La langue musicale du MAQÂM et ses éléments clés is the third episode of Mediterranean Intangible Heritage Soundscape, and is in French.

At the source of the different musical cultures flowing into the Mediterranean world is what Nidaa Abou Mrad calls a modal monodic "language", with its different "dialects". In the Mashreq, the musical system defined by the term maqâm, represents a great transnational tradition of ancient origin and still alive. Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, this tradition was reinvigorated thanks to masters and singers active in Egypt who - on a musical level - contributed to the artistic rebirth and intellectual awakening of the Mashreq, known - from an historical point of view - as Nahda.
Through intense concert activity, study and analysis, Abou Mrad - interviewed in this episode - has illustrated in depth the nature of the maqâm musical system, researching its roots in ancient musical civilisations, to underline the importance and value of this heritage. 

About Nidaa Abou Mrad

Nidaa Abou Mrad, professor of Musicology and musical doctor, is the Dean of the Faculty of Music and Musicology and the Director of the Research Centre on Musical Traditions at the Antonine University in Lebanon.
He authored Éléments de sémiotique modale, an essay on generative grammar for monodic traditions, for which he won the CNRS-L Annual Research Excellence Award in 2017. He has published forty articles on the musical traditions of Mashreq and twenty CDs where, with the Ensemble of Arabic Classical Music, he performs on the violin (in an improvisatory way) sequences from the literate musical tradition of Mashreq and some of his own traditional modal compositions.


Discography of the episode

Taqsim bayyati
Nidaa Abou Mrad in Waṣalāt Parcours Instrumentaux de la Renaissance Arabe (2010)

Taqsîm en Maqâm Râst
Fawzi Sayeb in Fawzi Sayeb in Concert Master of the taqsîm, Byblos (2001) 

Chant rūm orthodoxe en arabe de Pâque « Inn al-Malāk »
Dimitri Koutiyya 

Hymne hourrite
Rafka Rizk in 4000 ans de musique au Levant, Ensemble de musique classique
arabe de l’Université Antonine (2018)

Prélude & chant abbassides
Mohammad Ayach in 4000 ans de musique au Levant, Ensemble de musique
classique arabe de l’Université Antonine (2018)

Mawwāl & Taqtūqa (Musique populaire / Egypte)
in Congrès du Caire 1932, Institut du Monde Arabe / Bibliothèque Nationale –
France (1988)

Yā leyl maqām Nahāwand
Cheikh Yūsuf Al-Manyalāwī (78 tours) 

Samâ'î Râst
Ensemble de Musique Classique Arabe in Waṣalāt parcours instrumentaux de la
Renaissance arabe (2010)

Muwaššaḥ Wal-laḏī askara
Cheikh Sayyid a-ṣ-Ṣafṭī (78 tours)

Yā leyl et Dōr Kādnī l-hawā maqām Nahāwand Cheikh
Yūsuf Al-Manyalāwī (78 tours) 

Mawwāl Bi-kulli marsūm
Cheikh Yūsuf Al-Manyalāwī (78 tours)

Qaṣīda Ukaḍḍibu nafsī maqām Sīkāh
Cheikh Yūsuf Al-Manyalāwī (78 tours) 

Dârij Bayyâtî
Ensemble de Musique Classique Arabe in Waṣalāt parcours instrumentaux de la
Renaissance arabe (2010)    

Disclaimer
Mediterranean Intangible Heritage Soundscape is a podcast by Paolo Scarnecchia, produced by UNIMED, Mediterranean Universities Union. Musical works included in the Podcast are used for purpose of illustration for teaching, and not for commercial purposes.