Kurdish music (Sorani Kurdish: میوزیکی کوردی) refers to music performed in the Kurdish languages and Zaza-Gorani languages.[1][2] The earliest study of Kurdish music was initiated by the renowned Armenian priest and composerKomitas in 1903,[3] when he published his work "Chansons kurdes transcrites par le pere Komitas" which consisted of twelve Kurdish melodies which he had collected.[4] The Armenian Karapetê Xaço also preserved many traditional Kurdish melodies throughout the 20th century by recording and performing them.[5] In 1909, Scholar Isya Joseph published the work "Yezidi works" in which he documented the musical practice of the Yazidis including the role of the musician-like qewal figures and the instruments used by the minority.[6]
Kurdish music appeared in phonographs in the late 1920s, when music companies in Baghdad began recording songs performed by Kurdish artists.[7]
Traditional Kurdish music is culturally distinct from Arabic, Armenian and Turkish music,[12] and mostly composed by people who remained anonymous.[13] Thematically, the music were of melancholic and elegiac character, but has since then incorporated more upbeat and joyous melodies.[14]
Moreover, there are religious-themed songs (lawje)[16] seasonal musical topics, for example "payizok" that are songs about the return to the summer pastures performed in autumn.[17] Kurdish improvisations are called teqsîm.[18]
Prohibition
In Iraq, tolerance for Kurdish music ceased with the Saddam regime (1979–2003) which put in place restrictions against Kurdish culture.[19] Between 1982 and 1991 the performance and recording of songs in Kurdish was also banned in Turkey.[8]
^Robert F. Reigle (2013). "A brief history of Kurdish music recordings in Turkey". Hellenic Journal of Music Education, and Culture. 4 (2). ISSN1792-2518.
^Eliot Bates (2016). Digital Tradition: Arrangement and Labor in Istanbul's Recording Studio Culture. p. 289. ISBN9780190215767.
^Wendelmoet Hamelink (2016). The Sung Home. Narrative, Morality, and the Kurdish Nation. p. 164.
^Abdul Mabud Khan (2001). Encyclopaedia of the world Muslims: tribes, castes and communities, 2. University of Michigan: Abdul Mabud Khan. p. 799. ISBN8187746084.
^Lokman I. Meho, Kelly L. Maglaughlin (2001). Kurdish Culture and Society: An Annotated Bibliography. p. 218. ISBN9780313315435.
^B. Schott's Söhne (1979). Monde de la Musique, 21 (in French). p. 20.
^Sebastian Maisel (2018). The Kurds: An Encyclopedia of Life, Culture, and Society. p. 205. ISBN9781440842573.
^Philip G. Kreyenbroek (2010). Oral Literature of Iranian Languages: Kurdish, Pashto, Balochi, Ossetic, Persian and Tajik. ISBN9780857732651.
^Fabian Richter. Identität, Ethnizität und Nationalismus in Kurdistan (in German and English). p. 328.
^Anthony Gorman, Andrew Newman. Jamie, Sokes (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East. p. 393.
Further reading
Skalla, Eva and Jemima Amiri. "Songs of the Stateless". In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 378–384. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN1-85828-636-0
Dr. D. Christensen, Tanzlieder der Hakkari-Kurden, Eine material-kritisch Studie, in Jahrbuch für musikalische Volks-und Völker-Künde, Berlin i, pp. 11–47, 1963.
Edith Gerson-Kiwi, The Music of Kurdistan Jews. A synopsis of their musical styles, in Yuval, Studies of the Jewish Music Research Centre, ii, Jerusalem 1971.
Vartabed Comitas, Quelques spécimens des mélodies kurdes, in Recueil d'Emine, Moscow 1904, and re-edited in Erivan in 1959.
Hassanpour, A. "BAYT". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 2016-04-11. , "BAYT , a genre of Kurdish folk art, an orally transmitted story which is either entirely sung or is a combination of sung verse and spoken prose."
External links
Kolāhpizah, Mahmud. "Bayt Mahmud Kolāhpizah". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 2016-04-11. (Kurdish music sample)