The Cairo Congress of Arab Music was one of the first scientific events of international importance dealing with non-Western music. Held at the Institute of Oriental Music in Cairo (IMOC), the congress lasted several weeks. It gathered researchers and musicians from several Western and Eastern countries such as Béla Bartok (Hungary), Curt Sachs (Germany), Alexis Chottin (France), Henry George Farmer (Britain), Mahmud Ahmad al-Ḥifnī (Egypt), Sāmi al-Šawwa (Syria), Wadī‘ Sabrā (Lebanon), and Mehmet Rauf Yekta Bey (Turkey). It was punctuated by numerous musical performances that were recorded thanks to Baron d’Erlanger’s tenacity––the instigator of the event who died without being able to attend. British technicians were even sent to Egypt by the Gramophone company to handle the technical aspects. Though classical traditions remain the main part of the recordings, popular traditions were also taken into account thanks to the insistence of the recording commission.

This is the first comprehensive publication of all 360 recordings made in 1932, with the exception of sixteen sides lost during the transport of the original matrices from Alexandria to Manchester. It is the result of a meticulous research carried out by historian Bernard Moussali more than forty years ago, structured and reformulated by Jean Lambert, ethnomusicologist, and Pascal Cordereix, director of the sound collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. This ambitious project was made possible by the collaboration between Bibliothèque nationale de France (national library of France), Maison des Cultures du Monde (France) and the cultural and tourist authorities of Abu Dhabi. The CD box set offers a remastering of the original 78s divided into eighteen CDs classified by country and by theme. The pieces are identified as precisely as possible with their title, names of the performers, modal and rhythmic forms, lyrics and circumstances of performance.

The 1932 congress was held at the beginning of the Arab nationalist movement that wished to unify Eastern cultures under the banner of modernity. The booklet highlights the fact that in this context, the performances to be recorded were carefully selected: some interpreters were rejected because considered as being too traditional, while others were considered as too modern, such as Umm Kulthum or Syrian-Lebanese style. Enticed by this opening on the debates about modernity, one could regret that the main content of the two volumes of the proceedings of the congress––bringing together the main contributions, the reports of the work of the commissions and the artistic events––are not developed in the booklet.

Paradoxically, though the aim of the congress was to initiate Arab nationalism and to unify a vast geographical area, the listener is rather struck by the unfolding of a varied and heterogeneous musical landscape. The recordings show the fabulous diversity of musical practices in the Arab world at the dawn of independences by a wealth of instrumentarium, musical structures, rhythms, melodic scales, timbres, ornamentation and languages (Persian, Turkish, Greek, Coptic, Hebrew, Sudanese, and Arabic).

The commission’s selection carried out three types of recordings. The first were envisaged as IMOC working documents. As the congress was hosted in Egypt, the Egyptian repertoire was put forward, especially its classical forms. IMOC had seized the opportunity of the congress to enhance a legitimate repertoire while establishing theoretical positions, for example concerning the position of degrees in the melodic scales (booklet:21–30). These recordings of muwaššaḥāt and dawr, constituting the first part of the CD box set, are maybe the least interesting part, showing a singer’s lack of technique, reduced and repetitive instrumentarium, no improvisation and succession of verses sung without variation. They reflect the quarrel over “true interpretations” that arose in 1920, in which the supporters of the largely ornamented, heterophonic tradition, who prioritised improvisation, faced off against the modernist musicians, who wished to guarantee the authenticity and legality of the works by means of a written transcription (ibid.:28). The other two types of recordings are undoubtedly a treasure trove: some are due to unexpected historical circumstances such as Faiyum’s songs of allegiance performed following political uprisings in the country. Others were selected by musicologists for their documentary, modal, rhythmic and/or aesthetic interest. This is the case of the recordings from Iraq, of Cairo popular music, of Laythi dhikr, ’āyīn mawlawī, Coptic songs, of Syrian qânûn and Turkish tanbûr, as well as of Tunisian, Moroccan, and Algerian pieces.

Some ritual recordings are historically exceptional: for the first time, the Badawiyya Laythiyya brotherhood allowed its ḏikr to be recorded, and the Cairo Mawlawiyya performed its samā‘. Moussawi also considers the recording of rural Sudanese zār, performed by women, to be a masterstroke demonstrating an aesthetic far superior to that of urbanised zār. The set also includes a recording of a procession to Mecca that carried the maḥmal (ceremonial palanquin), which had disappeared eight years before the congress. Finally, the boxed set contains the first coherent attempt to record the Coptic liturgy, performed by an excellent interpreter. I was also struck by Mesut Cemil Bey’s sensitive zeybek, performed in a much faster tempo than it is played in today.

The booklet contains numerous photographs that are not only illustrations but above all working documents entering in a dialogue with the written text. They make it possible to document the presence or absence of certain musicians, or instruments such as the ‘ûd ramal, which had perhaps already disappeared from Moroccan Andalusian practice at the time.

Several years after its publication, this remarkable publication of early recordings still deserves our full attention. Not only does the sound restoration work makes the box set very pleasant to listen to, but the research work published in the impressive booklet makes it possible to appreciate both its content as well as its indubitable historical value.