David Dalle
Thursday October 24th, 2013 with David Dalle
Music from a shattered world - music from Aleppo, Syria

Today's show is bookended by two great singers from Aleppo, one of the oldest cities in the world and until very recently one of the great centres of art, culture, and music in the Arab world. Tragically it has become a site of ruthless fighting in the current civil war. We start with Hassan Haffar, specialist in the classical Wasla from Aleppo from a recording he made in Paris in 1999. He is accompanied by 6 of his students, a cappella with the exception of 2 frame drums. Hassan Haffar was a student himself of the great master Sabri Moudallal who died in 2006. Moudallal was a master in both secular and religious repertoire. We hear him today in a concert recorded in Berlin in 1995 of religious music, also a cappella with the exception of a couple of frame drums.