EIF: Sounds of Ihsane

The Hub, 14th August

 Jasser Haj Youssef, composer and viola d’amore, Nizar Rohana, oud, Gabriele Miracle Bragintini, percussion.

Composer and Viola d’amore player, Jasser Haj Youssef, was joined by Palestinian oud player Nizar Rohana and Italian percussionist Gabriele Miracle Bragintini.  Fadia Tomb El-Hage and Mohammed El Arabi Serghini provided vocals. Together they explored the music created for the dance production Ihsane, also performed at the Edinburgh Festival. In a brief introduction Jasser explained that his music for the dance drew on North African, Ottoman, Italian and French themes.

The choreographer of Ihsane, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, pays tribute to the homophobic murder of a young Moroccan man, Ihsane Jarfi, by exploring father-son relationships within “cycles of violence and persecution, calling for connection despite unimaginable grief”. Jasser Haj Youssef’s music needed to find ways for his musicians to convey these extreme emotional swings. He is one of the few specialists in the viola d'amore used by Bach and Vivaldi but later abandoned. The instrument has sympathetic strings, which are not played directly but vibrate in response to the primary strings, thus enriching harmonic complexity. As the sympathetic strings are tuned to the notes of the mode being played, the instrument is particularly suited to Arabic music.

This became evident from the outset with the viola d’amore creating an other- worldly whisper which was then echoed and strengthened by the synthesiser. Fadia Tomb El-Hage recited lines of text above this background before developing a song full of plaintive longing. The music picked up the pace when Mohammed El Arabi Serghini added another layer of complexity, so the vocals became a lament. Gabriele Miracle Bragintini created a complex rhythm on drums. The music eventually died away to the same whispering quality as the start.

With ears trained on western modes, I found it difficult to understand the intention of the composer and the musicians without a translation or even just a brief description of the pieces being played. It was sometimes hard to tell when one piece ended and another began. I felt that even some interpretation through dance would have enabled me to better understand what was going on.

Then I realised that the best response was to let my imagination flow and develop my own narratives. I could tune into reflective, hypnotic and meditative sections where the melodies rose and fell like breathing. Other sections seemed like a call to prayer or to violence through strident and untuneful playing. The performers responded to each other with deep connection in different combinations of song, viola d’amore and percussion.

Towards the end the music seemed faster and more jolly; the musicians smiled and looked happier. A snatch of lively song seemed to be the start of a narrative and the male singer took up a large tambourine-style drum to add syncopated rhythms. The final pieces were sung in Italian and French with more recognisable harmonic progressions. This was an enjoyable introduction to Jasser’s music and hugely beneficial for anyone planning to attend the Ihsane dance production.

Photo credit: Ryan Buchanan