Cuneiform – CERMAA

Richard Dumbrill is an English archaeomusicologist. He will speak about ancient Middle-Eastern musical systems at the Lebanese Conservatory in Sinn-el-Fil (Beirut-Lebanon), from 16:30 to 18:00 on Thursday the 23rd of April 2015, venue “S”. Dumbrill’s paper to be translated by Rosy Azar Beyhom during the event.

Richard Dumbrill will show that the earliest form of music theory sprouted in the Ancient Middle East some 4000 years ago, long before Pythagoras. Unlike with Greek music theory, where there is no contemporary textual evidence, (the earliest copies dating from the Western Dark Ages, around 1000 AD) Mesopotamian evidence rests with cuneiform clay tablets. The oldest dates from 2300 BC and the most recent from the first millennium BC. These texts are unequivocally about music theory and explain the formation of systems the nature of which being the source of the later maqam system. It is also very likely, that they used more than one musical system and this would be comparable to their metrology which also used a variety of systems.

Free admission; below: the text of the official invitation.

دعوة عامّة

“بداية التنظير الموسيقي في الشرق الأوسط القديم”

محاضرة للبروفيسور ريشارد دمبريل

في الثلاثاء 21 نيسان 2015 في القاعة “س” سن الفيل الساعة 4:30

يدعو المعهد الوطني العالي للموسيقى بالتعاون مع مركز الأبحاث حول الموسيقى العربية وقريباتها إلى محاضرة للبروفيسور ريشارد دمبريل حول أقدم ما وجده الإنسان حول التنظير الموسيقي في الشرق الأوسط القديم

يتناول المُحاضر حقبة تعود إلى 4.000 عام أي إلى ما قبل فيتاغورس، ترتكز على النقوش المسمارية من بلاد ما بين النهرين. تتميّز هذه النصوص المنقوشة بالتفسيرات حول الأنظمة الموسيقية وتكوينها وتطورّها (من المرجح) إلى ما يُعرف حاليًا بالمقام

يعود أقدم نقش مسماري إلى 2.300 ق.م. والأحدث إلى الألفية الأولى ق.م

أظهرت الدراسات حتى الآن أنّ الأقدمين كانوا يستعملون عدّة أنطمة موسيقية وذلك يتطابق مع تعدّد أنظمة القياس التي وُجدت في تلك الحقبة

Lyre-reconstructed-by-R.-Dumbrill — A lyre reconstructed by Richard Dumbrill for the Hurrian song H.6. project in Lebanon

In October 2012, ICONEA Director Richard Dumbrill visited Lebanon, initially to attend a conference in Beirut on Rituals in the Ancient Levant. The conference was cancelled following a bombing in the metropolis. Dumbrill seeked help from CERMAA/FOREDOFICO to produce a documentary film on the subject he had intended to give at the National Museum. The documentary, funded by the Friends of the National Museum and CERMAA/FOREDOFICO is about the research work Dumbrill has undertaken for the past 25 years on the translation of the oldest known musical text, written in the Hurrian language, dating from about 1400 years BC, and found at Ugarit in North East Syria in the 1950s. The documentary was shot by Paul Mattar, Founding member of FOREDOFICO, in a renowned archaeological site, and at the headquarters of CERMAA, in the suburbs of Beirut.

Rosy Azar Beyhom and Amine Beyhom, CERMAA founding members contributed to the Orientalisation of Dumbrill’s original rendition of the Hurrian material. The song was recorded at the CALA recording studios, a subdivision of FOREDOFICO specialised in archival recordings. Saad SAAB, President of FOREDOFICO made improvisastions on the Ꜥūd on the theme of the original music. The singing of the melody, and the acting on site was entrusted to a young and promising Lebanese singer, Lara Jokhadar Al-Aro. There, Lara played the role of a young woman afflicted with the curse of being childless, and sang her sorrow to the moon goddess NIKKAL so that she may bear child.

Lara Jokhadar al-Aro

The original score for the Hurrian H.6. song has been published in Richard Dumbrill’s article for NEMO N°1 :

Dumbrill, Richard : “Modus Vivendi,” Near Eastern Musicology Online 1 1 |2012-11| p. 89–116.

Category: Cuneiform

Richard Dumbrill invited by CERMAA/FOREDOFICO at CNSM