Mustafa Said
The Hub, Edinburgh, 19/8/24
Mustafa Said
The Hub’s African look is dimmed down for this Arabic event, speckled with filters recalling the silhouetted fretwork of Oriental screens. Virtuoso Egyptian oud player and singer Mustafa Said enters, lightly robed in colours of the desert, and sits cross-legged on the small rostrum, between two ouds. He does not shift position for the duration of this enthralling recital.
Musician and musicologist, professor and teacher, Mustafa Said loves resurrecting lost songs, piecing together old texts, metres and melodies discovered in archaic notations, or composing for ancient poems – using Braille, for he is blind. Realising this somehow stimulates my own capacity for concentrated listening, and “deep listening” is what Said recommends we do. Perhaps in line with this stillness, all this evening’s music is in a single mode, or maqam.
The oud resembles the lute. The neck is always fret-free, seamlessly providing the full spectrum of microtones to accompany the voice. Mustafa Said picks up the smaller version, plus a long black feather. Plucked from the eagle’s nest, it makes for a 13th century plectrum. It casts intriguing shadows on the oud as Said plays, as if he were using the quill to write the issuing sounds.
The hour’s performance is in three sections, with the first devoted to the 13th and 14th centuries This music is contemplative, mostly soft, not unlike early music in Europe. It becomes unmistakably Arabic only when he starts singing. His voice is at times yearning, incantatory, prayerful. The Oriental-style melasmas (undulating around a single sustained syllable) he delivers with stunning spot-on pitching for every demisemiquaver, as if tiptoeing through a flowerbed of rare plants.
The second part explores the 15th and 16th centuries, then the third brings his own and others’ traditional compositions since the 1950s. For all these he switches to the bigger, sonorous oud. Suddenly the sounds recall my own early travels in the Levant. The oud, though never brash, becomes more assertive, with added slides and occasional piano-like notes. Said’s singing increases its range of pitch and passion. The melasmas seem more familiar and spontaneous. By the time we reach the third section, we have treble notes and ululations, throaty whistles and other fine vocal ornamentations. Excellent breath control sees long sustained melasmas with no pause nor apparent strain. Nothing of this is showy; it is simply integral, a natural expression of feeling.
On the downside the EIF promised us “visual enhancement with documentary excerpts” which were nowhere to be seen. Nor was there any printed or online information, and though Said supplied some introductions, the mic was placed too far away for his speaking voice, so many of the audience failed to hear. While the musical experience was sublime, we were also eager to learn more.
Fortunately for those of the audience who could stay on, Mustafa Said returned after a short break to talk further and answer questions. With the mic now in hand he could make himself heard and proved an engaging and eloquent guide.
Photo credit: Ryan Buchanan