Centennial of Assi al-Rahbani shines light on his cherished musical legacy

Café culture and a musical inheritance

Assi and Mansour said that they inherited two Buzuq instruments from those musicians, whose melodies and songs often filled the café.

It was also a centre for storytelling where the brave men of the village could boast about their heroic deeds, as people listened to them in the dark at night before electric lights had arrived in Lebanon.

Phonograph records were also played of popular Egyptian songs by Sayed Darwish, Abu al-'Ula Muhammad, Umm Kulthum, and Mohammed Abdel Wahab.

But Hanna — a mercurial and authoritative figure — feared the influence it all might be having on his sons. He would often isolate them in an upstairs room, but it overlooked the café, and the pair would spend hours watching and listening to what was going on.

A vantage point and then hard times

The brothers' vantage point was a perfect location for them to observe beautiful women getting out of cars and walking into the café.

The time they spent in that room ignited their imagination — particularly Assi's — and helped them invent stories. They would tell these stories at Mansour's school, which was run by nuns.

Hanna fell on hard times and had to sell up, moving his family to the village of Al-Munaybi' on the slopes of Mount Sannine, near Dhour El Choueir. He started a new small café and the family grew, welcoming Salwa, Nadia, Elias, and Elham.

Their maternal grandmother also lived with them, described as a strongminded and hardy woman. She further ignited the two brothers' passion for the folktales of Mount Lebanon with stories about jinns, porters, lumberjacks, shepherds and guards.

She exposed them to various genres of singing and songs popular among mountain dwellers such as the mawwal, ataba, zajal, and qaradi.

Mansour once said: "We would spend hours in the solitude of that café in Antelias watching the restless movement of the ants. We would also head to Dhour El Choueir, Aintoura, or Al-Munaybi' along with shepherds, lumberjacks, workmen, or porters with their mules.

"We also received one or two years of education at one of the schools in Bikfaya, where one teacher highly admired the essays composed by my brother Assi in Arabic. Our family continued to live like this until our father Hanna sold his café in Al-Munaybi' and returned to Antelias, where he started a small grocery store."

A local choir, a monk, and a radio station

After they went back, the Rahbani brothers were tutored in music by a French monk at a Christian association run for young people at a church in Antelias. They also joined a choir there and performed in plays in local theatres.

Assi and Mansour were also fond of magic, circus tricks, hypnosis, and the amazing deeds of a celebrity of the times, a purported miracle worker called Dr. Dahesh.

But their family finances worsened again. Mansour considered becoming a monk but took a job as a policeman instead in 1943. Assi also joined the police and worked as a violinist at night in the bars of Beirut.

Both the brothers went to work as musicians in the radio industry, including for the Near East Radio Station, which set up a studio in Lebanon when the 1948 Nakba catastrophe forced it to flee Haifa for Cyprus. 

Mount Lebanon dialect

It was a move that would introduce them to the woman who would make their songs famous and change the duo into a trio.

A Palestinian musician called Sabri al-Sharif, who broadcast from Beirut, became a major influence on the Rahbani brothers.

Another, Halim El Roumi, who spent his whole career as a composer at the radio station, became one of the first people to give a singer in its choir – Nouhad Haddad – a pseudonym that was to become very famous: Fairuz. He introduced her to Assi at the radio station.

The Rahbani brothers started composing their own songs in the local dialect of Mount Lebanon. But they refused to perform in the dialect, considering it incompatible with the common taste. But staff at the radio station were keen to get the dialect on the air, including in song.

And so, the brothers brought their sister Salwa to the station, gave her the artistic nickname 'Najwa', and let her perform. But there was soon to be a vacancy for a singer. Salwa quit singing immediately after getting married.

An introduction with big consequences

No one would have guessed that the first meeting between the shy choir singer Fairuz and the violinist Assi al-Rahbani would lead to their marriage in 1951 and to the creation of one of the most famous artistic phenomena to conquer the hearts and minds of both the Lebanese and Arab publics over the entire second half of the 20th century. 

The conditions for their great success were in place. Radio broadcasting was expanding just as Fairuz and the al-Rahbani brothers launched their songs. Vinyl records and, later, cassette tapes would also help their work spread around the Arab world.

It was also a time of political and social upheaval, which led to greater social interaction between men and women, as well as more individualism, patterns which chimed with the songs. In tune with the spirit of the age, their popularity grew.

Where more traditional songs were long and usually about one form or another of love, the Rahbani brothers took a new approach.

Mansour explained: "We embarked on our artistic journey by clearing our minds of any previous music or lyrics. We opted for literally starting from ground zero and had to search and fuse various musical genres together to innovate and find a new kind of song."

It was a recipe for success. 

Their music combines elements taken from Lebanese folklore, popular songs, ecclesiastical hymns, and European music, a blend of influences that was topped off with Arabic lyrics in colloquial Lebanese.

And they had all the technical capabilities of the Near East Radio Station at their disposal. Sabri al-Sharif brought musicians, including foreigners, into its band from all over Beirut, adding to the character of the brothers' music.

