Echoes from the Mediterranean. Part 2

Fernand Braudel writes: “Civilizations are not mortal. They survive transformations and catastrophes and when necessary rise up again from their ashes (…). Islam probably sprang from desert Arabia, crossed by caravans and with a long past behind, but it is above all a territory acquired by the conquest of Arabic horsemen and camel-drivers even too easily: Syria, Egypt, Iran, northern Africa. Islam is primarily a heir of the Near East, a whole series of cultures, economies and ancient sciences. Its heart lies in the narrow space that goes from the Mecca to Cairo, Damask and Baghdad. (…)”

“A civilization is in fact not only a religion - however a religion may be at the centre of any cultural system. It is an art of living as well, i.e. the reproduction of thousands of behaviours. In ‘The Arabian Nights’ saluting a king means ‘kissing before him the earth amid his hands’. Well, it is a gesture already customary at the court of the Parthian king Khosrau (531-579 AD) - Braudel continues - and it is the same gesture that in 1500 and 1600 (and later) European ambassadors in Istanbul, in Ispahan or in Delhi tried to elude finding it extremely humiliating for themselves and for the princes they represented. [Ancient Greek Historian) Herodotus, [490-425 BC] was upset by some [Ancient] Egyptian manners: ‘In the middle of the road, as a salutation, they prostrate the one in front of the other, lowering their hands down to the knees.’ “

“Think about the traditional costumes of the Moslems whose evolution will be very slow (see picture above). It is already recognizable - Braudel argues - in the dress of the ancient Babylonians, described by the same Herodotus [more than] twenty-five centuries ago: ‘The Babylonians first of all wear a flax tunic down to their feet [which we would today call gandura, notes E. F. Gautier], and on top of it another wool tunic [which we would call djellaba]; then they wear a short white mantle [we would say: a short white burnus]; and they cover their heads with a mitre [a fez, today, or tarbush].’ And we could continue talking of the houses (pre-Islamic), and of food and superstitions: the hand of Fatima, … it already adorned the Carthaginian funeral steles (see figure below).”

“Islam is evidently tied to the compact historical ground of the Near East.” (…) In short - Braudel concludes - any study of our present ways of thinking necessarily has to look at the endless past of the civilizations.”

(La Mediterranée, by Fernard Braudel, Flammarion 1985. Translation by Man of Roma)

(The end )

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Echoes from the Mediterranean. Part 1

A few days ago, when listening to Diana Haddad, an Arabic Lebanese pop singer, something echoed in our Mediterranean soul. Before the war (started in 1974) Lebanon was called the Switzerland of the Middle-East. In the 1950s Beirut was one of the financial capitals of the planet and the intellectual capital of the Arab world. It offered, among the rest, highest financial skills to the Saudi Arabians and a very convenient interface for Western firms towards the Arabs, rich in oil. It also offered an Arabian Nights highly refined dolce vita attracting all kinds of VIPs, Hollywood and international actors, tycoons plus the most splendid ladies of the epoch. Beirut was a synonym of luxury, of all pleasures combined and of intelligent cosmopolitism. Three languages were (and are) spoken there: Arab, French and English. Some dear Italian friends studied in Beirut in their youth and are in fact fluent in these languages. When we were children we heard all these magic tales from parents and looked amazed at pictures in gossip magazines.

To the history-addicted all this flourishing is not surprising, being Lebanon the land of the Phoenicians, highly refined merchants since Antiquity and ancestors of mighty Carthage. Now that Beirut’s glamour is gone – the city has been partially rebuilt but its premier role seems to have moved to London, Dubai, Cyprus etc. - this place is still highly civilised – civilisations are not mortal - and, just as an example, Lebanese pop music (and culture) is probably the most successful among today’s Arabic youth (being seen as ‘modern’ by teenagers but of course also frowned upon by traditionalists). There is a song below by Diana Haddad for you to listen.

