The Arabic Style of Performing Medieval Music Author(s): John Haines Source: Early Music, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Aug., 2001), pp. 369-378 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3519181 Accessed: 22-09-2015 15:13 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Early Music. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 159.149.218.100 on Tue, 22 Sep 2015 15:13:07 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions . RE-EXAMINING PERFORMANCE PRACTICES + John Haines The Arabicstyle of performingmedieval music uninitiated customer browsing for recent THErecordings of medievalmonophonic music may be surprised by an eruption of Arabic sounds: antiphons and responsoriesundulating in a manner more reminiscent of Koranic recitation than the sober tones of conventionalinterpretations,' trouba- dour and trouveretunes declaimedto the accompa- niment of an 'ud (Arabiclute)2 and pulsing with the beat of various North African drums,3or French courtly dances filtered through a Moroccan bendir (frame drum).4Our curious customer might rightly enquire where the interpretationof medieval music using an Arabicstyle originated. In fact, this recent 'Arabic' interpretation goes back to a much earlier fascination with the Middle East, the phenomenon known as orientalism.5 Musical orientalism can be found as early as the monumental Description de l'1gypte (1809-28), which contained many beautiful engravings from Napoleon's Egyptianexpedition, including one of a 'violin' (actually a rabdb) player (illus.1). The 19th centurymarked the beginningof both orientalism andmedievalism on a largescale; the West looked to 1 'Lejoueur de violon'from Description de l'Egypte,Ptat the MiddleAges and to the Orientfor its roots.6 moderne,Planches, vol.2, plate E (1817) Novelssuch as GustaveFlaubert's Salammb6 (1862) evokeda primitiveand sensuous East, while musical foundations for the study of medieval music. An works conjuredup an orientalsound with such oriental Middle Ages emerged in such works as Sir instrumentsas flutes and tambourines-generic Walter Scott's Ivanhoe(1819), where Scott described ratherthan country-specificsignifiers.7 the 'wild barbaricmusic' of a tournament proces- At around the same time medieval themes began sion: 'it was of Easternorigin', Scott wrote, 'having to appearin literature,from the popular'genre trou- been brought from the Holy Land.'8We also find the badour' around 18oo to Lord Alfred Tennyson's same oriental Middle Ages in music histories:Jean- Idylls of the King (1859), while scholars such as Frangois-Joseph Fetis claimed that troubadour Charles-Edmond-Henride Coussemaker laid the songs were 'nothing more than memories of oriental John Haines is Assistant Professorof Musicologyat Shorter College, Georgia, where he teaches Westernand non-Westernmusics. He has published on medievalFrench music and its histori- ography,and is currentlyat workon a receptionhistory of troubadourand trouvcresong. EARLY MUSIC AUGUST 2001 369 This content downloaded from 159.149.218.100 on Tue, 22 Sep 2015 15:13:07 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions songs put to new words', concluding that the very The nascent industryof earlymusic sound record- 'origins of medieval secular music are Oriental'; ing at the beginning of the 2oth century would ulti- Edward Dent wrote of the close contact between mately not resist orientalism. Unlike Baroque and Easternmusic ('the Moors in Spain, the Saracensin Renaissancemusic, medieval monophonic repertor- Italy') and that of the medievalWest; GustaveReese ies were largely ignored by recording companies opened his account of medieval history with the until afterWorld War II, possibly because perform- idiophones of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and placed ers were less confident about how these should be the origins of Christiansacred chant in the lost vocal interpreted. Curt Sachs's Anthologie sonore drew art of Syria;and Curt Sachsplaced the beginnings of upon traditional Swiss mountain songs for inspira- Our musicalheritage in 'The Orient' (the title of his tion in one of the very few recordingsof Minnesinger second chapter), whose musical 'inertia' still con- and trouvbre melodies before the 195os. Sachs was tained echoes of the distant musical past.9 For all attemptingto produce as authentica performanceas these writers the primitive monophony of the possible by drawing on living traditional songs Middle Ages had been filtered from its pure, oral which he thought may have had links