Research on Syrian music illuminates connections across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Many civilizations left their mark on the culture after conquering the area and combining old traditions with new identities. These influences created distinct features in Syrian music that are found nowhere else in the world and are now threatened by the Syrian Civil War.
Although there are not many pieces for cello by Syrian composers of the twentieth-century, one of the country’s most famous composers, Nouri Iskandar, wrote a Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra. This concerto was the first time a Syrian composer wrote a concerto for a Western instrument. The cello in the Arab world was an instrument typically used in secondary roles, such as accompaniment or to sustain pedal tones while other instruments such as the oud, qanun, or nay had soloistic roles, performing the cadenzas or taqsim.
In the Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra, Iskandar’s main goal was to deploy the Western forms and rules of writing without losing the elements, characteristics, style, and uniqueness of the Arabic maqams. Due to the lack of publishing houses in Syria, high printing costs, and low demand for music in the past thirty years, classical scores by Syrian composers are not readily available, resulting in a lack of performances by younger generations of musicians. Nouri Iskandar is well into his eighties. Given his age, it is critical to be able to work with him now on performance practices of his piece before his contributions are lost. While preparing this essay, I worked with Iskandar and interviewed him. I also studied the style and ornamentation of Syrian classical music with musicians of the Syrian Arab Orchestra and other pedagogues at the Damascus Conservatory. Dynamics, style, terminology, quarter-tones, scales, and ornamentation will be discussed in this essay, along with a performance analysis of how to properly perform this unique music.
My goal is to bring the concerto to the attention of the international community while diversifying available repertoire for cellists. Since the original manuscript lacks certain performance details, this document provides cellists with a performance edition containing suitable bowings, fingerings, registers, and articulations.