Umm Kulthum Sings in Beirut

The Star of the East, Mrs. Umm Kulthum, crowned the tourist-year program at the UNESCO hall with two nights that were among the most captivating and enchanting nights the elite of Lebanese society has lived — nights distinguished by the great numbers who came to attend them from the various Arab countries and from every part of Lebanon.

Umm Kulthum sang and chanted and warbled, and passed over hearts with her magic and her song until she possessed men's souls; the audience was swept along in a hidden current of her sighs and of the radiance of the melody in her delivery, and soared into a world in which the meanings of beauty took form; spirits rose above themselves, their burdens grew light, and that night they rested from the loads of life and the weariness of the road through it.

In her two concerts, which lasted until the break of dawn, Umm Kulthum raised anew the question of Arab music; and perhaps the fair-minded who listened to Umm Kulthum grasped how far our music can reach and how much life lies latent within it.

Beyond this, Umm Kulthum brought out the characteristics of the Arab classical tradition in its loveliest and most splendid image — this immortal classicism, in whose revival thought, art, and performance were fused, and which her captivating rendering set within a magical frame of beauty. And then Umm Kulthum sang it for this generation, and for every generation after it.

As for her unique voice and the splendor of her delivery, they were feelings flowing in every murmur upon which her lips parted and into which her heart poured itself — so much so that she would no sooner reach the end of a song than she would sink onto a chair for a while, to regain what she had spent, to gather up what she had scattered, and to grasp anew what she had given the audience, and what she had bestowed of her very self and of the melting of her spirit.

Lebanon was right to place Umm Kulthum in the program it prepared, on a high level, for this its tourist year. For she belongs to Lebanon and to every Arab country — indeed she is a precious artistic gift whose like is rare in the whole world.