Tunisia is a North African country with a predominately Arab population. The country is best-known for malouf , a kind of music imported from Andalusia after the Spanish conquest in the 15th century. Though in its modern form, malouf is likely very dissimilar to any music played more than four centuries ago, it does have its roots in Spain and Portugal, and is closely related to genres with a similar history throughout North Africa, including malouf's Libyan cousin, Algerian gharnata and Moroccan ala or Andalusi .

20th century musicians from Tunisia include Anouar Brahem , an oud player, and El Azifet , a rare all-female orchestra, and Khemais Tarnane , Raoul Journou , Saliha , Saleh Mehdi , Ali Riahi , Hedi Jouini , and Fethia Khairi .

21st century alternative music groups include Neshez [1] and Zemeken [2].

Popular music singers include Salah El Farzit , Fatma Bousseha , Hedi Habbouba , Faouzi Ben Gamra and Belgacem Bougenna for traditional chant.

Modern music festivals in Tunisia include Tabarka Jazz Festival [3], Testour 's Arab Andalusian Music Festival and the Sahara Festival in Douz.

Malouf

Main article: Malouf

Malouf is played by small orchestras, consisting of violins, drums, sitars and lutes. Modern malouf has some elements of Berber music in the rhythms, but is seen as a successor to the cultural heights reached by Muslim Andalusia. Malouf has been called "an emblem of (Tunisian) national identity" [4]. Nevertheless, malouf can not compete commercially with popular music, much of it Egyptian, and it has only survived because of the efforts of the Tunisian government and a number of private individuals. Malouf is still performed in public, especially at weddings and circumcision ceremonies, though recordings are relatively rare. The term malouf translates as familiar or customary.

Baron Erlanger is an important figure of modern Tunisian music. He collected the rules and history of malouf, which filled six volumes, and set up Rachidia , an important conservatory which is still in use.

Structure

Malouf is based on qasidah, a kind of classical Arabic poetry, and comes in many forms, including the post-classical muwashshah, which abandons many of qasidah's rules, shgul , a very traditional form, and zajal , a modern genre with a unique format.

The most important structural element of malouf, however, is the nuba, a two-part suite in a single maqam (an Arab mode organized by quarter-tones), which lasts about an hour. Rhythms generally grow more complex from one nuba to the next, as well as within each nuba.

According to legend, a distinct nuba once existed for every day, holiday and other event, though only thirteen remain. Partway through a nuba, an improvisational section was played in the maqam of the following day to ready the audience for the next performance.

History

The earliest roots of the malouf can be traced to a court musician from Baghdad named Ziryab . He was expelled from the city in 830, and travelled west, stopping finally at Kairouan, the first Muslim city of great power in Africa. The city was a center for North African (Maghebian) culture, and was the capital of the Aghlabite dynasty. Ziryab crossed the Maghreb and then entered Cordoba during a period of cultural innovation among the diverse inhabitants of the region. He became a court musician again, and used influences from the local area, the Maghreb and his native Middle East to form a distinctively Andalusian style.

Beginning in the 13th century, Muslims fleeing persection by Christians in what is now Spain and Portugal settled in cities across North Africa, including Tunis, bringing with them their music. Tunisian maluf, and its closely related cousin in Libya, was later influenced by the Ottoman Empire, which colonized Tunisia beginning in 1574. This process peaked in the middle of the 18th century, when the Ottoman governor of Tunisia, Muhammad al-Rashid , a musician, used Turkish-style instrumental compositions in his work and firmly set the structure of the nuba. Though his system has evolved considerably, most of the instrumental sections of modern nubat are derived from al-Rashid.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Tunisia became a French protectorate and the declining malouf was revitalized. Baron Rudolfe d'Erlanger , a French-naturalized Bavarian living near Tunis, commission a collection of ancient works, working with Ali al-Darwish of Aleppo. Al-Darwish and d'Erlanger's pioneering study of Tunisian music was presented at the International Congress of Arabic Music , held in 1932. D'Erlanger died only a few months after the congress, which revolutionized Arab music across the world. In Tunisia, the meeting inspired the Rashidiyya Institute , which was formed in 1934 to preserve the malouf. The Rashidiyya Institute undertook some alterations, revising lyrics that were considered profane, and also constructed two performance spaces in the old city of Tunis. The Institute also helped to transition malouf from being performed by folk ensembles with only a few instrument (including 'ud, tar , darbukka , rabab and bandir ) to symphonic pieces inspired by Western classical music and Egyptian ensembles.

The most influential such orchestra was called the Rashidiyya Orchestra , led by violinist Muhammad Triki . Rashidiyya Orchestra used a large chorus as well as contrabass, cello, violin, nay , qanun and 'ud sharqi , and followed the developing rules of Arab musical theory and notation. The thirteen surviving nubat were created during this time, distilled from the highly divergent folk forms still in use. Western musical notation was used; along with the popularization of recorded music, the use of improvisation quickly declined. These changes helped to popularize the malouf, though not without critics, and gave the music a reputation as classical art music.

After Tunisian independence in 1957, the country's first president, Habib Bourguiba, promoted the malouf, recognizing its unifying potential. The then-director of the Rashidiyya Orchestra, Salah el-Mahdi , wrote the Tunisian national anthem, and eventually also became the leader of the music department of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs . His musical theories became a major part of the Orchestra, as well as its successor, Institut Superieur .