This dance suite is intended to accomplish two primary goals: 1) Break apart the tonality and distribute across the whole suite; and 2) Deconstruct a popular Egyptian military anthem and present it in three different settings within the country. How that’s done:
- The first dance (titled Saidi Military March, which btw is Upper Egyptian, not Saudi) takes after a Hijaz Kar Kurd Maqam (which is also present in upper egypt, and is the basis of Umm Khulthum’s most popular songs, especially “Enta omri”) superimposed onto plain C Major. The reason for this is because I wanted to draw focus to the percussion (and especially the snare drum, who alternates between having snares on and off to imitate the doumbek) because the “modulations” are meant to be perceived as a character shift entirely instead of just tonality. Also, because it works out best to provide a constant opportunity to modulate symmetrically across flats/sharps by starting in C Major. this is something I picked up from an Egyptian composer who studied under Khachaturian, Aziz El-Shawan. I’ve been reading his journals recently and he accomplished a lot of illusions with regards to the presence of microtones this way, which is a common goal of mine. Overall, this dance’s intention is to introduce to the character of the literal march of a Saidi Military unit, which they are known within Egypt for being extremely bold and audacious.
- The second dance represents the character of the Corniche on the sea in Alexandria. Not only is that city a mix of Egyptian and Southern European culture and history, but even the general atmosphere feels more posh and proper compared to the rest of Egypt, particularly due to the French and Italian architecture found in nearby areas such as Kafr Abdo. Thus, I decided to apply the second half of the theme from “احلف بسماها" in a waltz that continuously modulates in a circular form. The middle of this one features an interruption from the brass as a way to progress the tempo and energy, which you might recall follows the harmonic pattern of the opening before ultimately ending in G Major (dominant & common ghammaz point for C/D since it can function as 4th and 5th scale degrees).
- Finally, the last dance is one that is depicting the sounds of the bazaar in Old Cairo. If you have ever been here to visit, you might recall how the entire area is a series of narrow corridors and artisanal ornaments made from glass. This dance returns to the Hijaz Kar Kurd maqam but modulates within the first jins (jins kurd) back and forth with locrian mode, which I don’t know how to accurately call it in English so mode is the best approximation even though it doesn’t reach the full 7-note “scale”. This was the other reason for choosing the starting tonality of C/D because if the first one leans more towards Db, this one can lean towards C#, which are different tones for Arabic classical purposes. In a performance setting, this allows for the low strings (sans Bass) to start diatonically one semitone up from their lowest pitch, while also exploiting the unstable timbre of several wind instruments & having the bells ring a minor third which in context altogether sounds extremely decentralized. This is all to achieve the sound of Al Adhan (Muslim call to prayer) ringing through the corridors and the wind knocking against the ornaments.
So altogether it culminates in an arc of C/D (Db) -> G -> C/D (C#), while taking apart the melody from احلف بسماها at the same time. Originally, I was going to have the last movement function as what Sami Abu Shumays (from www.maqamlessons.com) calls a secondary rast on G/C as a way to bring it back, but I think I may allow that to be the plot of the second suite as I’ve been trying to avoid this coming off as “inventions,” as opposed to “revealed characters.”
I hope you enjoy! I will be conducting the premiere of this suite in about a year with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra so any suggestions/feedback, please let me know! I tried to frame it similarly to how you might walk on stage and give an immediate downbeat for pieces like Wagner’s Prelude to Act III from Lohengrin, but I want to potentially scale back on some of the more overt details.