Chamber Music Cello,
Viola, Violin 1, Violin 2
SKU: PR.114419030
Score and Parts.
Composed by Mohammed
Fairouz. Sws. Score and
parts. With Standard
notation. 68 pages.
Duration 25 minutes.
Theodore Presser Company
#114-41903. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.114419030).
ISBN
9781491114124. UPC:
680160669851. 9 x 12
inches.
A
fascination with
polycultural synergy
between diverse literary
textsdrives the
inspiration for much of
Mohammed Fairouz’s
prodigiouscreative
output, including
instrumental music as
well as vocal. Inhis
profound and extensive
essay preceding the
score, Fairouz shedslight
on how Edgar Allen
Poe’s “Israfel”
relates to the
prophetsand prophesies of
the Quran, Old Testament,
and New Testament.The
eight-movement quartet
may be heard as a
dramatic galleryof
portraits and of
story-telling,
flourishing in a
post-traditionallanguage
that is at once
vernacular and spiritual,
Middle Easternand
Western. The complete set
of score and parts is
included in
thispublication.
(See
pages 2-3 of score for
clear distinction of
paragraphs,
etc.)Prophesies, by
Mohammed FairouzEdgar
Allen Poe’s rendition
of Israfel was the point
of departure for the
final movement of my
previous stringquartet
which is titled The Named
Angels. At the opening of
his poem, Poe evokes the
Quran:“And the angel
Israfel, whose
heartstrings are a lute,
and who has the sweetest
voice of all God’s
creatures.”This informs
the first lines of the
poem that, in turn, gave
me the title for the
final movement of The
Named
Angels,“Israfel’s
Spell”:In Heaven a
spirit doth dwell“Whose
heartstrings are a
lute”None sing so
wildly wellAs the angel
Israfel,And the giddy
stars (so legends
tell),Ceasing their
hymns, attend the spellOf
his voice, all mute.It is
the end of that poem,
however, that is the
starting point for the
current quartet,
Prophesies, which
concernsitself with
mortal prophets rather
than eternal Angelic
spirits.If I could
dwellWhere IsrafelHath
dwelt, and he where I,He
might not sing so wildly
wellA mortal melody,While
a bolder note than this
might swellFrom my lyre
within the sky.Islamic
thought has asked us to
look at the example of
the prophets. That’s
significant because of
the fact thatJoseph and
all the prophets were
human beings with the
flaws of human beings. No
prophet was perfect,
andIslamic tradition has
never asked its followers
to aspire to the example
of the Angels, the
perfected ones. Instead
weare given the gift of
our prophets. While The
Named Angels drew on the
motion and energy of
everlasting
spirits,Prophesies is a
depiction of the
movements within our own
mortal coil.This quartet
is a continuation of a
long tradition of Muslim
artists telling their
stories and singing their
songs.Many of these
renditions are, in fact,
figurative and (contrary
to popular belief) the
Quran contains no
“Islamicedict”
prohibiting figurative
renditions of the figures
described in the Old
Testament, New Testament,
or Quran.The majority of
artists, however, have
preferred eternal and
abstract forms such as
words and their
calligraphicrepresentatio
ns, poems (Yusuf and
Zuleikha or the
Conference of Birds come
immediately to mind),
architecture,and many
other non-figurative art
forms to the
representation of man.
These cold, ancient, and
everlasting shapesof
unending time flourished,
and the divine infinity
of representing geometric
forms gained favor over
the placementof the
explicit representation
of mankind and our own
likeness at the center of
the universes.Adding the
string quartet to these
forms which express the
recursive spheres of
heavens and earth
abstractly shouldexplain
why I have chosen to
render higher things
through the use of music
without the addition of
words or anyother
art-form. It is the
abstract art of pure
form, in which all is
form and all is content,
which compels me.
Thisquartet should be
seen as no more
programmatic than the
arches of the Great
Mosque at Cordoba.The
first movement, Yāqub
(Jacob), is slow, quiet
and prayerful. It evokes
the patient sorrow of a
slow choraledeveloping
over time as it coaxes
our pulse out of the
ticking of a clock-like
meter that defines our
day-to-day livesand into
a divine eternity.The
second, Saleh, imagines
the spirit of that
desert-prophet through
the use of a Liwa; the
dance-sequence that
hasbeen such a prevalent
form of expression in the
Arabian Peninsula for
much of our recorded
history.The third
movement is titled
Dawoōd, and it is
emblematic of the beloved
Prophet, King, and
Psalmist, David.Though it
has no lyrics, the
movement functions as a
dabkeh (an ancient dance
native to the Levant) and
also “sets”the
opening of Psalm 100
(Make a joyful noise unto
the Lord, all ye lands).
