Situated between the cultural capitals of Aleppo and Cairo, the musical scene of Beirut was, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a natural bridge between the two. As literary, musical, and theatrical production flourished throughout what Westerners have called the Levant or the Near East, many Syrian-Lebanese performers moved among the cities (as well as the political/ administrative de facto capital of Damascus and elsewhere), often choosing to settle for extended periods in Cairo.
Commercial recording in Cairo began in 1903-04. The British Gramophone Company began recording in Beirut in 1908, producing a total of nearly 350 sides until 1912 in direct competition with the independent Baidaphon company (originally based in Berlin and about whom more below) who began making recordings there in 1907. Bernard Moussali and Jean Lambert, in their notes to the CD anthology Early Singers of Bilad al-Sham, point out that "The early 20th-century music of Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine was unjustly forgotten [in comparison to that of Cairo - ed] due to this region's social and cultural structures as well as the technological and political turmoil it underwent [if that is the correct verb tense - ed.] during the modern and contemporary eras."
We hope that making available these new restorations of some wonderful performances contributes to the expansion of the appreciation of the region's heritage of art music.
MITRI EL-MURR (b. Tripoli, Lebanon Nov. 7, 1880; d. Aug. 31, 1969) was the son of an Orthodox priest, Iliās al-Marālzī. His musical talent was recognized when he was still a boy and after leaving school as a teenager, he was trained as a singer of both religious and secular music by Yousef El Doumani of Antioch. By the age of 15, he was appointed the principal singer of the church of Tripoli. He then studied languages and began composing before being appointed at the age of 28 as the teacher of Byzantine music at Balamand monastery by the patriarch Maletios el Doumani. He had many significant students (including Archbishop Samuel David
canary-records.bandcamp.com/.../you-are-the-light... ). In 1907, he married a granddaughter of Yousef El Doumani, Nazha, with whom he had fifteen children. Around that time, he was among the first vocalists to record for the Baidaphon company in Beirut, were he ultimately settled, earning his living as a trader while continuing to teach and compose. Among his compositions was the Syrian national anthem “Nādat al-awṭān.” He toured widely, including well-received concerts in Constantinople, the Romanov court of Russia, and the United States.
MAHMUD EL BOULAKI recorded 98 sides in Cairo for the Gramophone Company between January 1909 and January 1912 as well as an unknown number of performances for Baidaphon likely in Beirut during roughly the same period. (Baidaphon opened its Beirut branch in 1907 and its Cairo branch in 1910) This performance appears to have been made between 1907 and 1911 and kept in print into the late 1910s.
MUHAMMAD AL-ASHIQ (b. 1885; d. 1925) of Damascus recorded at least 50 sides for the Gramophone Company between 1908-09.
ABDEL FATTAH AL-QABBANI of Beirut recorded over 20 sides for the Gramophone Company in Beirut in July 1910. before recording for Baidaphon into the early 1920s.
MUHYIDDIN BA’YUN (b. Beirut 1868; d. 1934) learned music from Egyptian quanunist Aḥmad al-Badawī based in Tripoli, Lebanon. He was a brilliant singer as well as an oudist and player of the buzuq, performing and recording a wide variety of forms including instrumental taxims, and vocal dawrs, qaṣīdas, muwashshaḥ, and, especially mawwāls (several of which are included here), which are unmetered, elaborate semi-improvisations on one or two lines of poetry - roughly the vocal equivalent of taxims. He recorded 24 sides for the Gramophone Company in Beirut in March 1912 (of which six and presented here) and many more performances for Baidaphon until 1927. He was well received in travels to Cairo, Aleppo, and Iraq and left behind a legacy of several hours of recordings, which were compiled as a 3CD set titled The Nightingale of Beirut, released by the Foundation for Arab Music Archiving and Research in 2019. After decades of success, his last years were marked by ill health and poverty.
FARJALLAH BAIDA (b. 1882) worked in construction with his family while performing as a young man. When his cousin Dr. Michel Baida founded the Baidaphon label in Berlin in 1906, he entered into the business with his brother and another cousin, performing oud on the label’s first release and becoming, over the next 20 years, one of the label’s most prolific performers. Baidapon discs were initially recorded and pressed in Berlin before they set up their Beirut studio around 1907 and then their Cairo studio in 1910 in direct competition with the German and British labels operating there at the time. (Outlets were set up in later decades in Jaffa - now part of Tel Aviv, Israel - and in Tripoli, Lebanon.) In addition to the enormously successful label, the family was also involved in real estate. The discs were initially pressed by the Lyrophon Company before the Baidas opened their own pressing facility in Berlin and then moved manufacturing to the Pathe Brothers facility in Paris around 1933, around which time the partners moved in separate directions, and a new subsidiary called Cairophon was founded in partnership with the great Egyptian singer Mohommed Abdel Wahab. Despite the incredible legacy of four decades of enormously popular releases, the history of the Baida cousins and their company is still being pieced together by researchers.
released January 6, 2024
Transfers, restorations, and notes by Ian Nagoski
Biographical data drawn largely from research available at the site of the Foundation for Arab Music Archiving and Research.
www.amar-foundation.org
Discographical data drawn from the Gramophone Company Discography
www.gramophonecompanydiscography.com
and from Hugo Strötbaum's
recordingpioneers.com
While tracks 3-8 were certainly recorded in Beirut for the Gramophone Company, it is not out of the question that tracks 3, 9, 10, 11 & 12, made by Baidaphon, might have been recorded in Cairo. We strongly suspect they were made in Beirut; in either case, they were recorded by artists, especially in the cases of tracks 9-11, born and raised in Beirut. (An opening announcement on track 1 identifies it as having been made in Beirut, and track 11 by the same performer, is also very likely to have been recorded there.)
Recording dates:
Track 1: ca. 1906-09
Track 2: ca. 1908-11
Track 3: Jan. 1908
Tracks 4-5: July 1910
Track 6: March 1, 1912
Tracks 7-8: March 2, 1912
Track 9: ca. 1919-22
Tracks 10-12: ca. early 1920s
Known accompanists:
Track 3: Ya'qoub Ghazala (quanun); Antoine al-Shawwa (violin)
Tracks 6-8: Sami al-Shawwa (violin)
Known recording engineers:
Track 3-5: Arthur Spottiswoode Clarke (b. Pewsey, Wiltshire, England 1885; d. Bedfont, Middlesex, England 1952)
Cover image of Muḥyiddīn Ba‘yun ca. mid-'20s via the Foundation for Arab Music Archiving and Research
Further listening:
Early Singers from Bilad al-Sham (AMAR), 2014
www.amar-foundation.org/cd-slp/
Time Wept: Vocal Recordings From the Levant, 1906-1925 (Honest Jon's), 2015
honestjons.com/shop/artist/Time_Wept/release/Vocal_Recordings_From_The_Levant_1906-1925
Tanburi Muhyiddin Ba’yun - The Nightgale of Beirut (AMAR), 2019
www.amar-foundation.org/cd-baayun/
