Few things can thrill like music. A Mahler symphony played by an orchestra, a Portuguese fado performance, a blues concert or a tango performance … There is, however, another musical genre, with a centuries-old history but less known, at least here, which is capable of arousing even stronger emotions. The tarab, Syrian folk music, appears to have the power to leave listeners in an ecstatic, trance-like state.
Widespread throughout the Arab world, especially in Egypt and Lebanon where the most famous musicians come from, the heart of the tarab is however Aleppo: for its inhabitants in fact this music has been in the blood for centuries and is considered as something sacred, to be protected.
And how to blame him given the “power” he has?
It is said that the ecstatic effect is due to the combination of two elements, on the one hand the sound of the instruments and on the other the words. Tarab songs are played by different instruments: a kind of called zither the law, a pear-shaped Arabic lute called old, a long flute called ney and occasionally a fiddle, the oldest bowed instrument in the world. Above the melodies played on these instruments, the singers repeat the lines of some ancient poems (but not only), called muwashahat, for hours.
But why if it is widespread throughout the Arab world and why if the most famous singers come from Egypt and Lebanon, is Aleppo the cradle of the tarab? The location of the Syrian city certainly has to do with it. Aleppo is in fact located at the western end of the Silk Road, where different traditions and cultures such as Kurdish, Iraqi, Turkish and Central Asian ones have converged and it is here that the first muwashahat, introduced by the Moors for the first time, and it is thanks to the Aleppians that they remained alive for more than a thousand years. They are the ones who have kept and handed them down. Moreover, in the long history of the tarab many famous names, which perhaps most of us say nothing, but which for those who love or know the genre are considered myths, have Syrian origins.
And those who have been lucky enough to listen to a live tarab concert describe it as a “magical” experience. Journalist Helen Russell has included this experience in her book The Atlas of Happiness, The Global Secrets of How to Be Happy.
In the gallery you will find other curiosities about the tarab.
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