This line is never set to
music or sung inthe
quartet but is evoked
through the rhythmic
shape of the violin part
which imitates the
phonology and rhythmof my
speaking the opening line
in the Hebrew and
develops the contours of
that line incessantly
throughout
themovement.3The fourth
movement is an ode to
Yousef (Joseph) and
relates to the first
movement in tempo and
tone just as
Josephrelates to Jacob,
his father. Together, the
first and fourth
movements provide a sort
of Lamentation and
relief.Joseph had the
appearance of a noble
angel, but he was very
much a human being. And
the story of this
particularprophet had
tragic beginnings many
years before he found
himself in a position of
power in Egypt. Back in
his youth,still among the
Israelites, Joseph
experienced a series of
revelations through his
dreams that spoke of his
impendingcareer in
prophecy. He confided his
dreams to his father, the
Prophet Jacob, who told
his son of the greatness
thatawaited him in his
future only to have his
brothers throw him into a
well and leave him for
dead. Joseph
eventuallyfound his way
from Israel to Egypt and
rose out of slavery into
a position of power.
Meanwhile, famine engulfs
Israel.Forty years pass,
and back in the land of
Jacob and Rachel, of
Joseph’s brothers and
Abraham’s tribe, Israel
wasnot spared the effects
of the famine. They
sorely lacked Joseph’s
prophecy and his vision.
The Qur’an then tells
usthat Jacob, sensing
Joseph, sends the other
brothers to Egypt
instructing them to come
back with food and
grain.Arriving in Egypt,
they unwittingly appear
before Joseph. They
don’t recognize their
little brother who has
risen toa position of
might, dressed in his
Egyptian regalia. They
ask for the food and the
grain.After some
conversation, Joseph is
no longer able to contain
his emotion. Overcome, he
reveals himself to his
nowterrified brothers. He
embraces them. He asks
them eagerly, “How is
our father?” Joseph
gives them the gift of
thefood and the grain
that they came in search
of. He relieves them from
hunger and alleviates
their fear. He sendsthem
back with proof that he
is alive, and it is this
joyful proof from the
miraculous hands of a
prophet that bringsback
the ancient Jacob’s
vision after 40 years of
blindness.In this story,
I am struck by the fact
that Joseph may not have
made the decision to
forgive his brothers on
thespot, but that
something inside the
prophet’s soul found
forgiveness and peace for
the brothers who had so
gravelywronged him at
some point along his
journey. I would suspect
this point to have been
present at Joseph’s
inception,even before he
had ever been
wronged.This is proof, if
we needed it, that
Joseph’s angel-like
beauty was not only
physical and external,
but also internalas well:
Joseph possessed a
profound loveliness of
spirit that bound his
appearance and his soul.
In Joseph, formand soul
are one.Time is to
musicians what light is
to a painter. In this
way, the story of Joseph
also shows us that time
can affectour perception
of even the most tragic
wounds. In fact, the most
common Arabic word for
“human being” is
insaan,which shares its
roots with the word
insaa, “to forget.”
While our ability to
remember is essential to
how we learnabout
ourselves, our capacity
to “forgive and
forget” may also be one
of our great gifts as
human beings.The fifth
movement follows my ode
to Joseph with a
structural memory of
Mūsa (Moses). The
movement consistsentirely
of descending motifs
which I constructed as an
indication of Moses’
descending movement as he
emergedto his people from
the heights of Mt. Sinai.
The music is constructed
in five phrases which
function as a
formalreference to the
five books of Moses, the
Pentateuch. The movement
is placed as the fifth of
the quartet for the
samereason.While Joseph
is always evoked as
supremely beautiful in
the Books of Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam,
Suleiman(Solomon) is
described as surpassing
in his quicksilver
intelligence. This
movement is composed of a
seven-partriddle which
passes by in an instant
but can be caught by the
attentive listener. From
Solomon, we work our
wayback to Yishak (Isaac)
in a seventh movement
that evokes Isaac’s
literal meaning in Arabic
and Hebrew: laughter.The
eighth and final movement
of this quartet is named
for the Patriarch of the
entire Book: Ibrahim
(Abraham). Itrelates to
Isaac just as Joseph
relates to Jacob; they
are father and son. The
lines are prayerful and
contemplative;the form of
the music evolves from a
fugue joining together
many different forms of
prayer into a single
tapestry ofcounterpoint,
to the cyclical form of
this entire quartet which
is rendered through the
motion of pilgrims
circling theKaaba (cube)
in Mecca — a structure
which was built by
Abraham for Hagaar and
their son Ismail.These
are just some of the
figures that are
cherished by all three of
the Middle Eastern
monotheisms
(Judaism,Christianity,
and Islam) that the
Qur’an refers to
collectively as Ahl
Al-Kitab. This Arabic
phrase is most
commonlytranslated as
“The People of the
Book,” but here the
most common translation
is a flawed one: the
Arabic word“ahl”
means “family” and
not just “people.” A
better translation would
be “Family of the
Book.” Each of the
eightmovements of
Prophesies grows from a
single musical cell.This
quartet is a family
album.—Mohammed Fairouz
(2018.
