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Revival of Azerbaijan's Traditional Music
Lifting his daf, a traditional Azerbaijani tambourine, to his ear, Mutalim Damirov begins to sing.
As his voice rises to a long ululating lament, Damirov closes his eyes, lost in the ancient poetry that has been sung this way in Azerbaijan for centuries. In the background, two musicians improvise notes on the tar, a long-necked lute, and the kamancha, a four-stringed spiked violin.
They are playing mugham, an ancient form of music unique to Azerbaijan, a mainly Muslim republic wedged between Russia and Iran on the Caspian Sea.
At the crossroads of Europe and Asia, and once a hub of the fabled Silk Road, Azerbaijan has absorbed Arab, Persian and Turkish influences to create mugham, an improvisational style of singing and playing that one of its most revered singers, Alim Qasimov, describes as "food for the soul".
"Mugham is a gift from God," Damirov said during a break from his performance in the Azerbaijani capital Baku. "When I sing mugham, I leave myself. I am not in control, the music is."
Little-known to the outside world and until recently threatened with extinction in Azerbaijan, mugham is enjoying a resurgence as its masters gain recognition abroad and authorities here step up efforts to preserve and teach its complex rules.
"A renaissance in mugham has begun," said Ibrahim Guliyev, the head of the newly built International Mugham Centre on Baku's waterfront.
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