An Hour with Fairuz and the Rahbani Brothers

"Fairuz," she of the golden, tender voice, speaks of her wishes and her dreams — who are the Rahbani brothers, who brought the precious pearl out of its shell?

And the opinion of Mr. Assi Rahbani on music

In a far-off, secluded corner, in a remote, quiet nook of one of the music halls of Radio Lebanon, you come upon a girl slender of figure, calm of features, artless of countenance... The shadow of a bewildered smile hovers on her lips and glows in the recesses of her face, lending it a shade of mystery and enchantment... Look closely at her face — bare of every trace of make-up and adornment — and you are struck by a touch of melancholy that sways in the depths of her eyes and settles on the pages of her dreamy face... It is Fairuz... she of the angelic voice that has risen and soared with souls, lifting spirits up to a world that is all beauty, splendor, and majesty... Which of us has not delighted, on a moonlit evening or a bright, radiant morning, in listening to a calm, tender voice, deep and sincere, borne by the ether to the ear, delicate, dreamy, sweet... Which of us has not cried out with delight on listening to "Reproach" and "Come, Come" and "To a Shepherdess" and "Widad" and the others... All of us have heard that voice, and all of us have cried out in delight at its song; but not one of us knows the owner of that voice — that unknown striver who has so often suffered to make others happy, so often struggled and strived to bring cheer to the weary among the children of humanity...

You try to draw her into conversation, and the words come from between her lips delicate and sweet, like a prayer or one of the sacred hymns:

I said:

— What is this melancholy that draws pictures and shapes upon your face? ... Are you truly in pain, sad...

— I am not happy! ... yet I am not sad to the degree I appear to be...

— What is the source of your troubles? .. Do you find difficulty in your artistic work? ...

— Our conservative Eastern milieu does not yet value singing at its true worth; and so I met with great difficulty from my milieu and my family when I expressed my wish to take up singing. But the weight of those obstacles has grown much lighter now... And I put continuous effort into my work itself...

— What led you to take up singing as a calling?

— Music penetrates into my depths and runs in my veins... When I listen to a piece of music I feel as though I have become nothing — or everything.. my being melts away into the tunes and the melodies...

That is the direct reason that drove me to take up singing...

— Which are the songs you are proud of?

— "Reproach," "O Daughter of Our Neighbor," "To a Shepherdess"... and among the dance songs: "You Are With Me," "I Search for You Always," "The Day I Met My Beloved."

— Do you pursue any other work alongside your work at Radio Lebanon?

— I take lessons in English, French, Arabic, and mathematics, besides private lessons in the principles of playing the piano.

— Do you find it difficult to reconcile study with work?

— It is truly exhausting... but I have taken a motto for myself in life... namely, that life is struggle...

— Whose melodies, of all the composers, put you most at ease?

— Naturally, the melodies of the Rahbani brothers; I have sung most of my pieces to their music... The melodies of the Rahbani brothers are among the melodies dearest to my soul, for I am greatly at ease in singing them; and besides, their color counts as a new conquest in Arabic song, in which no one has preceded them at this degree of perfection and excellence...

I happened to glance around, and there in the other corner of the hall I saw Assi Rahbani — one of the two Rahbani brothers — absorbed in setting a new song to music... I went up to him and surprised him with my question:

— Do you truly consider this color of singing that you are engaged in a new color in Arabic song, as Miss Fairuz has told me?

— Yes, of that there is no doubt...

— Do you mean that no one has attempted this color before the two of you?...

— There have been attempts made by a group of musicians — I mention among them Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Farid al-Atrash, and others...

— Do you believe that Arabic music lacks nothing but circulation and diffusion to become world music...

— Certainly not... Arabic music lacks scientific foundations, for it rests on taste alone... Take, for example, the great composers: you will find them basing their composition on very primitive rules, and then calling to their aid taste, and a few conventions...

— What is to be done, then, to raise up Arabic music?

— Artists must first acquire a general culture, and then receive a deep Western musical training, in addition to a broad and sound Eastern study... And besides this, we lack skilled players for the forming of large orchestras...

— Have you composed anything that can hold its own before world music?..

— I must mention first that our direction at present is not classical music.. As for the dance song, we have composed many pieces that fulfill all the conditions and can stand beside the world's dance songs... I mention among these songs: "My Beloved, the Narcissus Has Bloomed on the Hills" — "O You Who Laugh at My Faithfulness" — "I Search for You Always" — "You Are With Me" — "By the Mountains of Snow," and others — and do not forget the song programs, which take up most of our time.

— To what is the success of these songs to be attributed?

— If we suppose that they are successful, I say:

— First, because we have followed — as I indicated before — sound scientific rules in composing them; and then, we write the words ourselves, and this helps us greatly in fitting the melody to the words...

— Am I to understand from your words that one of you writes the verses and the other composes? ...

— No... each of us writes verses and each of us composes...

— Which of you is the more gifted? ..

— Do you not know the story of Shihab al-Din and his brother? ...

— Very well... At whose hands did you learn the principles of music?

— First, our eyes opened upon our father's buzuq, for he was a skillful player of that instrument. Then we entered school, and there Father Boulos al-Ashqar began teaching us some hymns and musical rules, and I recall on this occasion my dear brother, because his voice was not bad; I would listen to their hymns and to the teacher's explanation. Once he was explaining to them a theory they were unable to grasp, so I went up to the Father and explained it to him; he was much pleased with me, and took it upon himself to teach us some musical rules... And we are still studying now under our French teacher, Mr. Robillard...

— What are your artistic aims?

— Our aims are many and branching, but the chief of them is that we should possess compositions in our own music, artistic ones, built on world foundations and bearing an Eastern stamp, able to stand before the world's musical compositions. We also aim to build artistic musical composition on the basis of local color, or what we call Folklore.