Yair Dalal and Avi Agababa
3rd International Festival of Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace (MESP)
6 February - 12 March 2006
Music Yair Dalal's journey to explore the Jewish-Iraqi roots of his
Babylonian heritage and the music of Baghdad
Performers Yair Dalal (violin, oude and voice) and Avi Agababa (percussion
and supporting voice)
Date 19 February 2006
Venue St George's West Church
Address 58 Shandwick Place
Reviewer Bruce Haughan
For four thousand years the Jewish communities of what is now Iraq had maintained much of the cultural heritage and traditions of the land. With the creation of the state of Israel after World War 2, many of the Jewish artists and their families in Iraq moved to Israel, and Iraq lost much of its musical heritage and tradition. In the first of two concerts at St George's West Church Yair Dalal, one of Israel's foremost ethnic musicians, used his own music to explore the Jewish-Iraqi roots of his Babylonian heritage and the music of Baghdad. His virtuoso performances on the violin and the oude, and his songs, were brilliantly complemented by Avi Agababa playing a range of tabla and other percussions to provide an evening of compelling listening.
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The evening opened with a slow air, unaccompanied, on the violin which was
eventually joined by the tabla and ended in a stately dance in triple time.
This was followed by a long set of variations on the oude, which resembles a
large 12-string lute but which has a dry sound that is all its own. Again the
oude was joined by a tabla, on which Agababa gave a mesmerising solo halfway
through the piece. This was the pattern for the evening: brief introductions,
Dalal and Agababa moving effortlessly between instruments, their voices simply
part of the weft of the music without seeking to dominate.
The rhythmic repetitiveness of some pieces had a dreamy, almost soporific effect,
and a few members of the audience were moved to sway in their seats in time
with the music. Some of the later songs were strophic and sounded like many
of the songs of Provence and Spain. They reminded us that much southern European
traditional music has its origins to the south and east of the Mediterranean
Sea.
Dalal is also a compelling storyteller, and interspersed his instrumental recital
with two stories, of the national radio orchestra in Baghdad which was made
up entirely of Jewish musicians, and of the sale in the Baghdad market of the
camel and the cat.
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Avi Agababa & Yair Dalal
© Pete Heywood |
All the music was of peace. The programme culminated in a set based on the
now-familiar
Biblical text that Jennens included in his passages for Handel's Messiah: How
beautiful are the feet of them that bring the gospel of peace, and the prayer
for peace, played on the violin, with which Dalal and Agababa had opened the
One World concert the evening before. By way of encore, they sent us away with
a lullaby, and a hope to meet again the following evening for the second concert,
which would explore the music of the desert.
This was a delightful and fascinating evening of music by two masters of their
instruments and their music. Since the second concert had been planned as a
companion and as a sequel, it would have been helpful if that billing could
have been made more clear in the Festival programme, with perhaps a concessionary
price for tickets for both.
Yair Dalal MESP
© Bruce Haughan. 20 February 2006. Published on www.edinburghguide.com
Yair Dalal & Avi Agababa MESP Concerts Sunday 19 and Monday 20 February
2006