Alim Qasimov
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| Alim Qasimov | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1957 |
| Origin | Shamakhi, Shamakhi, Azerbaijan |
| Genre(s) | Mugham, Ashiq |
| Occupation(s) | Musician Songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | Singing, Daf |
| Voice type(s) | Tenor |
| Years active | 1977-present |
| Associated acts | Ferghana Qasimova |
Alim Qasimov, born in 1957 in Shamakha, is an Azerbaijani musician and is the foremost Mugham singer in Azerbaijan, Qasimov has recorded nine albums and lately has been featured quite frequently in Azerbaijani newspapers and TV programs. Qasimov and his 21 year old daughter Fargana Qasimova have recorded three albums of Mugham music together. He has performed in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Brazil, Iran and the United States.
Qasimov is known for his work in traditional Azerbaijani music. He is widely appreciated and popular for his renderings of Mugham, which is the most complex musical style in Azerbaijan. It’s the classical music of the Caucasus and of the Turkish-speaking peoples in Central Asia.
The notion of Mugham also applies to the performers: the singer, and the ensemble. Within the latter you’ll always find three instruments; tar (lute), the standing kamanche (violin) and the daf (percussion).
French paper "Le Monde" described Alim Qasimov as a blessed man with a "Magic Voice", and if one would take time and listen to his music and sounds, one can only agree. [1] "Folk Roots Magazine" called Alim Qasimov "one of the 20th century's greatest singers".
Qasimov is attracting many new fans to Mugham. Russian-educated Azerbaijanis and young people in general don't usually care much for the Mugham genre. Many prefer listening to Western pop music, but surprisingly, they have been going to Qasimov's concerts and buying his CD's.
In 1999, Alim Qasimov won the prestigious UNESCO Music Prize, one of the highest international accolades that a musician can hope for. Previous laureates have included Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein, Ravi Shankar and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. [1]
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[edit] Early Humiliation
Alim Qasimov's career as a Mugham singer nearly ended at age 14. He was subject to huge humiliation when, while competing in a local music contest, he started singing in a style he believed to be Mugham. However, due to his inexperience, it was not a Mugham style and the audience responded by laughing at him. Qasimov stepped down from the stage with tears in his eyes. This did not deter Qasimov and he continued to practice and, to benefit of the genre, he did not give up on Mugham.
[edit] Mugham
To Azerbaijani singer Alim Qasimov, this traditional music of Azerbaijan is as he stated; "food for the spirit. Mugham is something sent from God. It was created together with humanity. You can't create it anew."
More specifically, Mugham consists of Azeri, Persian or Arabic poems - mostly love songs - set to improvised music. The lyrics are written down, but not the music. Depending on the specific mode of Mugham being played, the improvisation traverses a designated number of tetrachord sequences, for example, three tetrachords consisting of 2 half-steps and one full-step, or vice versa. The improvisation for one Mugham may continue for 30 minutes to a few hours.
Some people suggest that the word "Mugham" derives from the Arabic word "Maqam", which refers both to an official meeting place where medieval caliphs and other Arabian dignitaries gathered to hear tales and rhyming prose (maqamah), and later music as well.
In the early 20th century, Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov identified seven main Mughams (rast, shur-shahnaz, seygah, bayati-shiraz, humayun, heyrati and chahargah) plus five secondary Mughams.
Each Mugham is said to be connected with a certain feeling or emotion; for example, "seygah" represents grief and "shur-shahnaz" stands for tenderness. According to Qasimov, Mugham is not as simple as that, he stated: "You can't attach strict theory to Mugham. For example, some say that 'chahargah' reveals the spirit of fighting and war. But I say that it reveals the feeling of spiritual elevation instead."
Qasimov maintains that he doesn't have a favorite mugham modal form as he said: "I feel the nature, the character, the smell and the color of each one. For me, each of them is like a human being with its own personality. You have to understand them from within. If you have the capability to see them, you can follow them even to the stars. Maybe this is what enables the spirit to transcend the body. I believe in the spiritual world. I believe it never dies.
"I want to see mugham as a world of spirits. The spirit is incomprehensible, God is incomprehensible. It's not like mathematics, where you have a formula like two plus two is four. That would make it finite. I want to see mugham as something inexhaustible. From this point of view, I don't want to say that 'seygah' expresses grief, or 'shur' expresses tender feelings, and that's it. Mughams express a myriad of complex feelings."
