From Ocean to Gulf: Heritage Music of the Arab World – 'Tanburi' Muhyiddin Ba'yun (1868 -1934) - Heritage special

Al-Ahram Weekly

02-03-2025

'From Ocean to Gulf: Heritage Music of the Arab World' is a new series by Ahram Online, in partnership with the AMAR Foundation (Foundation For Arab Music Archiving and Research).
Music is a powerful force for healing and reconnecting us with our roots and shared humanity in a world of numerous challenges.
'From Ocean to Gulf: Heritage Music of the Arab World' is a new series by Ahram Online in partnership with the AMAR Foundation (Foundation for Arab Music Archiving and Research). Focusing on the early years of recording in our region that reflected a modern cosmopolitan repertoire, which coincided with the Renaissance era that flourished in Egypt between the mid-19th century to the 30s of the twentieth century, this initiative aims to introduce our audience to the iconic figures of Arab music whose contributions have enriched our intangible cultural heritage and inspired generations worldwide. After featuring the Sultana of Tarab Music and the Prince of Arabic Violin, we proudly present the Master of Buzuq:
'Tanburi' Muhyiddin Ba'yun 1868 -1934.
Sold out!
Muhyiddin Ba'yun (1868 -1934) was a unique musician, unparalleled in his mastery of the various melodic and linguistic dialects, whose concerts were sold out weeks ahead, and people flocked to enjoy his performances throughout the Arab world.
Upon hearing him sing in the Damascene dialect, one guesses that he was born in Beirut, he mastered literary Arabic, and his accent is sometimes perceived as Damascene or Cairenes. His singing of dawr-s or mawwāl-s may indicate that he was the pupil of great masters, and when he expresses himself in another local genre, he sounds like a pure Bedouin. Yet, when he plays tanbur, all these linguistic differences merge into a global literary tradition, blurring boundaries and nationalities.
Tune in to listen to a rare recording of the enchanting voice of the star of Lebanon, Lamma Bada Yatathanna, and his buzuq performance with Taqsim Rasd here:
https://soundcloud.com/anr09-755808180/lamma-bada?si=a54c356df0804cdca346c2e70ed20bfc&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
https://soundcloud.com/anr09-755808180/02-taqsim-rasd?si=2f17df8f86ec4b2abc9a6846bc008944&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
The beginning
Composer, singer, buzuq and 'ūd player Abū Sa'īd or Muḥyiddīn Ba'yūn was born in Beirut in 1868 and studied music under qānūnist Aḥmad al-Badawī, becoming one of the great maqām and improvisation artists in the Levant.
Endowed with a strong voice and a variety of artistic talents, he sang qaṣīda and muwashshaḥ, in particular baladī Beiruti mawwāl that are "a series of stand-alone sentences in the form of mosaically structured ornamented munamnamāt", while his taqsīm on the buzuq reflect his great musical imagination.
Receiving a warm welcome and applause wherever he went, he travelled to Aleppo, Cairo, and Iraq. A source mentioned that he is the one who discovered Syrian buzuq player Muḥammad' Abd al-Karīm and drove him to the peak of glory.
Music legacy
His rich history of recorded songs and melodies with Gramophone in Cairo and later with Baidaphon in Lebanon includes: muwashshaḥ "Anā waḥdī", "Lammā badā yatathanna"; qaṣīda "Amānā min lawāḥiẓik al-fawātir", "Bih bimā shi't bi-al-hawa", "Na'īsh bi-dhikrākom"; taqsīm on the buzuq; as well as numerous mawwāl some of which were written by Sheikh Aḥmad al-Ṭarābulsī.
Mastering Arabic language
The relationship of Muḥyiddīn Ba'yūn with music seems to have started early, and he seems to have been quite eloquent in Arabic. Some say that this was the result of his attending the Maqāṣid school –newly established then– where, according to a muḥaddith, Ba'yūn studied Arabic, fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence), tilāwa (Quran Recitation), and adab (Arabic Literature). Muḥyiddīn Ba'yūn learned music under qānūnist Aḥmad al-Badawī –who left Egypt for Levantine Tripoli in the 1880's– and was also significantly influenced by Farjallāh Baiḍā's style in chanting mawwāl baghdādī.
Among the stars of the Gramaphone recording campaign in 1912
Muḥyiddīn Ba'yūn reached some fame as a young performer, more so among music professionals than among listeners. Gramophone, among other new voices, chose him for their fourth recording campaign in the Levant in 1912. It was the first time he had recorded his voice, but he had still not recorded his playing.
