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 foun-dations, for it rests on taste alone... Take, for exam-ple, 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

From the right: the brothers Mansour and Assi Rahbani