[edit] Ancient Poetry
Qasimov frequently chooses ghazals (poems with an Eastern meter) by classical poets such as Khagani, Fuzuli, Shirvani and Sabir as his lyrics for Mugham. As Qasimov stated: "I used to choose the words that earlier mugham singers performed, but I don't do that anymore. I select the poetry myself now."
However he has one condition for selecting a poem - it has to touch him emotionally: "I read the poem and if it makes my heart tremble, I choose it. Some poems are not accessible for me. I don't get meaning from them."
The interpretation of these poems depends largely upon the listener. For Qasimov, the poetry is about philosophical notions rather than lyrical love: "You can say they deal with love," he says, "but everybody interprets them in his own way. This is very important in mugham; since the music is independent of a strict framework, the poetry should be so, too. At a young age, you might interpret the poems as talking about love for a beautiful woman. The older you grow, the more philosophy you see in them. An older person, for instance, might interpret these poems from a Sufism point of view."
Some of the poems are in Arabic or Persian, which means that he doesn't know the meaning of every single word. Accordingly he can't always identify the exact meaning of the words, but he feels and understand by intuition what they imply, Qasimov stated; "Maybe it's even better that I interpret the poetry myself. The word touches my heart and then 'lights a torch' there."
[edit] Festival of Sacred Music (France)
In 1995, Alim Qasimov met American cult singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley at a small festival in France. Jeff was initially so intimidated by Qasimov's voice that he declared himself too embarrassed to sing, however, whem Qasimov complimented Buckley after his sound-check, he agreed not only to sing, but to duet with Qasimov. The recording of this encounter appears as a bonus track on Buckley's Live at L'Olympia. Buckley later stated, "The second time I saw my life pass before my eyes because of a human being was when I sang with Alim Kasimov." [2] They performed "What Will You Say", a song written by Buckley that uses eastern scales. The two did a duet over Buckley's guitar and Qasimov's percussion. Also, a video of them rehearsing the song before performing it is available on Buckley's official website.
[edit] Concert in Tabriz
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From March 3 - March 15, 2001, Qasimov also had a very successful series of performances in Tabriz, Iran. It was his first visit to this city, which boasts the largest Azerbaijani population in Iranian Azerbaijan. Tabriz is Iran's third largest city, with a population of more than 2 million. For years, people in Tabriz had been begging him to come and give a concert. The only other performance that the Mugham master had ever made in Iran was at a festival in Tehran in 1993.
Originally Qasimov had intended to give five concerts in Tabriz, but interest ran so high that ten concerts were scheduled, two a day. The auditorium was packed each day. Although the auditorium seats 700 people, more than 1,000 people attended each performance. It became nearly impossible to get tickets for these sell-out performances. Concerts were scheduled to last only one hour each, but they usually lasted 1,5 to 2 hours and the final performance was 2,5 hours long.
Reportedly, during his rendition of the Azerbaijani folk song "Sari Galin" (Yellow Bride), the concert organizers had to pass out tissues because so many men and women in the audience were emotionally touched and started crying. Since late 1940s, Azerbaijani music performances were discouraged[citation needed], both during the Pahlavi rule and after the Islamic Revolution in Iran.[citation needed] Only recently has the government begun to allow Azerbaijanis to begin performing publicly. Qasimov's daughter, Fargana, who usually performs with him, did not do so in Iran. Women are not allowed to perform on stage as featured soloists when there are men in the audience.
When he was leaving the concert, fans surrounded the car. One girl pushed her hand through the window, begging for Qasimov to write his autograph on her hand. He obliged, even though it is against Iranian rules for a man to sign a woman's hand.[citation needed]
[edit] Discography
The Art of Mugham: Azerbaidjan (Live) (December 1, 1997) The Mugham of Azerbaidjan (October 1, 1999) Love's Deep Ocean (January 11, 2000) with Ferghana Qasimova The Legendary Art of Mugham (May 27, 2002) with Alim Qasimov Ensemble Spiritual Music of Azerbaijan (February 4, 2008) with Ferghana Qasimova
