سيد درويش
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| Sheikh Sayed Darwish |
Sayed Darwish was born in Kôm
el-Dikka Alexandria on 17 March 1892. During his childhood his family could not
afford to pay for his education, so he was sent to a religious school where he
mastered the cantillating of the Quran. After graduating from the religious
school and gaining the title "Sheikh Sayed Darwish", he studied for two years at
al-Azhar, one of the most renowned religious universities in the world. He left
his studies to devote his life to music composition and singing, then entered a
music school where his music teacher, Sami Efendi, admired his talents and
encouraged Darwish to press onward in the music field.
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| DARWISH The MUSICIAN |
Darwish at that time was also
trained to be a munshid (cantor). He worked as a bricklayer in order to support
his family, and it so happened that the manager of a theatrical troupe, the
Syrian Attalah Brothers, overheard him singing for his fellows and hired him on
the spot. While touring in Syria, he had the opportunity to gain a musical
education, short of finding success. He returned to Egypt before the start of
the Great War, and won limited recognition by singing in the cafés and on
various stages while he learned repertoire of the great composers of the 19th
century, to which he added ”adwār”
(musical modes) and “muwashshaḥāt”
(Arabic poetic-form compositions) of his own. In spite of the cleverness of his
compositions, he was not to find public acclaim, disadvantaged by his mediocre
stage presence in comparison with such stars of his time as Saleh 'Abd al-Hayy
or Zaki Murad.
After too many failures in singing
cafés, he decided in 1918 to follow the path of Shaykh Salama Higazi, the
pioneer of Arabic lyric theater and launched into an operatic career. He
settled in Cairo and got acquainted with the main companies, particularly Nagib
al-Rihani's (1891–1949), for whom he composed seven operettas that the gifted
comedian had invented, with the playwright and poet Badie Khayri, the laughable
character of Kish Kish Bey, a rich provincial mayor squandering his fortune in
Cairo with ill-reputed women... The apparition of social matters and the
allusions to the political situation of colonial Egypt (the 1919
"revolution") were to boost the success of the trio's operettas, such
as "al-'Ashara al-Tayyiba" (The Ten of Diamonds, 1920) a
nationalistic adaptation of “Bluebeard".
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| Musical instrument Oud |
Sayed also worked for Rihani's
rival troupe, 'Ali al-Kassar's, and eventually collaborated with the Queen of
Stages, singer and actress Munira al-Mahdiyya (1884–1965), for whom he composed
comic operettas such as "kullaha yawmayn" ("All of two
days", 1920) and started an opera, "Cleopatra and Mark Anthony",
which was to be played in 1927 with Muhammad 'Abd al-Wahab in the leading role.
In the early twenties, all the companies sought his help. He then decided to start
his own company, acting at last on stage in a lead part. His two creations
("Shahrazad' and "al-Barooka", 1921) were not as successful as
planned, and he was again forced to compose for other companies from 1922 until
his premature death on 15 September 1923.
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| OLD ARABIC TAKHT |
Darwish's stage production is
often clearly westernized: the traditional takht is replaced by a European ensemble,
conducted by il Signore Casio, Darwish's maestro. Most of his operetta tunes
use musical modes compatible with the piano, even if some vocal sections use
other intervals, and the singing techniques employed in those compositions
reveal a fascination for Italian opera, naively imitated in a cascade of
oriental melismas. The light ditties of the comic plays are, from the modern
point of view, much more interesting than the great opera-style arias. A number
of those light melodies originally composed for al-Rihani or al-Kassar are now
part of the Egyptian folklore. Such songs as "Salma ya Salama”, "Zuruni
koll-e sana marra” or “EI helwa di qamet " are known by all
Middle-Easterners and have been sung by modern singers, as the Lebanese Fayruz
or Syrian Sabah Fakhri, in re-orchestrated versions. Aside from this light
production, Sayed Darwish didn't neglect the learned repertoire; he composed
about twenty muwashshahat, often played by modern conservatories and sung by
Fayruz. But his major contribution to the turn-of-the-century learned music is
better understood through the ten adwar (long metric composition in colloquial
Arabic) he composed.
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| CAFE DARWISH |
Whereas in the traditional
aesthetics defined in the second part of the 19th century, the "dor" was built as
a semi-composition, a canvas upon which a creative interpreter had to develop a
personal rendition, Darwish was the first Egyptian composer to reduce
drastically the extemporizing task left to the singer and the instrumental
cast. Even the "ahat", this traditionally improvised section of
sighs, were composed by Darwish in an interesting attempt of figuralism.