Songs that seemed rooted in Lebanese folklore actually owe much to this cosmopolitan blend of influence. "El Bint El Chalabiyah (The Beautiful Girl)" and "Ya Mayela 'al Ghusun (You Heading to the Trees)" are good examples of this.

These melodies are foreign in origin, and both are under 10 minutes long, typical of how the brothers were innovative, with lyrics in spoken Lebanese Arabic giving the songs a unique flavour.

The results attracted some criticism, and even opposition. The Arab Academy of Damascus considered that the songs "distorted the purity of the Arabic language and public taste."

'Refined pastoralism' and nostalgia for the countryside

Fairuz's unique voice – so soothing and serene ­– also inspired the al-Rahbani brothers to compose songs that channeled the beauty, culture, and heritage of the Lebanese countryside.

The singing styles of both the mountainous regions of Lebanon and its coastal areas are essentially based on improvised witty lyrics, such as the Zajal, al-Mu'anna, Mawwal, Mejana, Ataba, and folktales.

The brothers gave this artistic legacy a new musical and poetic touch influenced by their modern education.

This style could be be termed as 'refined pastoralism'. Through their songs and melodies, the brothers depicted beautiful images of the Lebanese countryside that stirred nostalgia.

Nothing like the brothers' songs had been heard in the Arab world before.

They presented a romantic view of the world, filled with passion and nostalgia that provided the raw material for all their lyrical, theatrical, and folkloric impact.

One can say with certainty that the sentiments of the Lebanese who left the countryside to live in cities, and their yearning for their lost pastoral paradise, were a key source of inspiration for the songs composed by the two brothers and performed by Fairuz.

A voice for the ages and a golden era

And then, her voice.

Fairuz sounds somewhat like an echo rather than a human voice, which was particularly compatible with the nature of lyrics and melodies of the songs and musical plays composed by the brothers.

The sheer compatibility of these artists, and the way their energy fused together, produced a vast body of diverse work.

It covered songs, plays and concerts broadcast extensively and performed at live events, including the famed Baalbeck International Festival, Cedars International Festival, and Damascus International Fair, as well as in Beirut's Piccadilly Theater.

It was golden era and it lasted throughout the third quarter of the 20th century, with live performances that reached most Arab capitals and extended to several European and American cities.

None of it would have worked so well without the brothers' famed singer, to whom we now turn.

Fairuz – a life in music

Offstage, this legendary performer's name was Nouhad Haddad. She was born in 1935.  That much is clear. Her family background and the early part of her life story is not.

Her father, Wadie' Haddad, was a Christian who sought refuge in Lebanon. Some reports say he came from a Palestinian village neat Nazareth, while others trace him back to Aleppo or Hauran in Syria, and even Armenia.  

Whatever the particulars, Lebanon was seen as a safe haven — a reputation shaped by the writings of the Christian immigrant Michel Chiha, who fled there and went on to help write the country's modern constitution.

Wadie' married Liza al-Bustani, a Lebanese Maronite Christian from the village of Dibbiyeh in the southern part of Mount Lebanon. It is not known where the couple lived when Nouhad was born, but her family still owns an old and decaying house in the village, reminiscent of the bygone days of Lebanon's countryside, and its decline.

Nouhad's childhood was spent in a modest room in a traditional Lebanese house in Beirut's Zuqaq al-Blat neighbourhood. She received her education at a public school for girls and became a member of its choir which was formed by Beirut musician Muhammad Fulayfil.

He introduced her to the choir of Lebanon's radio station in the late 1940s, where she was to meet Assi al-Rahbani and go on to become Fairuz.

Nouhad's father was a modest labourer at a printing establishment and lived in the same house until his death in 1975, just before Lebanon's civil war.

He filled his lonely home with magazines and publications covering the success of his daughter. They may have provided him with some solace and occupied his time during his old age, alleviating his solitude and boosting his complex feelings toward Nouhad.

The unprecedented popularity she achieved as Fairuz left him proud and fascinated. But her fame alienated father and daughter and removed her from the working-class culture and community he belonged to.

Even now, calls to turn that family home into a museum to celebrate Fairuz as "Lebanon's Ambassador to the Stars" have never been implemented.

Read more: Celebrating Fairuz, Lebanon's ambassador to the stars

And so the property remains in a state of decay and its gloominess, solitude, and desolation bear no resemblance to the intended glory and nostalgia so long intended for it.

Bittersweet daydreams

The combination of Fairuz's unique voice and the Rahbani brothers' blend of traditional and yet modernised music and lyrics create the impression of a bittersweet daydream.

They marry bitterness, yearning and nostalgia for a lost golden age, as well as evoke a sense that simple pastoral life was always doomed, a fate shared by the rest of time and life:

Beyond the deep-water stream, there stands a tree,

Upon its old trunk an image of mine had been carved,

O tree of days, love has distanced us and dispersed

Our leaves, now I have become leafless, like thee.

O tree that waits alone amid the blowing wind,

Likewise, I became a lonely tree standing at a crossroad.

It is a depiction of the retreating Lebanese countryside. The brothers capture the serenity of that world seeking to preserve it from the constant shifts and conflict so common in human relations.

