MALUF The Hidden Power Of Andalusi Music From Tunisia: Recording of the concert in the Patio de las Doncellas in the Reales Alcázares in Seville, 1990. Ma’luf is the name given to classical music of Andalusi origin, preserved and enhanced by the Tunisian school. Ma’luf means traditional or usual, reflecting the aesthetic and ethical values of a rich and precise repertoire created by the Arab Muslim civilization, with Spanish and African Mediterranean cultural undertones.

Ma’luf is Arab music that has nested and grown in Tunisia but that has a marked Hispan-Andalusi character and Greek-Persian roots. An urban type of music based on traditional technique and linked to artisan culture, kept alive by the spirit of refined lovers of poetry, arts and architecture. This music has been cultivated and preserved because it has been played at social gatherings and parties. In this way it has impregnated the spirit and way of life not only of the North African elite, but also of a whole people that has been able to identify with this poetry and music up to the present day.

This CD, in Pneuma’s Al Andalus Collection, hopes to contribute to the appreciation of Ma’luf and help increase its audience. We join those who are dedicated to the task of recovering this musical heritage, which belongs to all humanity, in the hope that the danger of a mix or fusion with other globalized music in a practice that distorts the refined inherited tradition can be avoided. We also wish to claim the Spanish origin of this Islamic culture, transmitted in Arabic, which emigrated from Spain to Tunisia. A variety of instrumental and vocal works are included in a traditional performance with the sound expected from the recording of a live concert. Thus a door is opened to those who want to take a peek at this music that unites Al-Andalus-Spain and Tunisia. Ma’luf is a national musical art in Tunisia. Everybody identifies with it. Until now it has been kept and taught by the masters, but with the immediate future in mind, it now needs special attention in a world in which traditions are fading under the pressure of changing ephemeral modernity.

ALDANDALUS AND THE MAGHREB From the 8th century on, the Maghreb and especially Tunisia had frequent contact with Al. Andalus. In the 9th and 10th centuries there was a continuous musical flow from Tunisia to Cordoba and Seville, where musicians and singers were highly appreciated. Al Muganni de Mahdiyya is related with Granada. Poems by Ibn rasq de Kairawan d. 1070, were set to music by Ibn baya 1095-1139 (Avempace) of Zaragoza. From the 12th century until the fall of Granada and the expulsion of the Moors in 1609, the flow changed and many Andalusi musicians took refuge in North Africa under the pressure of the Christian reconquest. In the mid 8th century more than 80,000 Andalusis took refuge in the different towns in Tunisia. Although cultured music was encouraged in the Maghreb, it was the arrival of the Andalusis that allowed it to take shape and grow. Thus the different Maghrebi nubah schools evolved based on Andalusi music in Tripoli, Tunisia, Constantine, Tlemcen, Fez and Tetuan.

The nubah is a musical suite defined by a scale or musical mode which gives it its name. It comprises a series of songs and instrumental works strung together and put in order according to their rhythmic and dynamic phases as dictated by the tradition. Each Maghrebi school has its own characteristics, but they often have five parts of specific rhythm, sung by soloists and choirs, mixed with instrumental solos and free-song solos which are cleverly positioned to enthral the listener. Each song or part of the nubah is identified by the poem, the rhythm and the musical mode, in that order.

The nubah of the Tunisian Ma’luf In the 13th century al Tifasi describes the nubah as a suite comprising a recitative (nasíd), an overture (istihläl), the slow rhythmic chant (‘amal), and the light chant (muharrik). After the Ottoman invasion and from the 16th century on, after the Spanish Moors had settled, the musical sultan Mohammad al-Rasic (1710-1759) changed the repertoire of the nubahs adding works and intervals from scales of Turkish origin. Since then great musicians began to document and complete the Ma’luf oral tradition. Ahmad al-Wafi (1850-1921) and Jamayyis Tarnán (1894-1964) compiled poetic and musical texts, including compositions in the oral tradition of the old masters. Today 13 nubahs are preserved in which the classical form of the poems the qasidas, are sung, as well as the muwashshahs and zejels, which are post-classical forms of Andalusi origin.

The traditional instruments used in the Ma’luf are: the rabab, today replaced by the violin and the viola, the fhal, a bamboo flute from the nay family used specifically for the Ma’luf, the tar, a small tambourine, the naqqarat, small kettle drums and last but not least, the king of instruments, the Tunisian lute (‘ud arbi) with four doubled strings tuned in fifths. Other instruments used less often today are the qanun, the oriental lute with 5 or 6 doubled strings tuned in fourths, and the bagpipes, zokra or mezoued, for folk music.

The city of Tunis was founded by Hassan Ibn al Nu’man in about the year 668, and it is the capital of an ancient civilization which inherited the Ifriqiya, Kayrawan, Raqqada, Mahdiyya and al-Mansuriyya centres of culture. The Maghrebi population in these areas, which suffered Arab invasions and sheltered Andalusi refugees, has made a truly unique musical contribution with the Ma’luf, which is different from the other Andalusi schools. Tunis shares the word Ma’luf, meaning classical music, with Tripoli and Constantine, but its specific Sevillian heritage survives and is transmitted in the present day towns of Sfax, Bizerta, Testour and Tunis itself.

Eduardo Paniagua