faouzi Abdennour & son Orchestre

The "malouf" is the form borrowed from the Arab-Andalusian musical tradition in Constantine, Algeria.
This word means in Arabic, "true to tradition". Loyalty to the musical heritage that has been enriched in Andalusia, from the 8th to the 15th centuries, in royal courts, intellectual cenacles and gardens of delights, in Granada, Cordoba, Seville, mixing Muslims and Jews, in the celebration of Courteous love and impetus to God. With the expulsion from Spain, in 1492, Muslims and Jews, closed a page, whose echoes however continue in Iberia today.

A new page has opened in North Africa and throughout the Arab-Muslim area, from the ocean to the borders of Persia. Living music, even if its scholarly modes and, above all, its oral transmission subjected it to many vicissitudes. Thus, of the twenty-four original "noubat", as many suites corresponding to the hours of the day, Algeria could only keep twelve.

[...] Close your eyes, let your heart vibrate with each measurement of the lute and the zither, tune the tambourine, rise under the bow of the viola, flinch at the call of the flute Bedouin (so specific to Constantine).

Soon you will know what the Arabs call the "tarab", that ecstasy that frees the soul out of the prison of the body. [...] »