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Sayed Darwish, born in Kom Al-Dikka
on 17 March 1892, was canonized
soon
after his tragically early death on 15 September 1923 as
one of the pioneers of Arabic music, a leader of the
"cultural renaissance" that swept Egypt at the
turn of the century, and the bard of the 1919
Revolution. His love of music and the material hardships
he faced, writes Pascale Ghazaleh, are the two
main themes that inform most of his hagiography,
intertwining to make up the phenomenon that is Sayed
Darwish. He worked as a bricklayer, among other things,
after his father's death, when he became his family's
sole breadwinner, and it is this direct experience of
working-class life that makes his songs so powerful.
"In the modern Arab historiography of music,"
writes Frederic Lagrange, "Sayed Darwish has become
an icon symbolizing Progress, Modernity, and the shift
from 'Oriental music', an elitist music made for Pashas
and still bathing in the original Ottoman matrix, to
'Egyptian music', the first figuralist expression of a
people's soul and their nationalist demands." |
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After a period spent
working with popular troupes, starting in 1918, Darwish worked
with Naguib Al-Rihani and Badi' Khayri. The social and
political conditions surrounding the 1919 Revolution
contributed to the popularity of operettas produced by the
trio, such as Al-'Ashra Al-Tayyiba (The Ten of Diamonds,
1920), an adaptation of Blubeard with strong nationalistic
overtones. He also worked for Al-Rihani's rival, Ali El-Kassar,
and collaborated with renowned singer and actress Munira El-Mahdiyya
(1884-1965), for whom he composed comical operettas like
Kullaha Yumayn (A Matter of Days, 1920). His own company, with
which he took to the stage in a lead role, did not achieve the
success he had anticipated with the 1921 creations Sheherazad
and Al-Baruka (The Wig), and Darwish turned once more to
collaborating with other troupes.
Darwish's output was prolific, including 26 musicals
as well as about 260 songs. Today, such songs as Salma Ya
Salama, Zuruni Kull Sana Marra or Al-Hilwa Diy Qamit Ti'gin
are sung throughout the Arab world and have been
reorchestrated for Fayrouz and Sabah Fakhri. The words of Egypt's
national anthem were derived from one of Mustafa Kamel's
best-known speeches, which Sayed Darwish set to music. He
prepared a song for Saad Zaghlul's return from exile, but died
before the nationalist leader's arrival.
According to Philippe Vigreux ("Centralité de
la musique égyptienne", Egypte/Monde arabe 7, 1991,
CEDEJ), Darwish also played a crucial role in the adoption of
Western techniques in writing music and the increased use of
Western instruments, considered more capable of expressing
emotion.
Sayed Darwish was revered in his lifetime by those
who sang his songs, and by those, in the Arab world and
beyond, who continue to love them until today. His voice was
perhaps not the paragon of technical virtuosity that was
Sheikh Salama Higazi's or Saleh Abdel-Hayy (the less indulgent
have described it as "mediocre"), but it remains no
less moving for all that. He was not much appreciated,
however, by the musical establishment of his day. When the
Sheikh died, writes Vigreux, one of the members of the
Oriental Music Institute is rumoured to have proffered this
remark: "Li qad mata al-hals fi'l-balad" (That's the
end of debauchery in this country). Darwish, however, was in
good company: Um Kulthoum and Mohamed Abdel-Wahab were also
targets of the Institute's wrath.
(This is an article from Al-Ahram) |
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