National identity is one of the characteristic pillars of music. The Arab region has so much in common when it comes to performing arts due to linguistic and cultural factors. Spoken languages play a key role in music as phonetics is usually reflected in chords and tunes.
As argued before, both pop and classical music had their own heroes since the first half of the 20th century. For pop music, it was Sayed Darwish (1892-1923) who pioneered composition and blazed the trail for a cohort of musicians to lead the way in the whole Arab region.
Mohamed el-Qassabgi (1892-1966) played another significant role in flavoring oriental music with characteristic Western instruments such as violin, cello, and flute. However, the national identity has been a quest for decades after Darwish and el-Qassabgy.
Nationalism in music reflects the patriotic feelings of nations and is embodied, sometimes, in the use of folk songs, dances, or rhythms. In Europe, nationalism emerged with political independence movements in the 19th century. European composers sought new musical forms away from Italian, French, and German traditionalists.
Egyptian musicologist Samha el-Kholy (1925-2006) argued in a study titled “Nationalism in the 20th Century Music”, that the quest for identity was behind the emergence of national musical schools in Europe in the late 19th century for the first time in Bohemia, Russia, Scandinavia, Spain, Britain, and Hungary.
El-Kholy claimed that nationalist composers deeply delved into their roots: the popular music or folklore, and the local religious music. Nationalists listened to farmers’ songs and folklore dances. According to her, European composers were concerned with their literature, stories, and heritage.
In Egypt, nationalist composers did the very same thing.
Darwish drew on the traditional maqams to express his nationalism in pop music. That could be easily revealed in “Lahn El-Shayalin” (The Porters’ Melody), which was composed according to Hijaz maqam. El-Helwa Di (That Sweet One) is another example of Darwish’s nationalist spirit. The Hijaz Re song was inspired by women farmers baking bread in the countryside.
As for classical music, Aziz el-Shawan (1916-1993), who had the most significant impact on the development of composition in Egypt and the Arab world, drew on the Arab heritage and ancient Egyptian rich history in the “Arabian Nights” and “Isis and Osiris”.
El-Shawan demonstrated his high-profile musical culture and talent to exhibit his Arab identity in his masterpiece “Oman Symphony”.
