Sound of the Souk
Matthew Teller goes to Aleppo to meet the Frenchman who is reviving centuriesold Islamic music IN THE NORTHWESTERN corner of Syria lies Aleppo – the most northerly metropolis in the Arab world. The place has an air of selfpossession unique to cities that have come to terms with themselves over many centuries, or, in this case, millennia. [...]
Matthew Teller goes to Aleppo to meet the Frenchman who is reviving centuriesold Islamic music
IN THE NORTHWESTERN corner of Syria lies Aleppo – the most northerly metropolis in the Arab world. The place has an air of selfpossession
unique to cities that have come to terms with themselves over many centuries, or, in this case, millennia. Aleppo’s name in Arabic,
Halab, derives from haleeb, the word for milk: 4,000 years ago, Abraham reputedly stopped here with his cow.
And it’s Aleppo’s old quarter, ranged around the conical citadel, that remains the most mysterious and contemplative. These ancient, maze-like souks are the
largest in the world, covering an area of more than 120,000 square metres. You can find anything here, including some quite incredible music.
At the end of a stone-flagged passageway, behind a large wooden door, lies a courtyard, shaded by fragrant lemon
trees. Here sits Julien Jalal Eddine Weiss, one of the world’s greatest interpreters of Arabic classical music.
His house is a 14th-century Mamluke palace. At its heart rises a breathtaking space floored in patterned marble and
reaching up past a gallery to a lantern-lit dome. Pink velour floor cushions line Weiss’s music room, which is crammed
with dozens of musical instruments. Dressed in a black, high-waisted bolero jacket and narrow black trousers, Weiss
pours tea from an ornate silver teapot.
He adores his home. “It’s incredible,” he says. “You can’t find anything modern with the same quality at
all. Everything is concrete: it will all disappear after 50 years. But this house is amazing; it has a philosophy of
architecture.”
alt="Aleppo in north Syria has some of the largest souks in the world">
After tea he moves to his qanún, an Arabian zither, which looks a bit like a small, horizontal harp. Fitting a
plectrum onto each index finger, he begins to play. The sound is bewitching – high and brittle, lacking the richness
of a harp, but with minute tonal variations that lend a profound emotional depth. Weiss plays in an unmistakably
Arab style, yet there are shades of Baroque and even, at one stage, jazz – bluesy harmonics impassively woven into
the mix. It is extraordinarily beautiful, filling the old house with warmth.
Born in Paris in 1953, to French-Swiss parents, Bernard Weiss has been known as Julien since his teenage years.
He trained as a classical guitarist but he admits he never wanted to be a traditional musician. In 1976, a recording by
the legendary Iraqi oud (lute) player Munir Bashir inspired him to take up the qanún.
alt="Julien Jalal Eddine Weiss is a master of the harp-like qanún. He originally trained as a classical guitarist before converting to Islam">
He studied in Egypt and Lebanon, founded his own group, the Al-Kindi Ensemble – an umbrella title for a fluid
mix of musicians and vocalists – and converted to Islam, taking the name Jalal Eddine in honour of the 13th-century
Sufimystic Jalal ad-Din Rumi.
For 20 years Weiss has performed around the world, at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Barbican and Southbank in London, the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris and at concerts
and festivals from Hong Kong to Mexico City – always under the Al-Kindi name, and always with some of the Arab world’s finest performers. The critic Sami Asmar, writing in
Al-Jadid magazine, has called Al-Kindi “one of the leading ensembles devoted to classical Arab music.”
One evening Weiss takes me to the zawiya, or Sufilodge, of Sheikh Ahmed Habboush, an acclaimed Aleppan singer
and Al-Kindi stalwart. We are greeted enthusiastically, and I recognise several faces from the covers of Weiss’s CDs.
alt="Weiss’s home is filled with knick-knacks, including Morroccan drapes, an Uzbek tapestry and antique lamps">
After half an hour, 50 or so men pack the room, swaying rhythmically to a zikr – the chanting of the
name of God – fed through an echo machine to create a heady wall of sound. Percussionists clash tiny
cymbals, drummers keep a pounding beat and soloists perform vocal pyrotechnics as devotees splash
perfume on their skin, filling the air with heady fragrance. Every sense is stimulated to bring each
individual closer to God. Then the lights go off, the beat quickens and we stand, a mass of bodies chanting, shouting, swaying
together in the dark.
Suddenly it is all over. The lights flick on, men rub their eyes, shake each other’s hands and leave. For me it was
intensely spiritual. Yet, when we discuss the evening, Weiss enthuses about the technical ability of the performers. For
him, the experience was musical. “I am interested in the mystical aspect of music,” he tells me. “In the Middle East this comes from religion. I feel the music.”
Six months later I visit Weiss at his modest apartment in the Galata district of Istanbul. He has kept his palace
in Aleppo, and returns there frequently, but has already embarked on a new venture, bringing together musicians
from Turkey, Azerbaijan and Syria to perform Ottoman court music in a style not heard since the 17th century.
“I love Syria so much,” he tells me. “It’s an amazing country, but I had to move to renew my research.”
He plays for me on a new qanún, handmade to his own specifications by an artisan in Izmir.
“Music is a personal form of meditation. Every day I practise for six or eight hours; it’s a discipline.
I try to find the old, authentic and mystical colours of the tradition, to show Western people the richness of
Arab-Islamic culture.”
Weiss’s concerts remain the talk of the Aleppo souk. And if, as you wander near the Bab Qinisreen, you catch the sound of ethereal music drifting
from a gloomy alley, you’ll have found him.
Music
Live music is hard to track down in Aleppo. Check the Syria Times newspaper, which may list forthcoming events, as well as
the website of the Ministry of Culture (www.moc.gov.sy). Often, the best way to find out what’s on is to ask around:
shopkeepers, café customers and taxi drivers are generally only too happy to chat about what might be happening.
Aleppo’s premier concert venue is a hall at the Directorate of Culture, near the Sheraton Hotel (+963 21 225 7999). Evenings of Arabic classical music are also
occasionally staged within the medieval Bimaristan Argouneh complex, in the heart of the souk.
Elsewhere, the major venue for concerts of all kinds – classical, jazz or traditional – is the sparkling new
National Opera House, part of the Dar al-Assad cultural centre, off Beirut Street in Damascus (+963 11 245 7422,
www.opera.sy).
