A Musical and Artistic Renaissance at the Hands of Sami Salibi

He is an artist... this man of whom I am about to tell you now!...
Sami Salibi... have you heard of him??... Have you seen him?...
The papers have spoken of him on more than one occasion... "The Agricultural Fair at Abadiyeh"... "The Saliha–Shaker wedding celebration"... "Reviving the Lebanese artistic heritage"...

And on many other occasions... where people have been able to watch the "dabke" — that splendid Lebanese dance... to whose strains young women and young men of the refined, educated class of this country move with harmony, splendor, and mastery...

And people ask: How was it given to these young men and young women to learn the arts of the "dabke" and to master it with all this mastery?

Here I am, answering this question of theirs:
Come with me, reader, to Ras Beirut, to the beginning of Sadat Street...

The echo of sweet, tender melodies will drift to your ears... rising from a building that stands at the corner of the street... A signboard will meet your eye, on which is written "The Ras Beirut Institute of Music and Drawing"... You will surely be drawn along with the melodies toward their source... and you enter... and the melodies rise and mingle... and bright, radiant faces meet you, coming and going, joyful and smiling... from their eyes shines a gleam of happiness and contentment... They are on their way to another world... a world all beauty... and splendor... and radiance!

And the artist Sami Salibi hastens to receive you himself...

You enter with him a hall in which paintings are spread about... oils and watercolors... with elegance and taste...

I said: Tell me about yourself... about your institute... about your projects... about your musical ensembles... about your artistic hopes and wishes... about your revival of the popular heritage...

And the artist spoke... He said:

— I shall take you back twenty-five years, to when I was receiving my schooling at the Brummana school... I was seized in those days by a longing for music that I did not know how to feed, and a thirst for the arts that I did not know how to quench...

One day I came upon some broken musical instruments at school, thrown into one of the neglected, dark rooms, and I could do nothing but set about dusting them off and repairing them... until they were put right and became nearly serviceable... Then I gathered around them, in secret, a band of my schoolmates... and began working to train them and teach them the rudiments of playing... for I had learned something of those rudiments at home, at the hands of a German lady teacher... And then our doings were discovered... But instead of reprimanding me, the headmaster of the school gave me the key to the school's piano and permitted me to practice playing it whenever the opportunity allowed...

No sooner had I graduated from school than I enrolled in other institutes for the teaching of music, and I mastered playing on more than one instrument... I then set about teaching music myself... But I realized that individual work is of no avail... and that our country needs a comprehensive musical and artistic renaissance... So I could do no less than work to found this institute... My task was very difficult... for people here lack artistic and musical awareness, and teachers of the art are wanting among us... But this was not enough to dampen my resolve... for I believed in the mission for which I was working...

The Institute's Aim:

As for the institute's aim, it is not merely artistic so much as it is cultural and social... My purpose in founding this institute was to plant in children the love of the arts and of music from an early age... and then to sow in their souls the spirit of cooperation... that spirit which we lack in our social life in this country, and which the artist needs when he wishes to form with others a musical ensemble or a singing chorus... He thereby learns the life of cooperation and of give and take...

Then, too, those young men who have no concern in life but loitering in the streets, watching indecent films, or frequenting the cabarets and the houses of corruption, frivolity, and idle amusement, find a refuge in this institute... The doors of this institute are open to all — to grown-up and child, to student and employee, to poor and rich; he may come whenever he wishes, and find in it pleasure, solace, and profit...

Often all the members of a family join in taking music lessons at the institute, and once they have mastered the rudiments of playing, they form a single harmonious, concordant ensemble, and come to have a common subject to talk about in their family circles...

Preparatory Classes for Children

Alongside the institute's present branches, in which the student learns to play on the various musical instruments... we shall work to establish preparatory classes for the little ones who have reached the age of three... We gather them at the institute to play on musical instruments made especially for the young; then we teach them a few songs; then we train them in the rudiments of reading the "notes" in an amusing, engaging, elementary manner... All of this serves as a preliminary artistic culture preparing them for the future...

The Lebanese Dabke

Then, in this institute of ours, we take care to revive the Lebanese artistic heritage...

Instead of our young people's boasting and priding themselves on the noisy dances — the "mambo," the "rumba," and the "boogie-woogie"... why do they not try to revive their old traditions and their time-honored artistic heritage of dance and song, which is far more beautiful than the arts of others???

And the first of the Lebanese dances we take care to bring back to life is the popular Lebanese dance known as the "dabke"!...

The Lebanese dabke comes in many varieties... more than fifteen of them...

We try to teach our students each variety by itself... and when we feel they have mastered it, we form a troupe and go on an excursion to the place known for that variety of the dabke... and spend a whole day there... getting to know its villages, its landmarks, and its people... then we dance with them their beloved dance and gather from them something of its history, and whatever of its origins may have escaped us...

The Amateur Ensembles

And besides this... the institute has its "Amateurs' Ensemble"... These ensembles play in the schools, the sanatoriums, and the homes...

In the schools they refine the taste of the students, and we train them to appreciate true music; in the sanatoriums they cheer the sick and the feeble-minded. And in the homes they work to polish the family's taste with the fine, elevated musical pieces they play for them...

A Beautiful... Hour

Beautiful was that hour I spent at the Ras Beirut Institute of Music and Drawing...

And beautiful is this provision I carried away with me from there, gathered from the lips of its head, the artist Salibi...

And more beautiful than all of this were those stumbling notes and confused strokes that reached my ear from moment to moment... from beginners knocking at the beautiful door...

Those strokes and notes and stumbles... had an effect matched in beauty only... by the effect of the loveliest musical piece from the most famous of players...

I knew perfectly well that those small, stumbling fingertips... would come out of the institute... grown... bold... confident...

after the institute had polished the ear... refined the taste... passed a hand of light over the eyes... and cast magic into the fingertips...!