Galery

The emir of Córdoba, Abderrahman II was the first one who founded a musical conservatory in Al-Andalus, being considered its musicians as rivals of those of Medina, regarded as the best ones. In 882, Abu al-Hasan Ibn Ali Ibn Nafi (789-857), best known as Zyriab: ‘black singer bird’, arrived to the court of Córdoba from Baghdad. Zyriab introduced in the Andalusi music schools the Arab-Persian system, used at the same time that the pitagoric and Greek system. He had been in the far Baghdad the exceptional pupil of two important musicians at the court of Harún ar-Rashid; they were Ibrahim Ibn Mahán de Kufa and his son Ishaq. This one, seeing the musical aptitudes of Zyriab and fearing how they could mar his own ones, was jealous of him, and obliged him to abandon the capital.

Zyriab studied different branches: he was a poet, writer, astronomer, geographer, a refined aesthete and a famous gourmet (cooker), an ancient dish of Córdoba with salted roasted broad beans is called ‘ziriabí’, but over all he was a musician. It is said he knew by heart the words and melodies of ten thousand songs. He was the founder of a great musical academy and made to be known in Al-Andalus the Islamic instrument par excellence, the ud (lute), to which he added the fifth string. According to Zyriab: ‘the traditional four strings find their equilibrium in the Universe. They represent the symbols of the four elements: water, fire, earth and air. However, their peculiar tones show analogies with humours and temperaments, which do not exist in nature. I have coloured the strings in order to indicate their correspondences with human nature: the first one, red, it represents the blood; the second, white, represents the phlegm; the third, yellow, it is the bile; the fourth, black, it is the atrabile (supposed to cause melancholy, according to the ancients). The fifth string is the most important: it represents the soul…’ Zyriab made his own instruments, improving them with innovations.

The diverse rhythms and melodies composed at the Andalusi School forged by Zyriab, as the zambras, crossed to America with the moriscos and turned into dances like the zamba, the gato, the Escondido, the milonga, the pericón and the chacarera in Argentina and Uruguay; the cuenca and tonada of Chile; the llaneras of Colombia and Venezuela; the jarabe in Mexico or the guajira and the danzón in Cuba. The tango also has flamenco origins, word that according to the eminent historian Blas Infante, derives from the arab fellahmenghu: ‘wandering peasant’. The majority of flamenco scholars and famous performers as Paco de Lucía and singers like Camarón de la Isla admit the andalusi-moorish origin of this music.