalus

Ensemble Al-Ruzafa

Conductor: Hames Bitar

Aleppo: custody of the musical tradition from the Orient.   Aleppo is an important trading city and communication cross-point where the most pure traditions of Arabic chant have been preserved. The most characteristic expression of this chant is the vocal improvisations or layali, through which the complete doctrine of maqam was developed into a form of choral music, the qad (alqudud in plural), related to the muaxaha genre, very well-known in Al-Andalus.   From the eighteenth century onwards, the muaxaha expanded through the Mid-Orient, particularly in Aleppo, where it is known ...+ info