Mugham

Mugam also known as Azerbaijani Mugham (Azeri: Muğam; مقام) is one of the many folk musical compositions from Azerbaijan, contrast with Tasnif, Ashugs.^[1] Mugam draws on Iranian-Arabic-Turkish Maqam.^[2]

For the town in Armenia, see Mugam, Armenia.

It is a highly complex form of art music with specific systems and concepts of musical expression that demand of its performers a very high standard of professionalism. The town of Shusha being particularly renowned for this art.

Mugham was included in the Voyager Golden Record of the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 which was intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, that may find it to portray the diversity of life and culture on the Earth^[3]. It was performed in Balaban with the length of 2:30.

In 2003, UNESCO recognized mugam as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. ^[4]

Azerbaijan also has a great tradition of composers and musicians of western classical music. Fikret Amirov (1922-1984) was the first Azeri composer of classical music to write mughams for symphony orchestras. Such works are obviously very different from traditional mugham formations but in fact incorporate many mugham idioms. On the level of musicians, there remains a strict separation between classical and "traditional" music in terms of training. Even if the musicians are educated at the same conservatorium they stick to one camp.

In the course of its long history the people of Azerbaijan have retained their ancient musical tradition. Mugham belongs to the system of modal music and my have derived from Persian musical tradition. The Uighurs in Xinjian (Sinkiang) call this musical development muqam, the Uzbeks and Tajiks call it maqom (or shasmaqom), while Arabs call it maqam and Persians dastgah. In Azerbaijan the word is mugham from arabic Maqam. It is based on many different modes and tonal scales where different relations between notes and scales are envisaged and developed.

The meta-ethnicity and intricate complexity of this music also becomes apparent in the fact that terms such as mugham, maqam, or dastgah, omnipresent in oriental music, can mean one thing in the Turkish tradition, while the same term in the music of Uzbekistan takes on quite another meaning, and yet another in the classical Arabian tradition. So, in one culture mugham may be related to a strictly fixed melodic type, while in another it is only the cadences, the melody endings that are associated with it. In a third culture it may only correspond to a specific type of tone scales.

It is therefore not surprising that reference works give insufficient information (if any at all) about the concept since it is not easy to define: "[M]usicologists mutter something incomprehensible (because, with a few exceptions, they don't know either), and the Azeri people explain it in such a roundabout manner that it is impossible to work it out." (Skans).

In recent years, Azerbaijan folk music existed within the scope of folk art. The vocal-instrumental forms of folklore contain the elements of polyphony. The peculiarity of folk music clarifies itself firstly with the development of a fret system. It contains seven main frets - rast, shur, segyakh (are especially spread), shushter, bayati-shiraz, chargyakh, khumayun and three collateral kinds - shakhnaz, sarendj, chargyakh in some other form. Before, it was considered that each of the frets has its special vivid emotional meaning. Rast embodies courage and energy; chargyakh, passion, excitement; shushter, deep sadness; segyakh, the harmony of love (it is not by chance that segyakh is considered an inflexionable basis of the majority of lyrical love songs) and so on. Every fret represents strongly organized scale, possessing a firm tonic prop (maye), and each step of the fret has its melodic function.^[5]

Part of the confusion arises from the fact that the term itself can have two different, if related meanings. The famous Azeri composer Gara Garayev has the following explanation: “The expression mugham is used in two senses in the folk music of Azerbaijan. On the one hand the word mugham describes the same thing as the term lad [Russian for key, mode, scale]. An analysis of Azeri songs, dances and other folk-music forms show that they are always constructed according to one [of these] modes. On the other hand the term mugham refers to an individual, multi-movement form. This form combines elements of a suite and a rhapsody, is symphonic in nature, and has its own set of structural rules. In particular one should observe that the suite-rhapsody-mugham is constructed according to one particular mode-mugham and is subject to all of the particular requirements of this mode.” (Sovetskaya Muzyka 1949:3).

"Mugham" describes a specific type of musical composition and performance, which is hard to grasp with western concepts of music in another respect: for one, mugham composition is improvisational in nature. At the same time it follows exact rules. Furthermore, in the case of a suite-rhapsody-mugham the concept of improvisation is not really an accurate one, since the artistic imagination of the performers is based on a strict foundation of principles determined by the respective mode. The performance of mugams does therefore not present an amorphous and spontaneous, impulsive improvisation.

With respect to the concept of improvisation, mugham music is often put in relation to jazz, a comparison that is accurate to a certain point only. Although mugham does allow for a wide margin of interpretation, an equation with jazz is oversimplified, since it fails to account for the different kinds of improvisation for different Mugam modes. The performance of a certain mugham may last for hours. (For the uninitiated listener it is close to impossible to know whether a musician is actually improvising or playing a prearranged composition.) Furthermore, as Garayev stresses, mugham music has a symphonic character.

The songs are often based on the medieval and modern poetry of Azerbaijan, and although love is a common topic in these poems, to the uninitiated ear many of the intricacies and allusions are lost. For one, the poems do not primarily deal with worldly love but with the mystical love for god. Yet, strictly speaking, this is still secular music/poetry, as opposed to, say, Sufism. Nevertheless, mugham composition is designed very similarly to Sufism in that it seeks to achieve ascension from a lower level of awareness to a transcendental union with god. It is a spiritual search for god.

In 2003, UNESCO has acknowledged the authenticity, richness and cultural significance of mugham both national and global culture, and in 2003 announced it as a “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”.

Considered to be the classical music of Azerbaijan, the Mugam is a traditional musical form characterized by a large degree of improvisation and draws upon popular stories and local melodies. The recent evolution of the cultural industry has threatened the improvisational nature and the ear-to-ear transmission of this art form. During his official visit to the country in August 2005, the Director-General of UNESCO, in the company of President Ilham Aliyev and several Goodwill Ambassadors, attended a foundation stone-laying ceremony of a Mugam Centre. In 2004, Mehriban Aliyeva, the First Lady of Azerbaijan, was named as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the oral and musical traditions.^[6]

• Abdulbagi Zulalov
• Alim Qasimov
• Sevda Alekperzadeh
• Franghiz Ali-Zadeh
• Music of Azerbaijan
• Culture of Azerbaijan
• History of Azerbaijan

• UNESCO proclaimes Mugham of Azerbaijan a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity
• Mugham Society of America
• http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai114_folder/114_articles/114_azerbaijani_mugham.html Declared Masterpiece of Oral World Heritage by UNESCO]
• Azerbaijani refugees entertaining themselves with Mugham
• azer.com on Mugham
• Louis Werner about Mugham
• Discography of Azerbaijan (with audio samples)
• e-book "Principles of Azerbaijani Folk Music"