Andalusian Classical Music - Origins

Origins

Andalusian classical music was allegedly born in the Emirate of Cordoba (Al-Andalus) in the 9th century. The Persian musician, residing in Iraq, Ziryâb (d. 857), who later became court musician of Abd al-Rahman II in Cordoba, is sometimes credited with its invention. Later, the poet, composer, and philosopher Ibn Bajjah (d. 1139) of Saragossa is said to have combined the style of Ziryâb with Western approaches to produce a wholly new style that spread across Iberia and North Africa.

By the 11th century, Moorish Spain and Portugal had become a center for the manufacture of instruments. These goods spread gradually to Provence, influencing French troubadours and trouveres and eventually reaching the rest of Europe. The English words lute, rebec, guitar, and naker derive from the Arabic oud, rabab, qithara and naqareh, although some Arabic terms had been derived from the Greek and other cultures.

The classical music of Andalusia, al-ala, reached North Africa via centuries of cultural exchange, the Almohad dynasty and then the Marinid dynasty and the Abdalwadid being in power both in Al-Andalus and North Africa (the Maghreb) (especially Morocco).

Mass resettlements of Muslims and Sephardi Jews from Cordoba, Sevilla, Valencia, and Granada, fleeing the Reconquista, further expanded the reach of Andalusian music.

In his book "Jews of Andalusia and the Maghreb" on the musical traditions in Jewish societies of North Africa, Haïm Zafani writes: "In the Maghreb and especially in Morocco, the Muslims and Jews have piously preserved the Spanish-Arabic music .... In Spain and Morocco, Jews were ardent maintainers of Andalusian music and the zealous guardians of its old traditions ...."

The author also discusses a number of rare books related to Andalusian music, including a directory of Andalusian music written in 1786 by Al Haik (of Tetouan, Morocco), and a rare repertoire of songs of Granada and Cordoba printed in 1886/1887.

If the term Gharnati refers in the region of Tlemcen to the entire directory of Andalusian scholars, in Morocco it designates a distinct musical style of the Andalusian in addition to the much larger directory of "Tab Al Ala" style as confirmed by the authors Rachid Aous and Mohammed Habib Samrakandi in their book Music of Algeria.

The North African cities have in particular inherited the Andalusian musical style of Granada, as mentioned in the book The Literature of Al-Andalus.

The Nuba of Morocco have been identified in the eighteenth century by the musician Al Haïk from Tetouan.