to medieval oriental state through the corrupting minds and Germanic ancestors.13The result was nonetheless a notation of the West. carefullyliteral interpretationof the musical text by Nineteenth-century orientalism led to Arabic the tenor Max Meili.'4 hypotheses in medieval scholarshipin the first half Beginningin the 1950sperformers such as Safford of the 20th century. Formal and topical similarities Cape (with Pro Musica Antiqua) and Russell Ober- between troubadourverse and earlierArabic poetry lin approachedtroubadour and trouv&resongs in a led to a theory that the one was influenced by the similar fashion to Sachs. Cape's group featured other. This 'Arabic hypothesis' produced some heavy voices and long, rubato phrasing,while Ober- remarkable research, most notably Alois Nykl's lin's statelycountertenor was echoed by a sparseviol magisterial defence of the hypothesis, Hispano- accompaniment.'5At the end of the decade, how- Arabic and its relationswith the old ever, New York Pro Musica's The Daniel poetry Provencal play of troubadours(1946), and the more tempered study of inaugurateda new approach,their costumes explod- PierreLe Gentil, Le virelaiet le villancico:le problame ing with colour, their sound bristling with 'Arabian des originesarabes (1954). However, since the hypo- nakers ... and jingles, and Near Eastern finger thesis was usually inferred from general points of cymbals'.'6Their exotic and ostentatiousdemeanour contact such as the Crusadesrather than conclusive was reminiscent of the costumes and antics of the evidence of troubadour knowledge of Arabic, the early music innovator Arnold Dolmetsch, who had majority of scholars, including specialists of Old gone so far as to make a pilgrimageto Morocco in Occitan, remained sceptical;Le Gentil, for instance, 1929 to draw inspiration from Arabic music.'7The concluded that no direct Arabic influence could be only instrumentsthe New York Pro Musica actually proven.'0 A similar hypothesis was developed for imported from the Orient were percussion, but as medieval music. Its main champion was Henry well-known signifiersthey were all that was needed George Farmer,an orientalistwhose position rested to evoke things Arabic.A F6tisiannarrative was even on certain indisputable facts, including the general recalledin Paul Henry Lang'sliner note preface: influence on Western music of Arabic schol- theory Christendom'smusic on the shores of the ars such as Early grew Al-Ffirbi (fl. early loth century)."l Mediterraneanand in its spirit ... It was not reallypurely Another proponent was JulianRibera, who based his Western,for the floweringmagic of the melody remained highly subjectivetranscriptions of troubadour mel- Easternin character... The oriental could create the long odies on loose connections between these and later coloraturachain of melodybut was unableto write it down; the western monk could, but as he did so he immediately Spanishsongs.12 Despite their advocacyof the Arabic exerted the characteristicrational and poetic bent of the hypothesis in medieval music, both Ribera and European. Farmerhad to admit the absence of positive musical documentation of contact between East and West. In other words, the West was smarterthan the East, 370 EARLY MUSIC AUGUST 2001 This content downloaded from 159.149.218.100 on Tue, 22 Sep 2015 15:13:07 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions but lacked its vitality; Western music performance folk music';23and Howard MayerBrown went so far practice could be made more authentic by tapping as to call theirs 'an ethnomusicologicalapproach to the orientalsource. Theplay of Daniel was the perfect performance practice'.24 Listeners found in their piece for such an endeavour.Set in ancient Babylon, recordings a product of 'superior imagination and it even included at one point a fire-eater and a ... educated guesswork'; earlier efforts were now sword-swallower. It became the New York Pro deemed 'ill-conceived, bland and boring'.25By the Musica's most popular performance.,s early 1970s the Studio had single-handedlyinaugu- Rock music performers,too, would turn eastward rated an authoritativemodern performancepractice for musical inspiration in the next decade:the Beat- of medievalmonophony which continues to have an les to India and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones to enduringinfluence on both its critics and adherents. Morocco.19The early196os thus anticipatedan inno- vator who would forge a new sound for the field of W HAT was the nature of the Andalusianclassi-