Northern Mediterranean youth cannot but feel how similar these people are to us, and yet portions of this music and other details we feel are diverse. One can say that this diversity is provided by Islam. But, I am asking myself, is Islam really so alien? Well, yes and no. One moment we feel it is the Mediterranean (thence not different from Southern Europe), another moment it is Persia, Arabia, Baghdad, aspects of ancient and modern Egypt, West Asia in short (so very different from Europe). This diversity is though exciting and should not scare us.

As we promised in a previous post and in its notes, this writing is the first of a series dedicated to a journey to Islam seen as something exotic and yet so close to our Roman heart. We are not here to judge but to learn (and possibly communicate).

Once more we are asking French historian Fernand Braudel for inspiration and guidance.

(to be continued)

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Why Musical Improvisation is Utopian

Why musical improvisation is utopian? Because it is a place of the spirit that does not lead to any place. Utopia is a Greek word made of ‘ou’(= no) and ‘τόπος’ (= place), so its meaning is actually ‘in no place’. This is the reason why we say that musical improvisation is utopian. This idea in fact belonging to my generation - that improvisation was the big thing that could produce new insights & musical discoveries – led to nowhere.

In the 1970s musical improvisation as a theory and practice greatly influenced musicians. It was based on concepts like intuition, immediate action and reaction, and on the idea of mysterious mental faculties not far from Zen which were thought to favour the discovery of new patterns and unexpected solutions. Maybe it is not by chance that J. D. Salinger was attracted by Zen (see our post on digression in speech-writing; there is a subtle link between that post and the present one).

As far as we know (and our taste goes) improvisation has rarely created anything really interesting, with its tendency towards superficial results we can observe for example in some (or many) jazz pieces. Great composers and pianists like Chopin and Liszt used to be oustanding improvisers as well but their piano impromptus were seldom published and in any case were regarded by their creators as works inferior in quality (listen below to the Fantasie-impromptu in C-sharp minor by Chopin played by Valentina Igoshina; it is a work Chopin was not very proud of … well, maybe it is not too profound, but Chopin is Chopin … ).

In 1975 American pianist Keith Jarret carried out a tremendously successful jazz improvisation at the Cologne Opera House, in Germany. It became the famous Köln Concert that created a new fashion of piano solo music based on improvisation and which in my view is a beautiful piece of music but here too we note flaws like excessive repetitions and passages confused and predictable (you can listen to the beginning of this work thanks to YouTube).

Note. This Köln Concert - not to mention the splendid Impromptu by Chopin - is great stuff, I do not want to diminish it, being an explosive mixture of jazz with a scent of classical, blues, gospel and rock, all so inspired and “flowing with human warmth” (quote from Jazz: The Rough Guide, Rough Guides Ltd, London, 1995, found in the Wikipedia article linked above). Just try to follow my point though and compare for example this Chopin’s Impromptu with other compositions by the same Polish-French musician.

An interesting aspect of improvisation is the high level of concentration required by the artist to produce anything decent, which some critics say it can favour a strong empathic relationship with the public. This is true but one can equally say that the same thing occurs during an inspired execution of composed music, namely music which did not spring out extemporaneously and was instead previously well constructed and thought over.

A great interpreter is in fact able to relive with renewed freshness a work composed even centuries ago, which equally allows him to involve the public in ways empathic and with the added value of offering a work which is deeper and better constructed.

In short (and as far as we understand) the process of musical construction (composition) produces better results compared to this more or less spontaneous way of creating music called improvisation. What we are saying of course applies to other arts as well, such as theatre, dance, literature or rhetoric (i.e. public speaking, or writing, with the goal of persuading the audience): Romans like Marcus Tullius Cicero and Julius Caesar carefully prepared their speeches, even though, when necessary, they were able to improvise.

This doesn’t mean that improvisation isn’t a valid creative tool. We can play our instruments and express ourselves freely, or we can speak on the microphone of a computer in search of ideas for our writings. The resulting matter should though go through a post-production phase. It should, in other words, be purified and wisely inserted into the compositional process.

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