Fairuz casts their words into a magical spell through her lunar voice, adding to the effect. While she can carry large crowds, she also entrances individuals.

Musical plays directed by the brothers tended to be set in traditional Lebanese village squares, with events related to rural affairs. Such works include Ayyam al-Hasad (Days of Harvest) in 1957, Mawsim al-'Izz (The Season of Chivalry) in 1960" and Al-Ba'albakiyah (The Girl from Baalbeck) from 1961.

At the start of her performance in Beya el-Khawatim which became a film, Fairuz says: "This is the story of a village. However, the village doesn't exist and the story isn't true. Anyway, someone, out of boredom, wrote a couple of lines on a paper, and there it was: we have a story and a village."

The fictitious village was inspired by Lebanon's public consciousness, as well as its folkloric tales and proverbs.

The combination of all this, and the popularity of the songs, films and plays, helped enhance Lebanon's reputation, turning it into a tourist attraction drawing people in from across the Arab world and earning it a nickname – the "Switzerland of the East."

The beginning of the end

Starting in 1957 and lasting throughout the 1960s, the musical plays of the two brothers were held against the backdrop of the majestic Roman ruins of Baalbeck during the town's yearly international festival, enchanting huge Arab audiences who flocked to attend these events.

The clear nights and the bright moon of August added to their magic. In the Festival's edition of 1961, Fairuz sang the following verses in the Al-Ba'albakiyah (The Girl from Baalbeck) musical play:

O Baalbeck, I am but a drop inside your lantern's oil,

I am but a candle that is lighting your stairways

I am but a rose that sprung on your fence,

O Baalbeck, filled with beating hearts and joyful songs,

We will remain inside your abode,

Where else should we go?

We will remain inside your abode,

In sorrow and in joy, we will remain here,

By your abode we plant a tree and sing a song,

And tell the world about your divinely-inspired story.

Back then, the Lebanese people were filled with optimism as their country was witnessing a flourishing renaissance and the promise of a bright future.

Optimism permeating Lebanon during the term of the reformist President Fouad Chehab between 1958 and 1964. The Rahbani brothers played a leading role in capturing and spreading that optimism through their music well into the 1960s.

Along with the ethereal voice of Fairuz, the artists wove melancholy and solace together and burnished the cultural image of Lebanon.

International optimism

The effect spread.

Fairuz's singing, popular throughout the Arab world, was particularly inspirational in neighbouring Syria.

From the 1960s until the mid-1970s, the Damascus International Fair would host the musical plays of the two brothers, to the enthusiastic delight shown by the Syrians attending these performances or listening to them through the radio or cassette tapes.

The Palestinian intelligentsia across the region were enchanted by the daydreamy songs of Fairuz and their promise of a trouble-free simpler world, away from the agonies and pains of real life.

But in 1967, the period of hope was badly shaken. The entire Arab world felt the effects of the terrible defeat inflicted on three of its countries by Israel in the Six-Day war.

In response, the work of Fairuz and the Rahbani brothers took a darker turn.

The performance of two famous songs – Ancient Jerusalem and The Bells of Return –  were filmed on camera, showing the choir of the Lebanese Popular Band dressed in black amid cedar trees in El Makmel Mountain.

The brothers and Fairuz would go on to release several songs about the Palestinian cause.

Prophecy for Lebanon's ominous future

In 1969, Fairuz played the role of Ghurbah (Estrangement) in the musical play Jibal Al Sawwan (The Sawwan Mountains). Her voice was filled with anger typical of the ancient folkloric epics.

Some interpreted her gloomy role as a prophecy by the two brothers of an ominous future for Lebanon. Its bloody civil war was to start in 1975.

Before it arrived, Assi al-Rahbani, the spiritual father of the distinguished artistic trio, suffered a stroke in September 1972. Risky surgery saved his life but left him brain dead. He was to remain in a vegegtative state until his death in June 1986.

Assi's plight led to the end of the bond between the artists, who reshaped Arab and Lebanese culture over several decades in a long career acclaimed throughout the world. During his long sickness, his wife Fairuz left the al-Rahbani family.

There were other setbacks. A renowned cast member, Nasri Shamseddine — who performed the role of village dignitaries in the plays — died of a heart attack just before taking the stage in Damascus.

Philemon Wehbe — a well-known sarcastic joker in the plays and a composer of several Fairuz songs — died in the civil war.  Sabri Al-Sharif, who helped revive Lebanese folklore via his role in radio,  became disabled due to a chronic disease, then died.

However, it was not quite the end for Fairuz and Mansour's collaboration.

In the summer of 1995, Fairuz gave one concert at Beirut's destroyed Martyrs Square to mark the end of the civil war and the start of the reconstruction project of Lebanon. This was the first performance in her homeland following years of war. 

In 1998, both Fairuz and Mansour al-Rahbani recreated some scenes from an old musical play during the partially revived Baalbeck International Festival.

The scenes reflected a nostalgia for the good old days of Baalbeck in the 1960s — a decade of hope and optimism that the artists captured and took to the world.