Anecdotic arpeggios and chromaticism were for his contemporaries a token of
modernism, but could be more severely judged nowadays.
Sayed Darwish was personally
recorded by three companies: Mechian, a small local record company founded by
an Armenian immigrant, which engraved the Shaykh's voice between 1914 and 1920;
Odeon, the German company, which recorded extensively his light theatrical
repertoire in 1922; Baidaphon, which recorded three adwâr around 1922. His
works sung by other voices are to be found on numerous records made by all the
companies operating in early 20th-century Egypt.
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| Musical instrument Kanoon |
Darwish believed that genuine art
must be derived from people's aspirations and feelings. In his music and songs,
he truly expressed the yearnings and moods of the masses, as well as recording
the events that took place during his lifetime. He dealt with the aroused
national feeling against the British occupiers, the passion of the people, and
social justice, and he often criticized the negative aspects of Egyptian
society.
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| Gramophne 78 disc Record (1925) Cairo |
His works, blending Western
instruments and harmony with classical Arab forms and Egyptian folklore, gained
immense popularity due to their social and patriotic subjects. Darwish's many
nationalistic melodies reflect his close ties to the national leaders who were
guiding the struggle against the British occupiers.
His music and songs knew no class and were enjoyed by both the poor and the affluent.
His music and songs knew no class and were enjoyed by both the poor and the affluent.
In his musical plays, catchy music
and popular themes were combined in an attractive way. To some extent, Darwish
liberated Arab music from its classical style, modernizing it and opening the
door for future development.
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| Gazl El Banat original poster |
Besides composing 260 songs, he
wrote 26 operettas, replacing the slow, repetitive, and ornamented old style of
classical Arab music with a new light and expressive flair. Some of Darwish's
most popular works in this field were El Ashara'l Tayyiba, Shahrazad, and El-Barooka. These operettas, like Darwish's other compositions, were strongly reminiscent
of Egyptian folk music and gained great popularity due to their social and
patriotic themes.
Even though Darwish became a
master of the new theater music, he remained an authority on the old forms. He
composed 10 “dawr” and 21 “muwashshat” which became classics in the world of
Arab music. His composition "Bilaadi! Bilaadi!" (My Country! My
Country!), that became Egypt's national anthem, and many of his other works are
as popular today as when he was alive. Sayed Darwish was highly influenced by
his teacher, the great Iraqi musician and singer Othman Al-Mosuli (1854–1923),
and it has been established that his most famous songs "Zuruni kul Sana
Marra", "Talaat Ya Mahla Noura" and "Albint
Alshalabiya" among many others were adaptations from well known works of
Othman Al-Musoli's, who is considered to be the greatest musician and singer in
the modern Middle East. This has cast serious doubt about "Biladi
Biladi" in terms of origin as it has been suggested that Othman also
composed it. It is well known that Sayed Darwish tried his best to show that
everything he played was the result of his own creativity and never admitted to
plagiarism.
Sayed Darwish died on 10 September
1923 at the age of 31. The cause of his death is unknown. Some say he was
poisoned and died from cardiac arrest, others suggest a cocaine overdose. He
now rests in the "Garden of the Immortals" in Alexandria.
Legacy
At the age of 30, Darwish was
hailed as the father of the new Egyptian music and the hero of the renaissance
of Arab music. He is still very much alive in his works. His belief that music
was not merely for entertainment but an expression of human aspiration imparted
meaning to life. He is a legendary composer remembered in street names,
statues, a commemorative stamp, an Opera house, and a feature film. He
dedicated his melodies to the Egyptian and pan-Arab struggle and, in the
process, enriched Arab
music in its entirety.
The Palestinian singer and
musicologist, Reem Kelani, examined the role of Sayed Darwish and his songs in
her program for BBC Radio Four entitled "Songs for Tahrir" about her
experiences of music in the uprising in Egypt in 2011.
Sayed Darwish put music to the
Egyptian national anthem, Bilady, Bilady, Bilady, the words of which were
adapted from a famous speech by Mustafa Kamel.
Coincidentally, on the day of his
death, the national Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul returned from exile; the
Egyptians sang Darwish's new song "Mesrona watanna Saaduha Amalna",
another national song by Sayed Darwish that was attributed to "Saad"
and made especially to celebrate his return.