In Cairo with al-Qasabgi
Most recording companies stopped operating in the Levant during WW1 (1914 – 1918), after which they returned with different monopoly contracts and better recording technologies. Baidaphon signed a contract with Muḥyiddīn Ba'yūn and asked him to make records and give concerts in Cairo in 1921. During this period, he recorded many discs of qaṣīda and mawwāl in both the Levantine and Egyptian dialects, as well as a few instrumental ones of ṭanbūr baghdādī (buzuq). He also met with many music professionals, including Ustad (Mr) Muḥammad al-Qaṣṣabjī, who said that he met Muḥyiddīn Ba'yūn in Cairo and discovered the ṭanbūr baghdādī, i.e. the buzuq, thanks to him. In a Radio interview in Beirut in the 1950s, Muḥammad al-Qaṣṣabjī admitted that he learned from Muḥyiddīn about a way to use the pick that was unknown to him, i.e. the Ibrahīmī rashsha method consisting in playing all the ṭanbūr's chords together without producing a cacophony or any dissonance.
Now famous Muḥyiddīn returned to the Levant –around 1923– where praise poems were dedicated to him, and tickets for his concerts were sold out weeks before the event. He signed a monopoly contract with Baidaphon, who recorded him in Beirut in 1924 during Sāmī al-Shawwā's tour in the Levant. In this campaign, he recorded many additional discs of qaṣīda, mawwāl, and muwashshaḥ.
In 1925, Abū Sa'īd –Muḥyiddīn's nickname—visited Cairo again and then went to the Arab Maghreb. During this two-year visit, he recorded vocal and instrumental discs. He returned with an illness that also affected his throat, forbidding him from performing vocal pieces ever again.
From then on, his recordings remained strictly instrumental. He stopped singing and is said to have stayed in a state of depression until he died. Still, his listeners never let him down and insisted that he should go on making music even if his illness kept him from singing. He gave many concerts with his ṭanbūr and recorded some discs following a recording technology that was recent at the time, i.e. electrical-power printed recording that allowed a purer sound. These recordings show, on the instrumental level, the mutual influence between Muḥyiddīn and Al-Qaṣṣabjī as to the movement of the pick and the structure of the phrase, as well as the Turkish influence that was already inspired by European Classical and Military music more than it was inspired by Arabic music: in Turkey, music was influenced by the above-mentioned European traditions since the beginning of the 19th century at least.
Abū Sa'īd suffered from further illness and poverty for 2 years towards the end of his life and died in Beirut in 1934.
The Tanbur (Buzuq)
The ṭanbūr was played in many Levantine countries, more so than in Egypt or Iraq. Mikhā'īl Mashāqa, the author of "Al-risāla al-shahābiyya fī al-ṣinā'a al-mūsīqiyya", used this string instrument as an example to support the rightness of his measuring theory and to refute his teacher Muḥammad al-'Aṭṭār's equal quartertones theory. Also, according to many 19th-century travellers, the 'ūd was more widely played in Egypt and Iraq than in the Levant, unlike the ṭanbūr, which was played more widely in the Levant than in Egypt or Iraq. Of course, this does not imply that the 'ūd was not played in the Levant or that the ṭanbūr was not played in Egypt and Iraq.
Yet, the first recordings made in the Levant do not reflect the words of those travellers: the ṭanbūr baghdādī, i.e. the buzuq, was barely heard before 1921 when Muḥyiddīn Ba'yūn recorded it. All the previous recordings include takht with 'ūd, kamān, qānūn, or kamān and qānūn without the 'ūd.
Interest in this instrument increased in the following years with leading figures in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan and, to a lesser extent, Egypt. They include Muḥammad' Abd al-Karīm (The Syrian Prince of Buzuq), Matar Mohamad, Assi Rahbani, Said Youssef and Hussein Bikar. Newer generations maintained this flow with Ibrahim Keivo (Syria), Ziad Rahbani (Lebanon), Khaled Jubran (Palestine) and many others in the region and Syria, where an annual festival dedicated to the Buzuq is held.
For more about Muḥyiddīn, tune in to the podcast of AMAR
https://www.amar-foundation.org/059-muhyiddin-bayun-1/
https://www.amar-foundation.org/060-muhyiddin-bayun-2/
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