the middle of the eighteenth century, European textile trade began to shift to Izmir and Istanbul (A. Marcus 1989: 152), and by the nineteenth century, Europe had come to dominate world textile trade, especially after British cotton “invaded” the region (Inalçik 1987: 381–83; Mitchell 1991: 15–16).
Aleppo’s Citadel, 2004.
Like other cities in the Mediterranean Basin, Aleppo’s commercial wealth spawned an active artistic and cultural life in the city. Aleppo developed strong traditions in music, literature, popular arts such as shadow plays and storytelling, and religious and other forms of intellectual scholarship (A. Marcus 1989: 227–37). Numerous scholars and local inhabitants refer to the Ottoman period as one of decline. Yet, Ottoman influence stimulated the culture of the Aleppine elites, some of whom did not even speak Arabic because of their Turkish provenance, and as a consequence the arts and culture of the city proliferated. Aleppo’s participation in pan-Ottoman culture still can be felt today in the city’s architecture, cuisine, music, and even dialects, which use many Turkish words.16
Because of its commercial prominence, Aleppo was a magnet for traders from near and far, thus serving as a meeting point for people of diverse cultural traditions. Gathering in the numerous caravansaries after a day’s labor, as locals like to narrate their history, these traders had no concern other than to sit back and relax, enjoy a fine meal, and listen to some music as a reward for their efforts. Soon Aleppo boasted a cosmopolitan mixture of musical and culinary styles—two areas of local culture of which many Aleppines are proud. The Aleppine genre of popular music known as the qudūd ḥalabiyya includes songs of Iraqi, Egyptian, Turkish, and Kurdish as well as Syrian origin (Qal
Despite Europe’s advances in world trade, Aleppo remained an important regional center for commerce and industry into the late nineteenth century, producing quantities of raw materials, textiles, soaps, agricultural products, and other commodities for regional and world markets. However, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 undermined Aleppo’s position as European merchants took advantage of sea-based routes to India and the Far East. The shift from overland to sea-based trade coincided with a series of Ottoman reforms that had the effect of further marginalizing Aleppo from the growing global economy in textiles, its major export, while burdening the city with a flood of migrants from rural areas fleeing onerous taxation and seeking employment opportunities (McGowan 1988: 18).
The period of the French Mandate (1922–194418) saw an expansion in Aleppo’s economic position as new lands were claimed for agricultural development. At the same time, the center of commercial and administrative power began to shift to Damascus, site of French colonial authority. Syria’s rapid economic growth lasted through the 1940s and 1950s because of a series of economic reforms that gave Syria one of the fastest-growing economies among developing countries at the time (Mason 1988). Yet, political instabilities and changing global patterns of trade in the postwar era challenged Syria economically and adversely affected Aleppo and its position as a commercial entrepôt. The city’s economic position was undermined further by a prolonged drought in the late 1950s and by the nationalization of Aleppine textile and agricultural industries under the ill-fated union with Egypt (1958–1961), leading to major capital flight to nearby Lebanon, Europe, and the Americas, drastic declines in production, and the virtual decimation of Aleppo’s merchant class. The decline of the city’s merchants and urban bourgeoisie precipitated a decline in the context of much music making: the evening soirées (sahra-s) of song, food, and merriment held in the homes of the bourgeoisie, which epitomized early twentieth-century urban musical aesthetics in the Levant (see Racy 1998, 2003).
Aleppine Courtyard: Bayt Wakīl, 1982.
Katrina Thomas/Saudi Aramco World/PADIA.
The city’s economic fate was sealed with the rise of President Ḥāfiẓ al-Asad in 1970 and the centralization of political and commercial power in Damascus, especially after the “events” of 1982 (spoken of, if at all, simply as “al-aḥdāth”), when Islamist insurrections in Aleppo and Hama were violently repressed (Van Dam 1996: 89–94, 111–17). Compared to Damascus, Aleppo has nearly as large a population as the capital but has not received as much investment in infrastructure or its fair share of development programs, according to many Aleppine intellectual figures. They claim that this is a form of punishment for the earlier “events.” Where the city has received attention, it has not always been benign: the destruction of an entire neighborhood for the purpose of building an ugly park featuring a statue of the president; the routing of major thoroughfares through older parts of the city, often bisecting entire neighborhoods and even individual buildings. Today, as Syria struggles to steer an economic course of development in the twenty-first century, increasing divisions between rich and poor, the evaporation of the middle class, and the increasingly Western cultural orientation of the elite means that the chances for the revival of the culture of music making characteristic of the era of the sammī
Music in Aleppo Today
Although its star has faded with the rise of Damascus as the political and economic center of Syria, Aleppo is still considered Syria’s musical capital and retains an active group of musicians and numerous ensembles that perform the urban art music traditions that many refer to as “classical” (klāsīkī) Arab music.20 Each of these groups is based on the so-called takht ensemble or some variation of it, consisting of the qānūn, oud, nāy, riqq, violin, and vocalist. Some add other instruments such as the frame drum (daff), and less often the synthesizer. So-called classical music today tends to be performed in restaurants and night clubs, venues considered less reputable—from the standpoint of the cultural elite and many musicians as well—than the private gatherings, which are fondly remembered by older musicians and even memorialized in television serials today.21
The “classical” tradition of urban art music in Aleppo consists of the genres of the musical suite (waṣla). More than any other city in the contemporary Arab world, Aleppo has made the waṣla the staple of the evening musical gathering (sahra). Aside from the muwashshaḥ, the waṣla includes instrumental pieces (samā
The periodization of Arab-Ottoman music is not precise and it would be misleading to apply the categories of European music to Arab music (Danielson 1997:
